Topline
Former President Donald Trump sued CNN for defamation Monday, arguing the cable network has unfairly attacked him in recent years, marking the latest in a series of post-presidency lawsuits filed by Trump against his perceived enemies.
Former President Donald Trump speaks during a rally Saturday in Warren, Michigan.
Key Facts
The lawsuit—which was filed in federal court and sought $475 million in punitive damages—accused CNN of carrying out a “smear campaign” that has “only escalated in recent months as CNN fears [Trump] will run for president in 2024.”
The filing complains about a range of negative characterizations of Trump on CNN’s airwaves and website, including a 2020 article that said the ex-president had “repeated racist talking points” and a January special report that discussed threats to American democracy and Adolf Hitler’s rise to power (the lawsuit acknowledged CNN host Fareed Zakaria explicitly stated “Donald Trump is not Adolf Hitler” in the special report).
Some of the quotes Trump’s suit took issue with were uttered by guests or politicians, rather than CNN staff: The filing cited an article quoting two House Democrats who compared Trump’s rise to Hitler’s, and an on-air segment in which Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) called a comment by Trump “so far beyond” a “dog whistle.”
The lawsuit also chided CNN for referring to Trump’s false claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election as “the big lie”—a phrase originally attributed to Hitler, the suit noted.
CNN declined to comment on the suit to Forbes.
Tangent
Suing—and threatening to sue—media outlets is not uncommon, but it’s usually difficult to win defamation lawsuits against public figures in the United States because plaintiffs need to show defendants made intentionally false statements or acted with reckless disregard for the truth, a high bar known as “actual malice.” Statements of opinion generally aren’t defamatory under this standard, and in the past, courts have often considered accusing somebody of racism to be an opinion, not a factual assertion. Trump’s lawsuit said CNN’s behavior rose to the level of actual malice, but it also insisted the standard shouldn’t apply, citing a controversial 2021 dissent by a conservative federal appellate judge that argued the Supreme Court should overturn the 1964 case that created the actual malice standard.
Surprising Fact
This isn’t Trump’s first lawsuit against CNN, an outlet he has long derided as unfair. Trump’s presidential campaign sued CNN in 2020 over an opinion piece on the network’s website, but a judge dismissed the suit later that year, saying the campaign failed to show CNN acted with actual malice. The Trump campaign also sued the New York Times and Washington Post over opinion pieces—the Times suit was dismissed and the Post suit is pending. Trump’s interest in suing news organizations stretches back for years: Before winning the 2016 presidential race, Trump pledged to “open up our libel laws” so he can sue media outlets.
Key Background
Trump has a longstanding reputation for filing lawsuits, but since leaving office last year, he’s filed a handful of wide-ranging legal challenges against entities he views as foes. Last year, he sued the CEOs of Facebook, Google and Twitter—which he’s often accused of political bias—for banning him from their platforms after the Capitol riot. Earlier this year, he filed a sprawling lawsuit accusing Hillary Clinton and a range of Democratic Party and FBI officials of concocting a “far-reaching conspiracy” to harm his 2016 campaign by tying him to Russia. His lawsuits against Twitter and Clinton were both separately dismissed this year, with a federal judge saying the Clinton suit was “unsupported by any legal authority” last month.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2022/10/03/trump-sues-cnn-for-defamation-in-latest-lawsuit-against-foe/