(CNN) Here's a good way to think about Rudy Giuliani's handling of questions about when (or if) President Donald Trump had conversations during the 2016 campaign with his one-time lawyer Michael Cohen about plans to build Trump Tower Moscow: You throw 10 balls in the air at once and, only as they are all hurtling back toward you -- and the ground -- do you realize you only have two hands and can't possibly hope to catch them all.
Over the past 48 hours, it has all come crashing down around Giuliani.
Let's start on Sunday, when Giuliani did a round of Sunday show interviews -- including one with "Meet the Press" host Chuck Todd. Here's the relevant exchange about how long Trump was talking to Cohen about the potential project (bolding is mine):
Giuliani: Well, it's our understanding that it -- that they went on throughout 2016. Weren't a lot of them, but there were conversations. Can't be sure of the exact date. But the president can remember having conversations with him about it.
Todd: Throughout 2016 --
Giuliani: "The president also remembers -- yeah, probably up -- could be up to as far as October, November. Our answers cover until the election. So anytime during that period they could've talked about it. But the president's recollection of it is that the the thing had petered out quite a bit. They sent a letter of intent in. They didn't even know where to send it they knew so little about it. They'd finally got it straightened out. And then they abandoned the project. And that's about as much as he can remember of it. Because, remember, 2015, 2016, he's running against 16 people for president of the United States. And I know that. I was with him, like, for --
Later on Sunday, Giuliani talked to The New York Times about the Trump Tower Moscow timeline. And this came out of the interview: "The Trump Tower Moscow discussions were 'going on from the day I announced to the day I won,' Mr. Giuliani quoted Mr. Trump as saying during an interview with The New York Times."
OK. So, as of Sunday night, it seemed entirely clear that Trump had been talking -- on and off -- with Cohen about the development in Moscow from the early days of the campaign until the end of the campaign. Right? Right!
Except that, on Monday afternoon, Giuliani released a statement walking back everything he had said on Sunday. Here's that statement:
"My recent statements about discussions during the 2016 campaign between Michael Cohen and then-candidate Donald Trump about a potential Trump Moscow 'project' were hypothetical and not based on conversations I had with the President. My comments did not represent the actual timing or circumstances of any such discussions. The point is that the proposal was in the earliest stage and did not advance beyond a free non-binding letter of intent."
Confused? Just wait! Because on Monday afternoon, Giuliani gave an interview to the New Yorker's Isaac Chotiner in which he muddied things even further. Below, the key exchange between Rudy and Chotiner:
Chotiner: The quote in the story from you is that the "'discussions were going on from the day I announced to the day I won,' Mr. Giuliani quoted Mr. Trump as saying during an interview with The New York Times."
Giuliani: I did not say that.
Chotiner: The Times just made that quote up?
Giuliani: I don't know if they made it up. What I was talking about was, if he had those conversations, they would not be criminal.
Chotiner: If he had them, but he didn't have them?
Giuliani: He didn't have the conversations. Lawyers argue in the alternative. If we went to court, we would say we don't have to prove whether it's true or not true, because, even if it's true, it's not criminal. And that's why Mueller will not charge him with it.
To summarize Giuliani's progression from Sunday on how long Trump talked to Cohen about Trump Tower Moscow: They talked occasionally about it through the fall of 2016 maybe → the President told me directly that the conversations continued through Election Day → the President never told me anything about conversations with Cohen and I was speaking hypothetically → maybe The New York Times made up the quote where I told them the President told me he had kept talking about the development through November 2016 → despite the fact that these conversations I said happened did not in fact happen, even if they did it would be totally and completely fine and very legal!
If you don't get what's happening here, you're in good company -- company that includes Giuliani.
The thing I keep getting hung up on -- other than why Trump continues to think Giuliani is an effective surrogate for his political and legal interests surrounding the special counsel investigation -- is the fact that Giuliani directly quoted Trump in his Sunday interview with the Times. If he was speaking hypothetically, as he later claimed, then why did he quote Trump without any sort of caveats? Giuliani simply says that Trump told him conversations were happening "from the day I announced to the day I won."
There are only two ways out of that pickle for Giuliani:
1) He made up a quote and put it in the mouth of the President of the United States.
2) The Times made up a quote of Giuliani quoting the President of the United States.
Ask yourself this: Why would the Times do that? Giuliani was already on the record earlier on Sunday saying that Trump had probably talked to Cohen about Trump Tower Moscow "up to as far as October, November" 2016.There's no need to make up a quote from Giuliani quoting Trump to nail down the suggested timeline coming out of the White House. (There's also the fact that the Times would never make up a quote from the President -- for any reason.)
Giuliani has told so many different versions of what Trump knew when about the Trump Tower Moscow project that he can't seem to remember what version he is currently telling. All the balls are smacking onto the floor -- and Giuliani is scrambling around to catch one or two -- and failing at even that.