Federal Appeals Court Rejects Trump Effort To Revive $475 Million Defamation Lawsuit Against CNN

President Trump has suffered a setback in his effort to punish media companies for coverage he doesn’t like, as a federal court rejected his attempt to revive his defamation lawsuit against CNN for calling his claims about fraud in the 2020 election the “Big Lie.”In the $475 million lawsuit, originally filed in 2022, Mr. Trump said CNN “has tried to taint the Plaintiff with a series of ever-more scandalous, false, and defamatory labels of ‘racist,’ ‘Russian lackey,’ ‘insurrectionist,’ and ultimately ‘Hitler.’” The complaint listed several examples of CNN allegedly likening him to Adolf Hitler, including a 2022 report from Fareed Zakaria that included footage of the German dictator. A district court judge, Raag Singhal, who was appointed by Mr. Trump, dismissed the complaint in 2023, saying that the references to the “Big Lie” were opinion and not made as factual statements.On Tuesday, the Eleventh Circuit rejected the president’s attempt to revive the lawsuit. The judges ruled that the statements the president alleged were defamatory were opinion and were not “factually false statements.” The court also found that the plaintiff did not “sufficiently plead that CNN acted with actual malice,” the high bar required for public figures to win defamation cases. “To be clear, CNN has never explicitly claimed that Trump’s ‘actions and statements were designed to be, and actually were, variations of those [that] Hitler used to suppress and destroy populations,’” the court said. “But, according to Trump, this assertion is implied in CNN’s use of the phrase ‘Big Lie.’”The judge said Mr. Trump’s argument is “unpersuasive” as he “concedes that CNN’s use of the term ‘Big Lie’ is, to some extent, ambiguous,” but he also “assumes that it is unambiguous enough to constitute a statement of fact.”In a statement, a spokesman for Mr. Trump’s legal team said, “President Trump will continue to hold the mainstream media accountable and will pursue this case against CNN to its just and deserved conclusion.”CNN declined to comment. The Eleventh Circuit’s ruling comes as Mr. Trump is pursuing defamation lawsuits against several other media companies. In July, Mr. Trump sued the Wall Street Journal for $10 billion over a report that his name was on a 2003 birthday card for Jeffrey Epstein. The report said the card included a sketch of a naked woman.The president also sued the New York Times for $15 billion for allegedly publishing defamatory statements about him during the 2024 campaign. His complaint against the Times was initially tossed out by a district court judge, Steven Merryday, who criticized the complaint and said it was “improper and impermissible.” Judge Merryday said lawsuits are not venues for “vituperation and invective.” Mr. Trump refiled an amended lawsuit. Mr. Trump is also expected to file a defamation lawsuit against the British Broadcasting Corporation for up to $5 billion over its editing of his speech on January 6, 2021, which spliced together different portions of his comments and made it appear as though he directed his supporters to engage in violence.The BBC has apologized for the editing, but does not believe that a defamation lawsuit is warranted and says it is “determined to fight” the lawsuit. Last December, Mr. Trump notched a win in his lawsuit against media companies when ABC’s parent company, the Walt Disney Company, agreed to pay $16 million to settle his defamation lawsuit. Mr. Trump filed that lawsuit after a star host, George Stephanopoulos, stated that the president had been “found liable for rape.” In a 2023 civil trial brought by writer E. Jean Carroll, a jury found Mr. Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation, but not for rape under New York civil law. The president also got a win in his lawsuit against CBS over its editing of Vice President Harris’s October 2024 interview with “60 Minutes.” CBS’s parent company, Paramount, paid $16 million to settle that lawsuit in July.

Federal Appeals Court Rejects Trump Effort To Revive $475 Million Defamation Lawsuit Against CNN

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