(National Review) Former president Donald Trump filed a defamation lawsuit against CNN on Monday, seeking over $475 million in damages.
According to the lawsuit, the media company has used “its massive influence — purportedly as a ‘trusted’ news source — to defame the Plaintiff in the minds of its viewers and readers for the purpose of defeating him politically.” Trump also claims that CNN’s negative coverage contributed to his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
Trump had announced his intent to take legal action against CNN for its allegedly defamatory descriptions of him in July.
“The Plaintiff requests compensatory damages in an amount in excess of the $75,000.00 jurisdictional limit, as to be determined at trial, and punitive damages in the amount of $475,000,000.00,” the filing reads.
Included among the allegedly “scandalous, false, and defamatory labels” that CNN has used in its discussions of Trump are “racist,” “Russian lackey,” “insurrectionist,” and “Hitler,” per the former president’s legal team. To meet the burden of proof in a defamation case, Trump’s legal team must demonstrate that CNN journalists and hosts made statements that were false, circulated those statements to third parties, and did so out of malice or negligence.
One example highlighted by the filing was a “Special Report” on “The Fight to Save Democracy” anchored by CNN anchor Fareed Zakaria in January 2022. Trump claims that the segment inappropriately portrayed his refusal to accept the 2020 election results as similar to tactics employed by Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party.
The filing asserts that “the report goes on to discuss the Plaintiff’s challenge to election integrity in the 2020 presidential election and that democracy is under attack—not because of potential fraud in the election process but because the Plaintiff questioned the election results.”
