There is one version of Rudy Giuliani’s world in which the former New York mayor is disgraced and penniless. Under indictment in Fulton County and appearing in a separate case this week after pleading no contest to defaming Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, two poll workers from Georgia, Giuliani’s lawyer also told the judge in the defamation case that the 79-year-old is not well.
“This has taken a bit of a toll on him. He’s almost 80 years old,” his lawyer said. “There are health concerns for Mr. Giuliani.”
But the disgraced, infirm, penniless and repentant Giuliani is nowhere to be found in the other version of his world, where Donald Trump’s biggest cheerleader has remained a MAGA celebrity in his own right. His biggest platform at the moment is the live nightly broadcast of “America’s Mayor LIVE” on X, where he joyfully delivers a lengthy evening monologue on whatever might be on his mind.
Speaking for anywhere from 45 minutes to two hours every night for the last year, he’s held forth on everything from Eastern European geography to the history of Hannukah to his reaction to being booked and fingerprinted in the Fulton County jail, “one of the worst prisons in the United States!”
Going live from the Upper East Side of New York or Teterboro Airport in New Jersey or a rooftop at Mar-a-Lago, it’s a stream-of-consciousness rant from some of the most luxurious locales in America, fueled by the greatest hits of Trump-world conspiracies.
Jan. 6th was “an inside job” by the FBI to frame conservatives, he alleged one night. “This should scare the crap out of you.”
The “Biden crime family” and Hunter Biden’s laptop are other frequent topics. But nothing seems to get more airtime three years after the fact than Giuliani’s ongoing and false insistence that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. And key to the plot, in his continued retelling online, were Freeman and her daughter, Moss.
A show in August featured Giuliani describing Georgia as being “like East Germany” for abusing his rights, and talking about the video of Freeman and Moss counting votes at State Farm Arena. It was the same video he told a Georgia committee was a “smoking gun” proving election fraud.
Moss and Freeman looked like two thieves “casing the joint,” he said. Why can’t anyone see what he sees?
On other nights, Giuliani has described the Fulton County defendants who have flipped in the case as just “a few pathetic people,” and branded Fulton District Attorney Fani Willis “a buffoon.”
Along with the show, Giuliani’s X feed has also been a running narration from his alternate reality.
“The 2020 Election was STOLEN,” he wrote earlier this month. “They keep coming after me because — unlike so many others — I won’t shut up about it.”
In August, he reposted a message that claimed Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger “forced counties to certify the 2020 election, with guns, badges and Dominion officials.”
On Thanksgiving Day, he re-posted video of Freeman and Moss again. More false accusations about Moss followed.
While the rants about Kemp, Raffensperger, and Willis are par for the course for Giuliani, the ongoing lies about Freeman and Moss are something different, since his he accepted legal liability for defaming the women in July.
The jury trial this week is not to determine whether he told damaging lies about Moss and Freeman, but to decide how much he should pay to make up for the damage he’s done.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s David Wickert has been in the courtroom this week as the women testified about the hell they’ve lived through since Dec. 4, 2020, the day Giuliani first played the video from State Farm Arena and leveled the unfounded accusations that the two election workers had helped steal the election from Trump.
“He messed up my name. He messed up my business. He messed up my daughter,” Freeman testified Tuesday. “It was horrible.”
Her daughter, Moss, described strangers tracking her down at her grandmother’s house to make a “citizen’s arrest.” She later slipped into a deep depression she’s struggling to get out of. She cried when she said ser son failed all of his classes one semester as the chaos engulfed them. She still thinks she’s being followed.
But speaking to reporters outside of the courthouse Monday, Giuliani said he regrets nothing. “Of course I don’t regret it! I told the truth. They were engaged in changing votes.” Later that night, he had an ominous warning for Freeman and Moss on his live show.
“They have no idea what we’re going to hit them with, no idea,” he said. “You’ll see. Time to take the gloves off.”
On Tuesday, the judge wanted to know why there are two versions of reality for Giuliani — the one inside the courtroom, where his lawyer agrees that his client was not honest about Moss and Freeman, and the other version outside of court, where Giuliani continues to defame the women and insist he’s the only one telling the truth.
Which reality wins out is about more than how many millions of dollars Giuliani owes Freeman and Moss for the immense trouble he’s caused them.
It’s about whether we live in a world where a public figure can lie about private citizens, even it destroys their lives, and face no punishment. Or whether there can be accusations in a public hearing without proof, but no accountability later. And it’s about whether Giuliani will be tempted to do the same thing the next time around, if the election is close, but Trump is losing in the count.
If you think there won’t be a next time, think again. That’s all of our reality now.
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