WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's new attorney, Rudy Giuliani, is off to a rough start in his media blitz defending Trump's stance toward the special counsel's Russian investigation and a $130,000 porn star hush payment.

Giuliani's confounding and at times contradictory statements are said to have pleased Trump, exasperated White House aides and attorneys and worried the president's allies.

Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor who has informally counseled the president, said Sunday that recent developments are aiding the efforts of special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating contacts between the Trump 2016 campaign and Russia, as well as possible obstruction of justice.

"It seems to me that the approach last week of the Trump team plays into the hands of Mueller's tactic to try, at any cost, to try to find technical violations against lower-ranking people so that they can be squeezed," said Dershowitz.

In an interview Sunday with ABC's "This Week," Giuliani dismissed as rumor his own statements about Trump's payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels, said he can't speak to whether the president lied to the American people when he denied knowledge of the silencing agreement and wouldn't rule out the president asserting his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in the Russia investigation. Giuliani also couldn't say whether Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, had made similar payments to other women on the president's behalf.