Trump lawyer in hush money case denounces NBC host for being ‘petty’

Donald Trump’s attorney in the Stormy Daniels hush money case tore up NBC host Chuck Todd during a furious clash Sunday morning over how the former president classified the payment in his personal information.

Joe Tacopina accused Todd of being “petty” and claimed that Trump was unaware of his attorney at the time that Michael Cohen paid Daniels during the 2016 campaign to remain silent about their sexual encounter a decade earlier.

However, in the same interview, Tacopina also distances himself from his client’s repeated attacks on Bragg, claiming he cannot advise the former president on his social media strategy.

“I’m not his social media advisor,” Tacopina said during an interview on the NBC Meet the Press program. “I think that was an ill-advised post one of his social media people made that he quickly deleted when he realized the rhetoric and the flier attached to it.”

Tacopina accused NBC host Chuck Todd of being “petty” by asking why Trump’s personal ledger didn’t detail what Cohen’s legal costs were at the time

Todd questioned whether Tacopina would advise a client to personally attack an accuser, specifically referring to a post Trump posted of him holding a baseball bat next to an image of Bragg.

Trump has stepped up his inflammatory rhetoric against Bragg and the prosecutors investigating him.

Bragg is specifically investigating how the payments were documented in the books of the Trump Organization, a topic that led to a disagreement between Tacopina and Todd on Sunday.

Todd wondering why Trump didn’t “tell the truth,” his personal ledger is that the “legal fees” he paid to Cohen at the time were actually compensation for paying a hush money settlement to Daniel.

This set off Tacopina, who began representing former President Trump earlier this year.

“But what should he put in his personal ledger?” Tacopina wondered. “Seriously, what would he put in his personal ledger? “Uh, hush money payment for, uh, quiet, uh, an affair I claim I never had so my family won’t be embarrassed.” Is that what he should put in his ledger? There’s nothing wrong with…”

“What about the truth?” Todd intervenes. “You keep saying, what should be in the ledger? Would it be the truth?’

“Chuck, could you ever put a four-paragraph sentence in a ledger?” joked the lawyer.

“You’re a little narrow-minded looking at this now because there’s no reporting requirement,” Tacopina added. “You can put whatever you want in your personal ledger.”

Trump claimed last weekend that he expected to be arrested Tuesday in connection with Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s case involving the 2016 payments.

Trump’s lawyer claims his client denies allegations of a sexual relationship with Stormy Daniels — he has also called the $130,000 hush money an “inconvenient payment” that rich or famous people sometimes use to make a distracting situation go away

House Republicans insist Bragg is overstepping his jurisdiction as a Manhattan DA — saying he should keep his focus on prosecuting crime in New York City rather than pursuing “politically motivated” cases.

However, the grand jury did not convene this week and no charges were filed, despite several reports claiming action was imminent.

Trump’s counsel claims he was unaware Cohen was making the payment, though the ex-president’s former attorney says he was instructed to give the money to Daniels in exchange for her silence on the affair.

Cohen is a star witness in Bragg’s case, even though sources tell the DailyMail.com that he is having trouble convincing the grand jury to press charges.

Tacopina explained that the payment Trump made to Cohen was not improper on the part of the former president.

“It was legal fees billed by Michael Cohen, who initially handled this himself, with his own money,” he explained to Todd. “Literally took out a loan, fixed it without the president knowing, came back and then billed four times the amount paid off over the course of a year.”