Trump’s Legal War Against The Press

President Donald Trump has launched an unprecedented wave of litigation against the press, seeking tens of billions of dollars for claims that no other modern president has even tried to pursue.

And he doesn’t necessarily need to win those cases to get what he wants.

Trump is pressing six lawsuits against news organizations and publishers, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Des Moines Register and CNN. He’s also suing the Pulitzer Prize board over journalism prizes it awarded eight years ago.

Critics say the president’s legal onslaught lacks merit, is an affront to the First Amendment and upends a long American tradition of presidents not turning to the courts to seek financial compensation over news coverage, however hostile.

“He is filing lawsuits against people who are criticizing his performance of his duties as a public official or his qualifications to serve as the president of the United States, and that's the core of what the First Amendment is about,” said Lee Levine, a lawyer who has represented a wide range of news organizations.

These lawsuits can advance Trump’s goals even if he never wins. Litigation is expensive, and Trump himself has acknowledged that saddling his perceived enemies with onerous depositions is part of the point. Knowing the president is willing to rush to court could intimidate smaller outlets into easing up on Trump, experts said.

Large companies can also be intimidated. About a month before Trump was sworn in for a second term, ABC agreed to pay $16 million and issue an apology to settle a defamation lawsuit he had filed. And last July, CBS’s parent company Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit Trump filed over a “60 Minutes” interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris that aired prior to the 2024 election.

“He's not winning these cases,” Levine said. “The problem is that he's figuring out this scheme to use the law as a weapon that kind of cuts the courts out.”

A person close to Trump’s legal team defended his suits and argued he is being “very selective” in filing them, considering the volume and hostility of the news coverage he receives.

“He is … the most talked about person on this planet,” said the Trump ally, who was granted anonymity to discuss pending litigation. “The president, because of the current climate that we live in, has to be a little bit more aggressive in advocating for his rights, because he is under unprecedented attack by his detractors.”

Trump can’t realistically wait to pursue these claims after he leaves office, the person said, because the statute of limitations may have run out by then.

Some of the news outlets Trump has sued have accused him of hypocrisy for pressing those cases despite arguments his lawyers have made that he shouldn’t be subject to litigation while serving as president. In January, his lawyers complained to the Supreme Court that he’s being distracted by defending against other litigation that threatens to “take his focus away from his singular and unique duties as Chief Executive.”

Whatever the optics of suing while complaining about being sued, those on the receiving end of Trump’s lawsuits haven’t fared well in court with arguments that the cases should be put aside until he leaves office.

The real test for that notion will come when Trump faces demands to sit for sworn, possibly videotaped depositions in the array of cases he has filed. The settlement in the ABC case came just days before Trump would have had to sit for afour-hour deposition about the legal claims and underlying allegations. He may soon have to choose between disrupting his presidential duties or giving up on the suits that he filed.

"In these cases, the president will continue to push forward and will not be deterred,” the person close to Trump’s legal team said.

Last month, the president threatened to sue comedian Trevor Noah over a Jeffrey Epstein-related joke Noah told while hosting the Grammy awards.

“It looks like I’ll be sending my lawyers to sue this poor, pathetic, talentless, dope of an M.C., and suing him for plenty$,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Ask Little George Slopadopolus, and others, how that all worked out. Also ask CBS! Get ready Noah, I’m going to have some fun with you!”

A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team declined to comment on when that lawsuit may be forthcoming.

Here are the major media-related suits Trump is pursuing:

Trump v. Wall Street Journal/Murdoch

The Epstein imbroglio provides the fodder for one of Trump’s biggest legal claims against the press: a $20 billion federal lawsuit he filed last July against the Wall Street Journal and News Corp. Chairman Emeritus Rupert Murdoch over the Journal’s report on a note and lewd drawing Trump allegedly sent to Epstein in 2003, on the occasion of his 50th birthday.

Trump has denied writing the letter, calling it a “fake thing.” However, House Democrats released an image of it last year, taken from a book of similar messages Epstein’s friends compiled for his birthday.

News Corp.’s motion to dismiss the case is pending in federal court in Miami.

Trump v. NYT/Penguin Random House

There is perhaps no media target Trump loves to pillory — and occasionally court — more than The New York Times. But his attempt last year to sue the Times for an eye-popping $15 billion stumbled out of the gate.

The original version of the suit, filed in September against the Times and four of its reporters, complained about a slew of Times reporting. Most of the claims Trump disputed involved his business career or acumen, but he also challenged the Times’ assertion that he’d been investigated for potential ties to the mafia. And he objected to the newspaper quoting former White House chief of staff John Kelly saying Trump had made admiring statements about Hitler.

A judge shot down the original complaint within days of its filing, but allowed Trump’s lawyers to refile the lawsuit. Lawyers involved in the case spent about 40 minutes Tuesday wrangling with a magistrate judge over Trump’s requests for more information about the journalists’ reporting.

Trump v. BBC

Trump’s most recent lawsuit against the media targets the venerable British Broadcasting Company over a 2024 documentary that spliced together comments Trump made more than 54 minutes apart during the speech he delivered on Jan. 6, 2021, as his supporters were beginning to clash with police on Capitol Hill.

After Trump threatened to sue, the BBC apologized for the editing, but said any confusion it caused was unintentional and did not amount to defamation. The network also said it had no plans to re-air the documentary in question, which was never released in the U.S.

Trump wasn’t satisfied and sued in federal court in Miami last December, seeking up to $10 billion in damages. Trump and the BBC disclosed this week that they’ve selected a former judge to oversee court-mandated mediation, but that isn’t scheduled to take place until October.

Trump v. Des Moines Register/Selzer

Days before the 2024 presidential election, The Des Moines Register released a shocking poll that found Harris leading Trump in Iowa by three percentage points. Democrats seized on the survey, conducted by veteran pollster Ann Selzer, as evidence of late momentum for Harris. Trump called Selzer “a Trump hater” and denounced the poll as a form of voter “suppression.”

Like Trump’s lawsuit against CBS, the suit against the Register and Selzer was framed as a consumer fraud case, alleging that they deliberately deceived the public. The newspaper and Selzer have denied any intentional deception

Last week, an Iowa judge put discovery in the case on hold until he rules on motions from the Register and Selzer to throw the suit out.

Trump v. The Pulitzer Board

Trump sued members of the Pulitzer Prize board in 2022 over its decision to bestow awards on reporting by The New York Times and Washington Post about allegations of collusion between the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and Russia.

Trump claimed that special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and other reporting “debunked” the newspapers’ work. The case is currently in discovery.

Trump v. Woodward/Simon and Schuster

Trump sued famous Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, publisher Simon and Schuster and media giant Paramount in 2023, seeking almost $50 million. The lawsuit claimed that Woodward violated copyright by publishing, without Trump’s consent, an audio version of his interviews with Trump for a 2020 book about his presidency, “Rage.”

A judge tossed out earlier versions of the suit, but is considering allowing Trump to re-file it.

Trump v. CNN

Trump is attempting to revive a libel suit he filed in 2022, while a private citizen, over CNN’s use of the term “Big Lie” to describe his false claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

A district court judge appointed by Trump, Raag Singhal, threw the case out in 2023. Singhal labeled CNN’s statements about Trump as “repugnant,” but said the comparison to Hitler was fundamentally an opinion and not a factual assertion that could be sued over. A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal. Trump’s lawyers have asked the full 11th Circuit to reconsider.

Editors’ note: The law firm Ballard Spahr represents several media organizations Trump has sued. It also represents POLITICO.