Rudy Giuliani has been ordered to pay Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss, the election workers that he and Donald Trump baselessly maligned as having tampered with votes during the twenty twenty election in Georgia almost fifty million dollars. And because he just can't help himself. During the court proceedings, Juliani would still go outside the courtroom and continue to lie and say that these two women tampered with votes, even while his attorney was inside the court conceding that there
was no proof of any of this. He even went on Newsmax and continued to say that he had video proof that these women were involved in vote tampering. Now, Ruby and Shay's attorneys have already filed another injunction for these ongoing statements, meaning they very well could sue him again and win again if he doesn't knock it off. Honestly, I hope they take him for every cent that he's worth, because his behavior really turned their lives upside down and
put them in danger. For folks who haven't heard it, their testimony in the January sixth committee was among the most moving that I heard, and we really need to understand how misogyny, racism, and lies, all intermingled to put their lives at risk. This doesn't just hurt women like Ruby and Shay who are targeted attacks on election workers and poll counters. The women who make our democracy work, and it is overwhelmingly women make us all less safe.
So listen to our breakdown of their testimony from last year's January sixth committee. There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm brigittat and this is there are No Girls on the Internet. So here in the United States, we're on day four of hearings around the deadly January sixth insurrection, where Trump supporters storm the Capitol believing Trump's repeated lies that the twenty twenty two presidential election had been stolen from him
and that he was the actual winner. I obviously don't feel like I need to tell you that that was complete bullshit, and it really goes to show the power and danger that can happen when lies and disinformation are weaponized. People died. Now in that hearing, we heard the testimony of Ruby and Shae Freeman, and it really broke me, and I think it's important for everyone to hear in their own words how their livelihoods and safety were jeopardized
by racist, sexist lies. So if you don't know, sixty two year old Ruby and her daughter, Shae Freeman were both election workers in Fulton County, Georgia, a state where Trump legitimately lost and where he would go on to pressure Georgia's Secretary of State to quote fine votes for him. In an attempt to cast doubt on the election, Trump and his henchman Rudy Giuliani repeatedly named Ruby and Shay, both of whom are black women, as specific election workers
who were rigging the election in favor of Biden. Now, this was an outright lie based on nothing, and it basically destroyed their lives. Trump and his allies obtained video of the women and baselessly lied about those videos, saying they showed evidence of the women vote hampering. In one video, Trump and Juliani claimed the women carried suitcases with as many as eighteen thousand ballots, all for Joe Biden. Complete bullshit.
There aren't even suitcases in the video. They were just the normal boxes that ballots are kept and moved in. Trump also said that video of the women counting vote that the state farm arena showed. The fraudulent processing of ballots also bullshit. State officials repeatedly cleared the women and all election workers of any mishandling of votes, complete nonsense. But none of this stopped Trump and his croonies from putting these women in real danger by repeatedly lying about it.
And we need to be really open about the ways that they specifically used racism and misogyny to fuel this attack. I don't think these lies would have worked in the same way had Ruby and her daughter not been black women, who we know are disproportionately harmed by disinformation and online harassment. Just listen to what Juliani said about the women and tell me it is not a racist line of attack.
Tay earlier in the day of Ruby Freeman and Shay Freeman Laws and one other gentleman obviously surreptitiously passing around us be ports as if they are vials of heroin or cocaine. I mean, it's it's obvious to anyone who's a criminal investigator or prosecutor they are engaged in surreptitious the illegal activity. Again that day and after a week ago and they're still walking around Georgia. Why should have been they should have been uh should have been.
Questioned already, h there are places of work, their homes should have been searched for evidence of ballance, evidence of us v poorts, for evidence of voter fraud.
So Juliani accuses the women of passing votes on a USB drive back and forth, which already like what but in reality.
What was your mom actually handing you on that video?
Ginger man.
Trump also accused the women of vote tampering, basically attacking them by first and last name.
We had.
At least eighteen thousand, that's saw on pay We had him counted very thankstakingly, eighteen thousand voters having to do with the Ruby Freeman, that she's a vote scammer, a professional vote scammer and hustler.
Okay, So here's what I think people are not saying clear enough. I think that Trump and Giuliani just saw video of two black women in Georgia and knew that they could say that those black women were the culprits, that those black women were liars, and those black women were the reason that Trump lost the election, the same way that Trump has repeatedly attacked black women like White
House correspondent April Ryan. I think that he knew that his base would be poised and ready to believe it because they have a visceral hate and distrust and disdain for black women, and that they would be ready to believe that the visual of black women working at a Georgia polling place would be proof to convince them that something shady was going on. They basically just said to
their racist supporters, hey, look at this video. It shows that black women were involved in the vote counting process in Georgia, and that should be evidence enough that the election was rigged. His attacks really weaponized their identities against them and relies on tropes about black women being untrustworthy, which we see time and time again with disinformation and online harassment. This led to a flood of racist death threats and harassment against Ruby and Shay, at first, mostly
centralized around Facebook Messenger. Here's Shay's testimony.
So I'm just ask him, like, where are the messages? All I see is the fees, Like how do you get to the messages? And he said, it's another icon on your phone that says messenger. And I went to that icon and it was just a lot of horrible.
Things there, and those horrible things that they include threats.
Yes, a lot of threats, wishing deaths upon me, telling me that you know, I'll be in jail with my mother, and and saying things like be glad it's twenty twenty and not nineteen twenty.
So obviously saying you'll be glad it's twenty twenty and not nineteen twenty, it's a reference to her being lynched and killed, which is just disgusting, and Shay's testimony about how she felt is really heartbreaking.
I felt horrible. I felt like it was all my fault, Like if I would have never decided to be an elections worker, like I could have done anything else, but that's what I decided to do. And now people are lying and spreading rumors and lies and attacking my mom. I'm her only child, going to my grandmother's house. I'm her only grandchild and my kid. It's just I felt
so bad. I felt bad for my mom, and I felt horrible for picking this job and being the one that always wants to help and always there, never missing out one election. I just felt like it was my fault. I'm putting my family in this situation.
She's mom. Ruby describes how she was always so proud of her nickname Lady Ruby, and how as a business owner and community staple in Georgia, everybody knew her as Lady Ruby. She even had a staple shirt with Lady Ruby but dazzled on it that she wore all the time. But because of Trump at his camp's lives, she no longer even uses her name because it doesn't feel safe. She said, she hasn't worn that shirt since twenty twenty.
Now I won't even introduce my self by my name anymore. I get nervous when I bump into someone I know in the grocery store who says my name. I'm worried about who's listening. I get nervous when I have to give my name for food orders. I'm always concerned of who's around me. I've lost my name and I've lost
my reputation. I've lost my sense of security, all because a group of people, starting with number forty five and his ally Rudy Giuliani, decided to escape goat me and my daughter to Shay to push their own lives about how the presidential election was stolen.
Shane Ruby once pillars of their community have basically been resigned to a life of hiding for their own safety.
Is Moss, How is this experience of being targeted by the former president and his allies affected your life?
It's started my life upside down. I no longer give out my business card, I don't transfer calls. I don't want anyone knowing my name. I don't want to go anywhere with my mom because she might yell my name out over the grocery al or something. I don't go to the grocery store at all. I haven't been anywhere.
At all. Let's hit a quick break at her back.
Now, this detail didn't come up on the hearing at all, but I wanted to talk about it because I think it adds some important, if not totally what the fuck context. In addition to the mixed bag of Trump Crooney's who you've probably heard about, Ruby and Shay were also being harassed and threatened by a woman named Trevannie Coody. Trevanni was formerly a publicist for the R and B singer slash convicted sex criminal r Kelly. So yeah, it sure seems like she really knows how to pick men to
associate herself with. Trevanni claims to have had some kind of association with rapper Kanye West, who you may recall, ran for president himself alongside Trump in twenty twenty before
becoming a vocal Trump supporter. According to NBC News, a biography of Trevanni posted on the website of the Women's Global Initiative, a business networking conference, identified her as a member of the quote Young Black Leadership Council under President Donald Trump, and that same biography noted that in September of twenty eighteen, she quote was secured as a publicist to Kanye West and now serves as West's director of Operations. Now, I should also say that Kanye West's camp says that
Trevanni was not associated with them. Here's a statement they released. Trevanni Cooty was not associated with Kanye West or any of his enterprises at the time of the facts that are reported in these articles, or since these facts occurred in any event. When Trevanni showed up at Shay and Ruby's door, the women understandably were pretty freaked out, and
they called police to be present for the conversation. Trevanni told them that she was visiting at the direction of a quote high profile individual who warned that if the women did not confess to voter fraud allegations, they would be arrested after forty eight hours. So if that's not enough, this is where it gets really weird. According to Rolling Stone, the police bodycam footage of the conversation showed Trevanni telling the women, quote, I cannot tell you specifically what will
take place. I just know that it will disrupt your freedom and the freedom of one or more of your family members. You are a loose end for a party that needs to tidy up. Kutie then put a man called Harrison Ford on speakerphone, who said that he could offer the women protection. You're probably wondering, is it that Harrison Ford from Indiana Jones and Star Wars I was thinking the same thing.
No, it is not.
But according to the bodycam audio, the man told the women, if she confessed to voter fraud, he would offer her legal protection, but if she declined, she would go to jail. So Ruby and Shay obviously did not believe this woman, but later, because of the web of lies that the Trump Machine's bread about them, Trump supporters did show up to their home. Back to Ruby's testimony, around.
The week of January sixth, the FBI informed me that I needed to leave my home for safety and I.
Love my home for safety around that time.
So they had to flee their home for their own safety, which is bad enough, but here's where it gets even scarier. Trump supporters actually tried to break into Shade's grandmother's home to make a quote citizen's arrest.
I received a call from my grandmother. This woman is my everything. I've never even heard her or seen her cry ever in my life. And she called me, screaming at the top of her lungs, like shame, oh my god, Shane, just freaking me out, saying that there are people at her home and they, you know, they knocked on the door, and of course she opened it and seeing who was there, who it was, and they just started pushing their way through, claiming that they were coming in to make a citizen's arrest.
They needed to.
Find me and my mom. They knew were there, and she was just screaming and didn't know what to do, and I wasn't there, so, you know, I just felt so helpless and so horrible for her.
I honestly cannot even imagine how terrifying it must have been to have an angry, potentially armed mob of Trump supporters show up at your elderly grandmother's home and try to force their way in all of this because Trump and his allies repeatedly lied, these lives were fueled by hatred and distrust of black women. Now people are calling
Ruby and Shay heroes. You know, they serve their community during a pandemic, and the president put their lives at risk because of it, and even in testifying and speaking up about what they experienced, they're sure to be even more risk. So what they did is indeed heroic. But here's the thing. Black women shouldn't have to be put in such great danger for a country that is weaponized
against them. Shay says that every single election worker that she worked with at the polling center in twenty twenty in Georgia has now quit, And honestly, I don't blame them who would want to open themselves up to these kinds of harassment and attacks for just trying to serve
the public and do their jobs. Ruby and Shay have sued the right wing website The Gateway Pundit and its owners for defamation for publishing stories that quote instigated a deluge of harassment, intimidation, and threats and force them to change their phone numbers, delete their online accounts, and fear for their physical safety. And they also settled a suit
with one American news network. And honestly, I hope they get every last dime of these people's money, but no amount of money can make right what happened to them. I think Lady Ruby really puts it best.
There is nowhere I feel safe nowhere. Do you know how it feels to have the President of the United States to target you. The President of the United States is supposed to represent every American, not to target one, but he targeted me. Lady Ruby a small business owner, a mother, a proud American citizen who stand up to help Fulton County run an election in the middle of the pandemic.
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is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almada is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate and review us.
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