Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Was Sam Nunberg Drunk On National Television?

Sam Nunberg, a former aide to Donald Trump, went on multiple news shows yesterday to rail against Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, praise Roger Stone and inexplicably insinuate that Trump did something “wrong” with Russia during the campaign.

Shortly after his media Blitz, the Daily Beast reported a possible reason why Nunberg would put himself in such stark legal jeopardy: he had been drinking.

Three close associates of Nunberg say they spoke to him “minutes” before he first called in to MSNBC to air his dirty laundry. In the conversations he reportedly expressed that he was not going to participate in Mueller’s investigation as previously reported. The friends said they feared that he was “drinking again,” and on the verge of a personal meltdown.

Nunberg did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the Daily Beast.

“I think it would be funny if they arrested me,” Nunberg said to MSNBC’s Katy Tur. “What do you think Mueller is gonna do to me?”

“Donald Trump is an idiot,” Nunberg later told Jake Tapper on CNN.

Then, when speaking to Erin Burnett on CNN, Burnett told Nunberg she smelled alcohol on his breath. Nunberg denied having been drinking, saying that he had simply taken antidepressants.

Contact Ari Feldman at [email protected] or on Twitter @aefeldman

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.