President Trump’s chief legal defender denied on Wednesday ever having said that the Trump campaign didn’t collude with Russia.

In an appearance Wednesday night on CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time,” Rudolph W. Giuliani said it’s entirely possible that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia and that he never said otherwise.

“I never said there was no collusion between the campaign [and Russia]. Or between people in the campaign. … I have not,” Mr. Giuliani said to a disbelieving host Chris Cuomo.

“I never said there was no collusion between the campaign or between people in the campaign… I have not. I said the President of the United States,” Pres. Trump’s attorney @RudyGiuliani tells @ChrisCuomo https://t.co/Jy0gttT6Ac pic.twitter.com/JGISmtgrdy — Cuomo Prime Time (@CuomoPrimeTime) January 17, 2019

“There is not a single bit of evidence the president of the United States committed the only crime you could commit here, conspiring with the Russians to hack the [Democratic National Committee],” the former New York City mayor and U.S. attorney said.

Mr. Giuliani also told Mr. Cuomo that Mr. Trump himself had made that identical distinction between himself and the campaign.

“He didn’t say nobody [colluded]. He said he didn’t know. How would you know” everything anybody associated with a campaign might have done, Mr. Giuliani said.

In another exchange, Mr. Cuomo pointed out that when Paul Manafort, who has pleaded guilty to crimes related to his interactions with Kremlin officials, was in charge of the Trump campaign during the Republican nominating convention, the party watered down its platform on supporting Ukraine against Moscow.

Mr. Giuliani replied that Mr. Trump didn’t know that.

“He didn’t know about his own party platform?” an incredulous Mr. Cuomo replied.

“Chris, come on,” Mr. Giuliani said. “You’ve been around politics enough to know. Candidates don’t know a damn thing about the platform. They don’t pay any attention. … They care about their acceptance speech.”

That prompted Mr. Cuomo, the son of former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, to note that “I was raised by a guy who would have corrected the punctuation in the platform.”

Mr. Giuliani’s rebuttal was that might have been Mario Cuomo’s style.

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