Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s attorney, is again playing hardball with special counsel Robert Mueller — and it’s looking even less likely that the president will sit down for an interview with Mueller’s team. 
 
 The New York Times’s Michael Schmidt and Maggie Haberman reported that Giuliani is setting new terms for the interview: Mueller must show evidence that Donald Trump committed a crime and that an interview is necessary, or forget it. Trump’s legal team is also insisting Mueller prove that he exhausted all other avenues and that he has no choice but to interview the president. 
 
 “If they can come to us and show us the basis and that it’s legitimate and that they have uncovered something, we can go from there and assess their objectivity,” Giuliani told the Times. 
 
 The prospect of sitting for an interview with Robert Mueller has gotten increasingly fraught since the president shook up his legal team months ago, bringing on former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Emmet T. Flood, who represented Bill Clinton in his impeachment. Both embarked on a more combative, aggressive approach toward the Russia investigation compared to the more cooperative stance favored by his former attorneys. 
 
 Giuliani has shifted the terms (and deadline) of a Trump-Mueller interview more than once since joining Trump’s legal team. Giuliani had said in May that he was working with the special counsel to narrow the scope of the investigation, and that no decisions would be made until after Trump’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The summit came and went, and the deadline was pushed to July 4. 
 
 The delays on the Mueller interview are part of Team Trump’s attempts to sway public opinion 
 
 As the back-and-forth over the Trump interview continues, Giuliani is waging a PR campaign against Mueller and the investigation that’s been echoed in his boss’s Twitter feed. According to the latest Times report, this seems to be the crux of the strategy — delay until the midterms and damage the investigation’s credibility. (It may also force Mueller to subpoena Trump — which will set off a protracted, likely messy, court battle.) 
 
 Trump’s lawyers have suggested Mueller will abide by Department of Justice guidance that says a sitting president can’t be indicted — which would mean Mueller’s most likely option is a written report, which could make its way to Congress. If such a report is damning against Trump, and if Democrats retake the House of Representatives in the fall, the chance of impeachment increases. But if the public can be convinced, that, as the president says, that the special counsel’s investigation is a total “WITCH HUNT,” lawmakers might be more leery of taking on the president. 
 
 “Nobody is going to consider impeachment if public opinion has concluded this is an unfair investigation, and that’s why public opinion is so important,” Giuliani told the Times. 
 
 Giuliani, Trump, and his allies in Congress have done their best to discredit Mueller. Giuliani played up the debunked “Spygate” conspiracy — that the FBI planted a spy on the Trump campaign — admitting last month that the drama was conjured up “for public opinion.” The House of Representatives is waging war against Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — Mueller’s boss — sanctioning him on the House floor for failing to turn over requested documented about the investigation. 
 
 The war against Mueller has shown some signs of working. A Politico/Morning Consult poll in June put Mueller’s favorability at just 32 percent. More people — 36 percent — had an unfavorable opinion of Mueller than a favorable one. Opinions have dipped sharply among Republicans, too: According to that same poll, 53 percent of Republicans viewed Mueller unfavorably, up from 27 percent in July 2017, according to Politico. 
 
 The Times also pointed to a Washington Post-Schar School poll, published Friday, that put Mueller’s approval rating at just 49 percent among all adults — though it reached 52 percent among registered voters. A total of 45 percent of adults disapproved of Mueller. ||||| CLOSE The former New York Mayor, who recently joined Trump's legal team, directly contradicted the president's claim that he had no knowledge of Michael Cohen's decision to pay Stormy Daniels $130,000. USA TODAY 
 
 President Trump and Rudy Giuliani in 2016 (Photo: Carolyn Kaster, AP) 
 
 WASHINGTON — President Trump's new lawyer is casting renewed doubt on whether Trump will sit down with Special Counsel Robert Mueller about the Russia investigation. 
 
 Attorney and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani said in various interviews on Fox News that the president should not be under oath, in part because of concern that prosecutors may try to lay a perjury trap for the president. 
 
 "What they’re really trying to do is trap him into perjury, and we’re not suckers,” Giuliani said Thursday on the Fox & Friends morning program. 
 
 Giuliani also questioned the need for Trump's testimony, claiming a lack of evidence that Trump had anything to do with Russians who sought to influence the 2016 election with email hacks and fake news. 
 
 “This silly deposition is about a case in which he supposedly colluded with the Russians but there’s no evidence,” Giuliani said. 
 
 The Mueller investigation has yielded indictments of more than a dozen Russians as well as former Trump associates. 
 
 Appearing on Wednesday night with Fox host Sean Hannity, Giuliani said that right now "the odds are he wouldn't be interviewed" by Mueller, but "I don't close my mind to it." 
 
 More: Trump could face more legal trouble after confirming he repaid Michael Cohen, watchdogs say 
 
 More: Can Robert Mueller subpoena Donald Trump? Only the Supreme Court would know for sure 
 
 More: Ty Cobb's departure means Donald Trump's legal team has almost completely turned over 
 
 More: Donald Trump acknowledges Stormy Daniels payment, denies affair or use of campaign money 
 
 The Mueller and Trump teams have been negotiating for more than four months on possible Trump testimony. Mueller has raised the prospect of a presidential subpoena if Trump refuses to testify, but Giuliani says the special counsel lacks the authority to enforce such a subpoena. 
 
 While most of the coverage of Giuliani's recent television interviews concerned a $130,000 Trump payment to former adult actress Stormy Daniels, the president's attorney also had has new things to say about the Mueller investigation and fired FBI Director James Comey. 
 
 When Trump fired Comey last year, he and aides said it was because of the way the former FBI director handled the Hillary Clinton email investigation during the election. Trump later said it had something to do with the Russia investigation. 
 
 On Fox, Giuliani said Trump also fired Comey because he refused to say publicly that Trump was not a target in the Russia investigation. 
 
 The attorney also called for an interview to last only two to three hours, saying that was the limit President Bill Clinton had when he testified in the Ken Starr/Monica Lewinsky case. 
 
 "I would like to get, one, not under oath," Giuliani told Hannity. "I want a videotape, not videotaped, but audiotapes, I want to make sure they don't misrepresent his answers." 
 
 Giuliani's comments reflect a more aggressive attitude by Trump legal team in the wake of a personnel shakeups. 
 
 Private attorney John Dowd left the team in March, and White House attorney Ty Cobb announced this week he will be retiring soon. Both had urged a more conciliatory approach to the special counsel. 
 
 On Fox & Friends, Giuliani said the odds of an interview became longer after the FBI raided the home and office of Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. He also blamed Mueller's office for the public revelation of a list of questions it wants to ask of Trump, though there is no evidence the Special Counsel's office leaked the document. 
 
 "Now, we are going to have some convincing to do," Giuliani said. "They’re going to have to convince us they’re going to be objective and they are not out to get us.” 
 
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– The White House is changing its posture in the ongoing saga of the Mueller probe. Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani tells the New York Times that the president will sit for an interview with Robert Mueller only if the special counsel can show evidence that Trump committed a crime. "If they can come to us and show us the basis and that it’s legitimate and that they have uncovered something, we can go from there," Giuliani said, acknowledging that it's not likely Mueller will agree to the new conditions. However, as the Times notes, it remains possible for Mueller to subpoena Trump in his bid to uncover any links between Russia and the Trump presidential campaign. According to Vox, Giuliani's move is part of team Trump's increasingly combative stance against the special counsel. Part of that strategy involves a PR campaign to paint the investigation as an unfair assault on Trump. Should such a campaign successfully sway public opinion, congressional action against Trump would be less likely should Mueller's report cast the president in an unflattering—or, possibly, impeachment-worthy—light. To the Times, Giuliani openly admits this strategy. “Nobody is going to consider impeachment if public opinion has concluded this is an unfair investigation, and that’s why public opinion is so important,” he said.