Federal judge throws out Trump’s $475 million CNN defamation lawsuit
The case centered on the network's use of the phrase "the big lie" to describe Trump's claims to have won the 2020 election
Aux News Hitler
CNN has had a rough go of it of late, exemplified in the very brief tenure of recently ousted CEO Chris Licht, who was put in the job (and then un-put from it shortly after) by Warner Bros. Discovery head David Zaslav. But the 24-hour news network has racked up at least one win this week, as a federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit from Donald Trump, which claimed defamation against him by the channel.
Per Deadline, the Trump lawsuit was focused primarily on the phrase “the Big Lie,” which several CNN correspondents used to describe Trump’s contention that he’d actually won the 2020 election. Given that the phrase “Big lie” in politics is most closely associated with Nazi propaganda head Joseph Goebbels, the Trump camp sued on the grounds that CNN was covertly calling them all Nazis. Trump’s suit also highlighted other times people on CNN actually just literally compared him to Hitler, which we would not necessarily want to have entered into the legal record in such a public way, but to each their own.
U.S. District Judge Raag Singhal—a Trump appointee, as it happens—shot that reasoning down, arguing, essentially, that, in modern discourse, drawing Hitler allusions isn’t the same as stating you think someone is an actual, literal Nazi. Or, to put it in Singhal’s words, while he finds “Nazi references in the political discourse (made by whichever ‘side’) to be odious and repugnant…bad rhetoric is not defamation when it does not include false statements of fact. CNN’s use of the phrase ‘the Big Lie’ in connection with Trump’s election challenges does not give rise to a plausible inference that Trump advocates the persecution and genocide of Jews or any other group of people. No reasonable viewer could (or should) plausibly make that reference.” And while we’d argue that the definition of “reasonable viewer” has gotten pretty damn scary over the last few years, it’s at least nice to know Trump won’t be getting any of the $475 million he sued for here.
(Singhal did get in some complaining of his own, though, taking time out of his decision to gripe at length about the media’s coverage of the Supreme Court’s recent tackling of Affirmative Action, before resignedly writing “This is the news model of today.”)
32 Comments
Good. With public confidence in the courts as low as they are these days, the best thing any Trump-appointed judge can do is… their job.
IANAL, but it might be a literal impossibility to defame Donald Trump.
I agree that you anal.
I SEEN IT!
“Your honor, we argue that calling our client ‘a middleweight intellectual’ is pure defamation. Anyone can see he is an absolute dunderhead. This harms his brand immesurably.”
“This harms his brand immesurably.” Nice Trump impression.
Hm… if someone depended on their reputation as a bad person, could saying nice things about them be defamation?
Reality has already beaten us all to it.
I thought Trump’s father was a NAZI, or at least KKK?
“No reasonable viewer could (or should) plausibly make that reference.”
He was accused of being Nazi but it was never proven. As for the KKK he was arrested after a rally in Jamaica in Queens NY turned violent. Since he lived in the neighborhood at the time it is impossible to know whether he was with the Klan or just a bystander that got caught up in the whole thing.
There’s no real proof that he was a member of a Nazi party although his father allegedly had connections with the KKK. His father was a racist and he and his son were accused of housing discrimiation in 1973.
They settled to avoid being officially called racist.
Trump is a Nazi.Come at me, Fanta Menace.
We really need to stop saying this kinda shit because even though we are talking about terrible people there is no need to insult them with the comparison. After all, the Nazis were at least classy mass murdering assholes. And say what you will about Hitler but the man did kill Hitler. Trumps only taking out Trump slowly, one Big Mac at a time. Editors note: I don’t like Nazi, I’m just being silly.
Trump doesn’t have good enough fashion sense to be a Nazi. Those evil motherfuckers could dress.
I’m sure he owns some shitty Hugo Boss suits.
Great. More reason to hate tRump. He just made me root for a major fucking studio.
Look at it this way, he lost a lot of money in legal fees to bring this to court in the first place. That is, if he makes good and actually pays the lawyers.
Gods, the size of the retainer I’d insist on in order to represent him would have to be HUGE.
The Trumps have a long history of spending vast amounts of money on grudges. From an economic point of view it is sheer madness, but we know who we’re dealing with here. In any case, the money will just go to more rich people. Everyone wins since Trump will continue to fleece the dumb people he despises the most.
It would be biggest, most beautiful retainer ever seen!
The amount of use I’ve gotten out of this image…
I mean, this is definitely a good thing, but I so hate that this is an article on AV Club.Also, I never really thought about it, but it is truly horrifying that Zashole has sway on a major news outlet.
The Club claimed a while ago they were going to stop reporting on Trump. I guess that fell by the wayside.
Given how often Republicans praise things Hitler said or did, I don’t think they have any grounds to complain when someone uses Nazi terminology to describe their tactics.
So what you’re saying is that Faux News actively praising Nazis via Gutlessfield’s comparisons is praising Nazis? Defamation suit incoming saying that openly praising isn’t the same as openly praising!
“Trump is not a Nazi. A fascist, yes, but that’s such a broad church. There are all sorts of fascists who aren’t Nazis. Open up your minds, people.”
Trump is not a Nazi. He may be a liar, a pig, an idiot, a Nazi, but he is NOT a porn star!
I just wish that Trump gets fined for every frivolous lawsuit he files.
this ruling aside, the US is going to pay for price for allowing Trump to be elected through his packing of the courts with an insane amount of incredible horrible people as judges