Trump Sues CNN for Defamation, Seeks $475 Million

Former President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit against CNN on Monday, alleging defamation and seeking $475 million in punitive damages. He is also seeking $75 million in compensatory damages. The lawsuit, filed on Monday in the U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, accuses CNN of having "sought to use its massive influence—purportedly as a 'trusted' news source" to defame Trump "for the purpose of defeating him politically." The effort resulted in CNN claiming credit for "[getting] Trump out" in the 2020 presidential election, attorneys for Trump said in the complaint (pdf). "CNN’s campaign of dissuasion in the form of libel and slander against the Plaintiff has only escalated in recent months as CNN fears the Plaintiff will run for president in 2024," Trump's lawyers added. In the filing, the attorneys said that CNN "has tried to taint [Trump] with a series of ever-more scandalous, false, and defamatory labels of 'racist,' 'Russian lackey,' 'insurrectionist,' and ultimately 'Hitler.'" "CNN has been given the dreaded 'Pants on Fire!' designation by PolitiFact for its stories comparing Trump to Hitler. Still, it persists, requiring the time and expense of filing the instant lawsuit," they wrote, later noting that CNN had "failed and refused to retract or correct the false and defamatory statements." Trump's attorneys noted that there is "no statutory cap on punitive damages" because CNN allegedly had a "specific intent to harm" Trump, and its conduct allegedly did harm him. As such, Trump "may recover in excess of $2 million and in excess of four times his actual damages—the limits that Florida law otherwise would provide." CNN did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The 'Big Lie' The attorneys said that "[o]ne of the most pervasive associations between [Trump] and Hitler that CNN has employed is its use of the term the 'Big Lie' in relation to the Plaintiff’s stated concerns about the integrity of the election process for the 2020 presidential election." "The 'Big Lie' is a direct reference to a tactic employed by Adolf Hitler and appearing in Hitler’s Mein Kampf," they wrote, adding, "The phrase is not taken lightly and is not bandied about blithely. CNN anchors and commentators understand this. They have not used it against other political leaders and previously criticized political analogies to Nazi Germany and to Hitler." "These defamatory statements, which associate [Trump's] character with that of Hitler, are reasonably understood to be statements of fact (as opposed to hyperbole or mere opinion) regarding [Trump] and were reasonably understood by readers and viewers to be statements of fact (and not hyperbole or mere opinion): readers and viewers understood that the Plaintiff would be Hitler-like in any future political role," Trump's lawyers said. "These statements are false and defamatory per se." They added that by publishing the allegedly defamatory statements, CNN "has incited readers and viewers to hate, contempt, distrust, ridicule, and even fear" Trump. "When a public official, or political candidate, is likened to Hitler, it is defamation per se as the statement imputes a characteristic or condition incompatible with the proper exercise of that public office," they said. "CNN published these defamatory statements with actual malice in that they knew the association of the Plaintiff’s character with that of Hitler was false, defamatory, and inflammatory or they published the statements with reckless disregard for their truth or falsity. CNN did so in order to propagate its political views." Trump's attorneys noted in the filing that undercover footage captured of a CNN employee shows that the employee "admitted that CNN’s coverage and negative characterizations of [Trump] were intended to convince viewers to vote him out of political office." Trump had previously signaled in a statement from his Save America committee in late July that he would sue CNN for "their repeated defamatory statements" against him. "I will also be commencing actions against other media outlet