Just minutes after leaving the first day of his civil trial, Rudy Giuliani repeated a false allegation about the pollworkers.

Rudy Giuliani’s defiant public statements outside a Washington, D.C., federal courthouse — just minutes after he departed the first day of his civil trial for defaming two Georgia election workers — may have defamed them yet again, the judge presiding over the proceedings said Tuesday.

“Was Mr. Giuliani just playing for the cameras?” wondered U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, who has already found Giuliani liable for lying about the workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, by accusing them of manipulating ballots in the 2020 election.

His attorney, Joe Sibley, agreed that he could not reconcile Giuliani’s out-of-court comments on Monday evening with the more contrite argument Sibley had made on behalf of the former New York City mayor earlier in the day.

After the first day of his trial, when jurors began to hear evidence to determine just how much Giuliani must pay for defaming the two women, Giuliani approached television cameras outside the courthouse and reiterated his attacks on them.