‘Completely Self-Destructive’: CNN’s Elie Honig Says He’s ‘Never Seen Anything Like’ Rudy Giuliani’s Courthouse Statements

Jake Tapper spoke with CNN legal analyst Elie Honig on Friday to discuss former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani being ordered to pay $148 million in damages for defaming two election workers in Georgia. His claims about their actions during the 2020 presidential election led them to be harassed and threatened.

Tapper and Honig both expressed their total disbelief at how Giuliani conducted himself during the trial, including publicly repeating the claims the judge had already ruled were false and defamatory outside the courthouse.

Honig began by addressing Giuliani’s vow to appeal the decision. “Rudy Giuliani certainly has the right to appeal and will appeal. The main way that these numbers often get whittled down is on the punitive damages side of this,” he began, eventually concluding:

Appeals courts do have the ability to knock down these numbers. They do fairly often. But given the equality of the numbers here, and I think given the strength of the evidence, I think the plaintiffs are going to have a good argument to uphold this verdict on appeal.

Tapper then went on to play a clip of Giuliani doubling down on his wild claims, which have been roundly debunked by everyone from Republican election officials in Georgia to Trump’s DOJ.

“Of course, I don’t regret it. I told the truth. They were engaged in changing votes,” Giuliani said earlier in the week. A reporter then hit back saying, “There’s no proof of that.”

“Oh, you’re damn right there is. Stay tuned,” Giuliani replied in the clip as it cut back to Tapper.

“You’re damn right there is. Stay tuned. We have been staying tuned since November 2020. There is no proof of any of this,” Tapper replied, adding:

All of this has been lies and jury after jury, election board after election board has said that. First of all, Elie Hoenig I have to say, saying it looks like these two African-American women are sharing dope is I wouldn’t even call it a dog whistle. It’s a bullhorn from Rudy Giuliani. I mean, it’s basically engaging in the worst kind of racist sleaze imaginable. But beyond that, how on earth can he go before the cameras three years later and still be standing by this insanity?

“Jake, that moment earlier this week when Rudy Giuliani repeated his defamation of these same women was just astonishing,” Honig replied, adding:

I’ve really never seen anything like that whatsoever. It obviously makes no sense, is completely self-destructive legally and just in the broader terms, it’s just disgraceful conduct by Rudy Giuliani, I thought when he headed into this damages hearing. Now, look, Rudy and his lawyer conceded they didn’t even fight the fact that he was liable for defamation. They said, we’re just going to have a trial on the damages amount. I thought, naively, I guess, that the strategy would be for Rudy to sort of make amends, to say, look, I didn’t intend for this to get out of hand. I was caught up in the moment, maybe show some remorse or contrition.

Instead, he does 180 degrees, the opposite. I guess we should have seen that coming. And by the way, if you want to know why the jury just hit him with a $75 million punitive damages, I think those comments outside the courthouse had a lot to do with it.

Watch the full clip above via CNN.

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