Trump files $15 billion defamation lawsuit against The New York Times
By Brian Stelter, Hanna Park, CNN
(CNN) — President Donald Trump says he is filing an audacious lawsuit against The New York Times, alleging defamation and accusing the outlet of being a “virtual mouthpiece” for the Democratic Party.
The president is demanding $15 billion in damages, which exceeds the entire market cap of The New York Times Company.
The lawsuit is the latest example of what First Amendment experts have described as a presidential strategy to silence critical news coverage and curb free speech by filing legally dubious lawsuits.
Trump claims it is an effort to “restore integrity to journalism.”
The defamation suit against The Times also names book publisher Penguin Random House and four Times reporters, two of whom wrote a book for Penguin, titled “Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success.”
The 85-page suit reads at times like a pro-Trump op-ed, with page after page of gushing praise for the president and repeated references to other lawsuits he has filed against other media outlets.
The president trumpeted the filing of the suit in a Truth Social post late Monday night. He accused the Times — a publication that he both covets and often criticizes — of making false statements about him, his family and his businesses. He called the filing of the suit a “great honor.”
The Times has rebuffed Trump’s legal threats many times before, including as recently as last week. The publication had no immediate response to Trump’s middle-of-the-night suit, which was set to be filed in a Tampa federal court.
CNN reviewed a copy of the lawsuit but could not immediately confirm that it had been received by the court.
“The New York Times has been allowed to freely lie, smear, and defame me for far too long, and that stops, NOW!” he added, while singling out the Times’ endorsement of Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential election.
Endorsing someone else for president does not qualify as an act of defamation, however, and Trump’s legal team will have a hard time proving the charges leveled in the lawsuit.
To win a libel lawsuit, public figures like Trump must show “actual malice,” meaning the defendants knew the statements were false or acted with reckless disregard for their truth.
Media analysts have asserted that Trump’s real intent, with some of his lawsuits, is to garner PR and publicly embarrass news outlets, with winning or losing in court being a secondary consideration at best.
Hours before Trump announced the lawsuit, Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger spoke publicly about what he called the “anti-press playbook” being deployed by “aspiring strongmen” around the world, including in the US.
Part of the playbook, he said, is to “exploit the civil courts to impose financial pressure” and “punish independent journalists.”
Sulzberger, who has been drawing attention to this topic through essays and public speeches for the past year, appeared at the Investigative Reporters & Editors’ 50th anniversary gala in New York City Monday night and urged the other “media leaders” in attendance to “stand up for your journalism. Stand up for your journalists. Stand up for your rights.”
Journalism advocacy groups warned that by settling, rather than defending themselves against Trump in court, ABC and CBS were emboldening Trump to keep up his legal campaign.
Trump is also currently suing The Wall Street Journal and reporters who wrote a story about a collection of letters gifted to Jeffrey Epstein. A spokesperson for Dow Jones, the Journal’s parent company, says “we have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit.”
This is a developing story.
The-CNN-Wire
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