Mr Giuliani ha become become increasingly embroiled in the Ukraine scandal surrounding the president: REUTERS

Rudy Giuliani’s claim he had an “insurance policy” in the event Donald Trump turned on him angered the president so much he barred him from appearing on Fox News, it has been claimed.

In an interview with Fox and Friends host Ed Henry last month, Mr Giuliani attempted to shrug off assertions he could used as a scapegoat by the US president as impeachment evidence mounts against him.

"I've seen things written like he's going to throw me under the bus" he said, adding: "When they say that, I say he isn't, but I have insurance."

Now a report in Vanity Fair has claimed Mr Giuliani has been banned from the president’s preferred cable news channel following the claim – one he repeated in a separate interview prompting Mr Giuliani’s lawyer to order his client to apologise to the president and say he was joking.

An insider at Fox News told the magazine Mr Giuliani had declined to take part in interviews in recent days – a stark contrast to previous months when he featured as a regular guest on the network.

Mr Trump is said to have enjoyed his lawyer’s presence on TV, but caved to pressure from advisers to remove him from the airwaves following his assurance he had a backup plan.

“Trump was pissed,” a source told the magazine in regards to Mr Giuliani’s comments. A figure in the Republican Party added that the lawyer had been “cut off from Fox News”.

As impeachment proceedings progressed the president’s personal legal representative had offered a series of increasingly bizarre interviews on the network.

In September, Mr Giuliani admonished a pundit who had quoted his own words back to him, saying: “Shut up moron, shut up. You don’t know what you’re talking about, idiot. You’re just lying… just keep your lying mouth shut.”

Meanwhile in October he told Fox News his personal mission as the president’s lawyer was to “disrupt the world”. A week later he attempted to mimic Democratic presidential candidate Cory Booker while repeating “I’m Spartacus”.

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He has since become increasingly embroiled in the Ukraine scandal that threatens to engulf the president – accused of running a shadow foreign policy operation from the White House despite not being a West Wing employee, and of facilitating a plot to pressure Ukraine into digging up dirt on Mr Trump’s political rival Joe Biden.

Most recently phone records cited in the impeachment report released on 3 December showed Mr Giuliani had called the White House more than a dozen times in the days before America’s ambassador to Ukraine was forced to resign at Mr Trump's request.

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