"Truth Isn't Truth"

In  Defying the Odds, we discuss Russian involvement in the 2016 campaign

From Meet the Press, August 19:

CHUCK TODD: What, what, I mean, I mean let’s talk with collusion, I mean the Trump tower meeting itself is at least evidence of you better investigate --
RUDY GIULIANI: (laughs) (OVERTALK)
CHUCK TODD: It’s, it’s, it’s --
RUDY GIULIANI: It’s not.
CHUCK TODD: -- how is it not?
RUDY GIULIANI: Well, because the meeting was originally for the purpose of getting information about, about Clinton. The meeting turned into a meeting --
CHUCK TODD: Which in itself it’s attempted collusion. I understand --
RUDY GIULIANI: No it’s not.
CHUCK TODD: You just said it. The meeting was intended to get dirt on Hillary Clinton from a criminal lawyer. (OVERTALK)
RUDY GIULIANI: No, it wasn’t. No, no.
CHUCK TODD: That was the intention of the meeting, you just said it.
RUDY GIULIANI: That was the original intention of the meeting. It turned out to be a meeting about another subject and it was not pursued at all. And, of course, any meeting with regard to getting information on your opponent is something any candidate’s staff would take. If someone said, I have information about your opponent, you would take that meeting. If it happens to be a person with a Russian --
CHUCK TODD: From the Russian government?
RUDY GIULIANI: She didn’t represent the Russian government, she’s a private citizen. I don’t even know if they knew she was Russian at the time. All they had was her name.

 Her name is Natalia Veselnitskaya.  Emails prove that Donald Jr. knew that the information came from the Russian government.

RUDY GIULIANI: Yes, each time, by 3 or 4 days, so we could write a letter in response. They have taken 2-3 weeks to get back to us, so what I have to tell you is, look, I am not going to be rushed into having him testify so that he gets trapped into perjury. And when you tell me that, you know, he should testify because he’s going to tell the truth and he shouldn’t worry, well that’s so silly because it’s somebody’s version of the truth. Not the truth. He didn’t have a, a conversation --
CHUCK TODD: Truth is truth. I don’t mean to go like --
RUDY GIULIANI: No, it isn’t truth. Truth isn’t truth. The President of the United States says, “I didn’t -- ”
CHUCK TODD: Truth isn’t truth? Mr. Mayor, do you realize, what, I, I, I--
RUDY GIULIANI: No, no, no--
CHUCK TODD: This is going to become a bad meme.
RUDY GIULIANI: Don’t do, don’t do this to me.
CHUCK TODD: Don’t do truth isn’t truth to me.

My statement was not meant as a pontification on moral theology but one referring to the situation where two people make precisely contradictory statements, the classic “he said,she said” puzzle. Sometimes further inquiry can reveal the truth other times it doesn’t.

— Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) August 20, 2018