A verdict is expected very soon in the defamation trial against Rudy Giuliani, and his own lawyer says that it could be, quote, the civil equivalent of the death penalty. The jury, made up of eight people of his peers, will resume deliberations tomorrow morning in Washington, and they will be the ones to determine just how much Giuliani owes the two former Georgia election workers for nearly destroying their lives with conspiracies and flat-out lies. Giuliani did not testify today after insisting that he would do so, backing out just at the last minute with no real explanation about why. He also apparently didn't pay very close attention to the closing arguments that were made by the lawyer representing Ruby Freeman and Shay Mass, the mother and daughter, that a judge has already said he defamed. Instead, for more than an hour, Giuliani sat intently reading news stories on his laptop, which was propped up on the defense table. The former election workers are each asking for at least $24 million in reputational damages after they were falsely accused of committing election fraud. Their lawyers said he'll leave it to the jury to consider just how much Giuliani should be ordered to pay for those damages.

That same jury heard gut-wrenching testimony from both Freeman and Moss, and also these disturbing voicemails from people who threatened their lives.

Eat, die, you fucking racist. You're a fucking tourist, you fucking whore. You're going to jail, Ruby. You're going to get locked up, Ruby. You're all going to fucking jail. You piece of fucking shit. Big bitch. I hope you like jail because that's where you're going on your way to hell.

Yeah, those are real voicemails that two women who volunteered to be election workers in 2020 got simply for counting the votes. Giulliani's lawyer, after the jury heard those voicemails, is asking the jury for mercy, asking them to remember his client by his reputation from more than 20 years ago as the mayor of New York City, as a former federal prosecutor. Of course, invoking that legacy could also remind the jury he should have known better. I want to break all of this down as we wait for what the jury does decide with Ellie Honig, CNN's senior legal analyst, and the former assistant US attorney for the Southern district of New York, the very office that Rudy Giuliani led decades ago, and Andrew Kurtzman, who has covered Rudy Giuliani extensively for three decades. He's the author of Juliana: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America's Mayor, something we've obviously been following closely on this show. Ellie, what do you think? What do you make of Juliana insisting all along that he was going to testify and then just pulling out at the last minute.

Well, it's the smartest move he's made in years. I mean, if he had taken the stand, imagine what a catastrophe that would have been. This man is a pathological liar. He can't help himself. This case is really what happens when you combine vicious overthe top defamation against innocent victims with the single worst legal strategy ever devised by a human mind. Let's go through with the way Rudy and his lawyer approach this case. First, they agreed that they were liable, that Rudy was liable. They conceded, yes, what he did was defamatory. Now, there may be a strategy there. If your strategy is we're just going to try to minimize damages. We're going to go in there. Rudy is going to express remorse. He's going to say, I got caught up in something stupid. I didn't intend for my words to have this effect. I'm sorry, maybe you can minimize damages. Instead, they go in on this damages trial and commit more defamation. They are just asking for a massive verdict, and I think we're going to see that tomorrow.

The closing argument itself was really remarkable. He was saying that Rudy Giuliani is a good man, talking about how he was as you chartered it covered his rise. He said he hasn't exactly helped himself with some of the things that have happened in the last few days. I take it by that he means probably continuing to defame the women outside of the court. He also said, talked about his age and said that he's having a hard time accepting the facts about this case.

I don't think he's having a hard time accepting the facts. I think that one of the things, maybe the reason I'm most fascinated by Giuliani and spent three decades covering him, is this sense of moral certitude that he's right and you're wrong. This is the reason he almost became a priest. He's always felt that he has the corner on morality. Even when he does terribly immoral things. He's on the brink of bankruptcy. He's been indicted. He's had 10 civil suits against him. He's effectively been disbarred. He's been on a downward spiral, and he's almost hit rock bottom right now. There he was the other night outside saying that he was right and Ruby Freeman and Shane Moss actually were fixing the election. I mean, he's a remarkably arrogant person who will go to his grave believing he was right, the election was stolen, Donald Trump was a victim. But how.

Does the jury listen to this, to what he's saying outside of court, but also to what they're saying in court and saying, Don't remember this Rudy Giuliani. Think of him after 9/11 and as the mayor of New York, and all of these claims that they were making about what he was like then saying, I mean, that's not what the jury is.

Considering here. It's irrelevant. This isn't about is Rudy a good person? Was he a good person? Two decades ago. This is about what damage did Rudy Giuliani's defamation do to Ms. Moss and Ms. Freeman. There's two aspects of this, and I think they're both going to come into play tomorrow. When the jury returns its verdict, there's going to be compensatory damages, meaning you have to repay these people for the actual out-of-pocket damages they suffered or economic opportunities they lost. Then there's what we call punitive damage, which this case is why we have punitive damages because it allows the jury to send a message to tell him what you did was so grotesque, so over the top that we need to punish you, deter you, and deter others. I think we're going to see heavy numbers on both of those.

You think heavy numbers? I do. We have talked extensively that he doesn't have the money to pay that.

No, this is a person who used to own six homes, had 11 country club memberships. He capitalized on his 9/11th fame and opened a consulting firm that made $100 million in five years. He flew on private jets. This is a person who was born lower middle class in Brooklyn. His father was an enforcer for a small-time criminal. He went to jail for robbing a milk man, and Giuliani then created astonishing wealth, became one of the most beloved people on the planet. Where he is now is quite a fall from where.

He is. But also, Killy...

Go ahead. Well, I was just saying, if I can add to that. I never met the man. But as you said, I worked in the Southern district of New York 20 or so years after he was there. I started in 2004. When I started there was two and a change years after 9/11. He was a revered figure. I was proud to say I worked at the same office that Rudy Giuliani once led. Now there's no other way to say he's a disgrace to the legal profession. I don't know that I've ever seen a lawyer have such a great and drastic fall. I mean, the.

Judge for the lawyer for the two women even quoted what he was saying back then in his book, Leadership, and quoted a line from Dad saying, Never pick on somebody smaller than you. And just the irony that Rudy Giuliani did precisely that with these two random women who were just there doing their jobs and then were getting those hideous voicemails. They felt like they couldn't go to the grocery store. Right.

I mean, he took on the most powerless, defenseless people and completely destroyed their reputations. Again, did he do it thinking that he was in a cynical way, thinking he was doing something malevolent? No. He's a martyr to the cause. Donald Trump was robbed of the election and end justifies the means, and we're going to use these two women to prove our case. Fairness and morality be damned.

When we think about all the damage done by the lie about election fraud, we tend to think about institutional damage, damage to our democracy, to our public faith. But there's human beings. Freeman and Ms. Mout, their lives were torn apart. There's real human cost to this.

How much do you think? They're each asking for 24 million. If they even get a quarter of that, Giuliana's lawyer said he couldn't pay that. But how much do you think that they'll actually get here? Because what their attorney is arguing is send a message to the world, send a message to other people who may try to do what Rudy Giuliani did by rewarding them huge damages.

I think they're going to get close to that top number that they're asking for. Really? Yeah, I do. I think for that exact reason, I think there's going to be a message sent. Now, Andrew knows a bit more about Rudy's actual finances. I don't think they're under any illusions. I don't think Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss expect to get rich off this because you can onlyget blood from a stone. You can't get blood from a stone. I don't think Rudy has that much liquid.

No. I mean, he's being sued by his lawyer because he can't afford his legal bills. Again, there are tense civil suits against him. I mean, he's got to be headed towards bankruptcy. Bankruptcy, no matter what.

Happens to him. Well, and he's still facing the case in Georgia, where he's been indicted as well. I have to bring this up because this was one of the most amazing things I saw today. The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that, as we know, two of the other co-defendants here, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesborough, took guilty pleas. And as a part of a condition for those guilty pleas, they were told to write apology letters by the DA. We got to look at them today. They're each one sentence long. And Sidney Powell has written on this lined notebook paper. She said, I apologize for my actions and connection with the events in Coffee County. Chesborough wrote, I apologize to the citizens of the state of Georgia and Fulton County for my involvement in count 15 of the indictment. I mean, that reads like an apology that when you hit your sibling or something as a child and your parents apologize to your brother, and you're like, Sorry. Sorry to your fault. -you don't really mean it.

Yeah, I mean, look, I'm going to take maybe a contrarian position on this. They treated this like a joke, and they should have. Because this is not a thing that real prosecutors do. You don't make people write apology letters. This isn't kindergarten. The way people accept responsibility is they go into court, they plead guilty, they get under oath, they admit to the judge what they did. This is a stunt by the DA requiring these, thank you, these apology letters. I almost applauded when I saw that they had treated it with disdain and sarcasm. I know it's not the course of them to write these sarcastic, brush-off notes, but I think it's deserving of this whole stunt.