Accusing the news network of allegedly wrecking his reputation and career, former US president Donald Trump filed on Monday a defamation lawsuit against his media arch-nemesis CNN, demanding $475 million in punitive damages.
Trump’s lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida, argues that CNN has allegedly weaponized its reputation as a “reliable source” to destroy his own in the minds of its viewers and readers for the purpose of defeating him politically.
The suit argues that CNN went beyond simply highlighting any negative information about Trump and ignoring all positive information about him, using scandalous labels denouncing him as a racist, Russian lackey, insurrectionist, and Hitler to destroy his image for its audience.
Referring to the standard required for a public figure to claim defamation in the US, Trump claimed that the latter label, at least, rises to the level of actual malice, stressing that even infamously Trump-averse platforms like fact-checker Politifact have blasted CNN over its Hitler comparisons- over 645 of the, per a scan of Westlaw’s news database.
The lawsuit charges that CNN’s audience has irrevocably linked the two as a result of its constant “Trump is Hitler” narrative, which was irrevocably detrimental to Trump’s political career.
It also adds that although Trump hasn’t said yet whether he will run for president again, CNN’s campaign of dissuasion in the form of libel and slander against him has escalated in recent months as the news channel fears he’ll run for president in 2024.
The lawsuit alleges that Trump’s request in July for CNN to retract 34 articles and TV segments he considered defamatory was refused by the news network, which also wouldn’t comply with demands to stop calling “lies.” his claims about the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
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