US President Donald Trump has suggested that Rudy Giuliani, the aggressive new face of his legal team, needed to "get his facts straight" about hush money paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election.
Trump chided Giuliani even as he insisted that "we're not changing any stories" about the $US130,000 settlement, which was paid to Daniels to keep her quiet about her allegations of an affair with Trump.
Trump said that Giuliani was "a great guy but he just started a day ago" and the former mayor of New York City was still "learning the subject matter."
Hours later, Giuliani backed away from his previous suggestion that the October 27 settlement had been made because Trump was in the stretch run of his campaign.
"The payment was made to resolve a personal and false allegation in order to protect the president's family," Giuliani said in a statement.
"It would have been done in any event, whether he was a candidate or not."
Giuliani revealed this week that Trump knew about the payment to Daniels made by his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, and the president paid Cohen back.
Giuliani's suggestion that the president knew anything about the payments appeared to contradict Trump, who has repeatedly denied the affair and told reporters last month that he hadn't known about a settlement with Daniels.
Trump's irritation was plain on Friday when reporters reminded him of his previous denial. He blasted the media for focusing on "crap" stories like the Daniels matter and the special counsel's probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
The president claimed that virtually everything reported about the payments has been wrong but declined to elaborate.
The about-face came amid concern in the White House that Giuliani's comments could leave the president legally vulnerable to fresh questions, including whether the money represented repayment of an undisclosed loan or could be seen as reimbursement for a campaign expenditure.
Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, is seeking to be released from a non-disclosure deal she signed in the days before the 2016 election to keep her from talking about a 2006 sexual encounter she says she had with Trump.
She has also filed defamation suits against Cohen and Trump.
Trump is facing mounting legal threats from the Cohen-Daniels situation and the special counsel's investigation of possible Russian coordination with the Trump presidential campaign.
