Rudy Giuliani asks Newsmax host for money following bank busting verdict in defamation case

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani swiftly decried the multimillion-dollar verdict against him after he was found liable for defaming two Georgia election workers, but he might need help paying what he owes. 

An eight-person jury ruled that Mr. Giuliani would have to pay $148 million in damages to mother and daughter plaintiffs Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss after a federal judge found him liable for defaming the duo. 

In an appearance on Newsmax after the ruling, Mr. Giuliani quipped with host Greg Kelly that he needed money. 

“You got any money you can loan me, Greg,” Mr. Giuliani said. 

He continued, “How can you not be so sad for the country? Here I am in the District of Columbia, the first time I came here, I had goosebumps. I’m gonna leave here thinking that this District of Columbia court is a fascist court.”

Mr. Giuliani was found liable for defaming Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss for spreading false claims that the pair engaged in a fake ballot processing scheme while they worked as election workers in Fulton County.

The embattled former lawyer for former President Donald Trump accused District Court Judge Beryl Howell, who oversaw the case, of being biased against him. 

Mr. Giuliani said that he did not realize that Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, New York Republican, had filed an ethics complaint against Judge Howell on Friday. 

Mrs. Stefanik’s complaint targeted Judge Howell for a “highly inappropriate” speech she gave last month in which the judge blamed the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol on “big lies” and raised the alarm of a “troubling moment in this country” where facts are “dismissed or ignored.”

“That is not a role for a judge,” Mr. Giuliani said. “I know when she was assigned to the case, I knew we were dead. I didn’t realize we were that dead.”