Trump files honour and loss lawsuit against the New York Times
Donald Trump will file a $15 billion lawsuit against the New York Times and four of its reporters for a claim for defamation.
Sept. 15 (Reuters) – US President Donald Trump sued the New York Times, four reporters and publisher Penguin Random House on Monday for at least $15 billion, claiming defamation and liberal damages and cited reputational damages, a Florida court filed.
Trump’s lawsuit cites a series of New York Times articles. One is an editorial before the 2024 presidential election, which he said was not suitable for inauguration, and is a 2024 book titled “Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump wasted his father’s fortune and created an illusion of success.”
“The defendant maliciously published the books and articles he knew that these publications were filled with abominable distortions and forgery about President Trump,” according to a filing filed in the U.S. District Court in Central Florida.
The New York Times and the Penguins did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside of normal business hours.
The publication has damaged Trump’s business and personal reputation, thereby causing significant economic damage to his brand value and significant damage to his future financial outlook, Trump’s lawyers said in his filing.
“The harm to the value of TMTG (Trump Media and Technology Group) stock is an example of how the defendant’s delinquent losses have injured President Trump,” his lawyer said, citing “a sharp decline in stock prices.”
TMTG stocks are spurring concerns about the end of the so-called lock-up period associated with the stock market debut in March.
The submission comes after Trump threatened last week to sue the New York Times with a report on similar sexually suggestive notes and pictures given to Jeffrey Epstein.
Epstein, a dishonest financial operator and sex offender, died in 2019 after committing suicide in a New York prison.
Trump says he broke up with Epstein in 2006 before the investor legal issues were made public.
“Today, I am proud to bring about a $15 billion defamation and lib loss lawsuit against the New York Times,” Trump said Monday in a post on the Truth Social of his social media platform.
In his post, Trump has made America great again, accusing him of lying about ideologies such as his family, his businesses, and Republican-led movements and the America First movement.
During his second term, Trump intensified crackdown on media companies. Earlier this year, he sued the Wall Street Journal and its owner for at least $10 billion over a newspaper report that his name was Epstein’s 2003 birthday greeting.
In July, CBS parent company Paramount agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by Trump, claiming that the CBS news program “60 Minutes” had miscompiled an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris that the network aired in October.
(Reporting by Gursimran Kaur and Shivani Tanna of Bengaluru, edited by Kim Coghill, Clarence Fernandez and Michael Perry)
(This story has been updated to include a video.)
