Giuliani has to give his NYC apartment to the black women he defamed

A judge gave Rudy seven days to turn over his Manhattan penthouse and all his possessions to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the Georgia election workers whose lives he ruined in 2020.

Shaye Moss testifies at the U.S. House of Representatives alongside her mom Ruby Freeman, about the Jan. 6 insurrection in 2022. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Rudy Giuliani, 107th mayor of NYC

It’s been a very bad month for Rudy Giuliani: He was disbarred in DC for pursuing false claims that Donald Trump won the 2020 election; his daughter, Caroline, wrote a scathing Vanity Fair piece about having to watch the “very public and relentless implosion” of his life since he became involved with Trump; and now he has to turn over his apartment and basically everything he owns to the two Georgia election workers he defamed in 2020 by claiming they tampered with ballots in the presidential election.

Giuliani was ordered to pay Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, a mother and daughter who sued him, nearly $150 million last year after they successfully argued that he inflicted severe emotional and reputational damage and also put their lives in danger by tweeting a video of them counting ballots to falsely accuse them of election fraud. Freeman, 65, told jurors in her heartbreaking testimony last December that she’d had to flee her home in 2021 and eventually start living out of her car after people started harassing her with bullhorns and shouting racist slurs. “I took it as though they were going to hang me with their ropes on my street,” she testified. “I was scared. I didn’t know if they were coming to kill me.”

Considering the very real harm he caused these women, I’d say $150M is even a bit on the low side for Giuliani to have to pay them. But he hasn’t paid them any of it yet, because he’s cash poor due to the life implosion described by his daughter. So a federal judge ruled today that he has seven days to give them the deed to his luxury penthouse apartment in Manhattan, as well as his signed Joe DiMaggio jersey plus other sports memorabilia (???), a 1980 Mercedes once owned by actress Lauren Bacall, and his TV, furniture, jewelry and fancy watches. CNN adds that the judge “hasn’t yet decided if Giuliani will be able to keep a Palm Beach, Florida, condominium he also owns, or the four New York Yankees World Series rings he has, which Giuliani’s son contends his father gave him.” I’m sure Ruby and Shaye can live without the Yankees rings, but y’all better give them that goddamn Palm Beach condo. They need a vacation.

In other news…

• Tim Walz flamed Elon Musk at a rally in Wisconsin today for “skipping like a dipshit” (direct quote) at recent Trump rallies, which is really incredible if you’ve seen the behavior he’s referring to:

• Musk has been busy trying to buy the election for Trump, not only by pouring hundreds of millions of dollars directly into his campaign, but also by offering random million-dollar checks to Pennsylvanians who sign his conservative “petition” in Pennsylvania, which requires a person to be registered to vote. This is probably illegal, but Musk will undoubtedly experience zero consequences for it. And I remain tickled that Musk once insisted, in the days before jumping up and down on stage with Trump like a child trying to please his daddy, that he’s “registered independent and politically moderate" and “not donating to any campaign.”

• Three Republican AGs filed a complaint against the FDA arguing that the abortion pill mifepristone is lowering teen pregnancy rates in their states (Kansas, Missouri, and Idaho)—"depressing expected birth rates for teenaged mothers,” they literally wrote—which results in in lower population, the “diminishment of political representation" and the "loss of federal funds.” Yes, they’re arguing openly and shamelessly that they need more teen girls to be pregnant in order for their states to qualify for more federal money. More on that in my favorite law blog, Balls and Strikes.

• I went on Al Franken’s podcast with Sarah Zhang of The Atlantic this week to talk about abortion—specifically my Guardian piece on how Ted Cruz could lose his Senate race to Democrat Colin Allred over the issue. And surely in unrelated news, Kamala Harris announced today that she is heading down to Texas on Friday to campaign with Allred and highlight abortion policy, specifically. If Ted Cruz loses this race, though it remains unlikely, it will be the best day of so many people’s lives.