Rudy Giuliani said Tuesday that President Donald Trump remains adamant that he will not plead the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination if he sits down for an interview with special counsel Robert Mueller, NBC News reports.

"The president has said that he doesn't want to do that," Giuliani, the commander in chief's lead attorney, told NBC News White House correspondent Kristen Welker.

"We would like to have [Mueller], you know, work out the answers, so that they can be careful answers that are as fruitful as memory allows, and we would want a narrowing of the questions."

He added: "Let's put it in a positive way: The president wants to testify. He's made that very clear. I think lawyers generally have made it clear that he should. And I'm a lawyer so my job is to protect him legally not politically.

"It's hard because I was one of his biggest political advocates and will be in the future. But I've got to keep my mind focused, I'm here to protect him legally."

Mueller is leading the Department of Justice probe about whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. The investigation has led to five indictments of people in Trump's orbit, although the charges are not related to collusion.

Giuliani said that he joined Trump's legal team without a retainer.

"I'm not. I'm not doing it for money … I've been too long a friend of the president to take money from him," the former New York City mayor said.

Asked about reports that Trump is frustrated with his TV appearances Giuliani has made, including one in which he admitted Trump knew about a $130,000 payoff to porn star Stormy Daniels, Giuliani said: "The president is encouraging me to do more of them."

He added: "The president feels that the TV interviews have organized his supporters, and those … who understand the way in which he's been very badly treated in this situation from the very beginning …"

Giuliani noted that he and Trump have been friends for 30 years.

"He's very comfortable with the strategy we're pursuing. He certainly agrees with it," he said. "People around the White House who are talking and leaking certainly don't have the president's best interest at heart. I don't care if they don't have mine, but that's disgraceful."

Meanwhile, Giuliani told The Wall Street Journal that Trump's legal team is targeting May 17 as the deadline to decide whether he will sit down for an interview with the Russia probe investigators.

"Every day we swing a little different" on whether or not to advise Trump to speak with special counsel Robert Mueller, Giuliani said.