Trump sues ‘New York Times’ for $15 billion, alleging defamation : NPR

President Trump filed a $15 billion defamation lawsuit late Monday towards the New York Instances and a few of its most distinguished reporters for articles and a e book making the case that he constructed his fortune and status partially via fraud.

The go well with additionally cites an interview that the Instances performed forward of final yr’s elections. Retired U.S. Marine Corps Gen. John F. Kelly, who served as chief of employees throughout Trump’s first time period, warned that he believed Trump met the definition of fascist.

And Trump’s authorized workforce additionally argued that the Instances wrongly gave producer Mark Burnett credit score for the success of the NBC actuality contest present The Apprentice, moderately than to Trump, who served because the present’s host and star.

“At the moment, the Instances is a full-throated mouthpiece of the Democrat Occasion,” Trump’s legal professionals argued within the submitting.

In a press release launched by a spokesperson, the New York Instances Co. known as the case meritless.

“It lacks any professional authorized claims and as an alternative is an try to stifle and discourage unbiased reporting” the newspaper firm mentioned. “The New York Instances won’t be deterred by intimidation techniques. We’ll proceed to pursue the info with out concern or favor and get up for journalists’ First Modification proper to ask questions on behalf of the American individuals.”

The case was filed by Trump as a personal particular person in federal courtroom in Tampa. The submitting itself is strewn with reward of Trump as a politician, a president, an entrepreneur and an entertainer. And it was submitted by a workforce of attorneys who’ve represented Trump in his different lawsuits towards main media corporations, together with ABC, CBS, and the Wall Avenue Journal.

On social media, Trump mentioned the go well with represents a significant enlargement of his full-court press towards the press.

“The ‘Instances’ has engaged in a a long time lengthy technique of mendacity about your Favourite President (ME!), my household, enterprise, the America First Motion, MAGA, and our Nation as a complete,” Trump wrote. “I’m PROUD to carry this as soon as revered ‘rag’ accountable, as we’re doing with the Faux Information Networks resembling our profitable litigation towards George Slopadopoulos/ABC/Disney, and 60 Minutes/CBS/Paramount.”

Public figures such because the president should meet a excessive bar to show defamation in courtroom. They should present that the defendants knew what they had been publishing was false – or that that they had critical doubts in regards to the fact of these statements.

But Trump has not needed to press his circumstances within the judicial system. When confronted together with his lawsuits, different large media gamers have agreed to settle.

ABC’s mum or dad firm, the Walt Disney Co., paid $16 million to settle Trump’s go well with over misstatements by anchor George Stephanopoulos.

CBS’s mum or dad firm, Paramount International, paid the same to settle Trump’s go well with over objections to how the community edited an interview final yr with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent within the presidential election. Paramount International was searching for regulatory approval of its sale to Skydance Media on the time, which it quickly secured.

Most lately, Trump has sued the Wall Avenue Journal for reporting he had despatched a bawdy and sexually suggestive birthday message twenty years in the past to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein died in jail whereas dealing with intercourse trafficking expenses involving minors. The Journal – which is owned by Trump’s political ally, Rupert Murdoch – has promised to battle the go well with in courtroom. It subsequently revealed a duplicate of the signed be aware, which Trump says is a faux.

The Trump administration has used its regulatory powers to wrest concessions from tv networks. It has blocked mainstream media entry to coverage at the White House and the Pentagon. And, it has satisfied the Republican-led Congress to claw back all federal funding for public media – that is $1.1 billion over the subsequent two years that Congress permitted earlier within the yr and Trump had signed into legislation.

The lawsuit names veteran investigative reporters Suzanne Craig, Russ Buettner and Michael S. Schmidt and the paper’s chief White Home correspondent, Peter Baker. Trump can be suing Penguin Random Home for printing a e book by Craig and Buettner in September 2024 about Trump’s monetary rise, constructing on their reporting for the paper. They steered Trump dedicated an enormous tax fraud on his inheritance from his father, denied relations cash they had been due, and structured his enterprise fraudulently to keep away from taxes.

Trump’s go well with was filed the identical day that his vp and senior administration officers appeared on the podcast of the late Charlie Kirk to pay tribute to their good friend. They swore vengeance towards these on the left they blamed for fostering the divisive setting during which the conservative activist was killed.

Photographs of President Trump and former President Theodore Roosevelt are displayed on the facet of the U.S. Division of Labor on August 25, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Kevin Dietsch/Getty Photographs/Getty Photographs North America

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Kevin Dietsch/Getty Photographs/Getty Photographs North America

Former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt seems to have been the final president to have sued somebody for defamation. He filed go well with over a report by the writer of a small Michigan weekly newspaper that he had been intoxicated repeatedly throughout his unsuccessful third-party run for a 3rd time period in workplace.

In response to a 2023 account in the Washington Post, the writer was moved by a parade of witnesses who attested that Roosevelt, although boisterous, solely drank modestly; on the stand, the newspaperman withdrew his claims.

“In view of the assertion by the defendant,” Roosevelt mentioned, “I shall ask the courtroom to instruct the jury that I need solely nominal damages. I didn’t go into this go well with for cash. I didn’t go into it with any vindictive objective. I’ve achieved my objective, and I’m content material.”