Trump’s $475 million defamation suit against CNN is dismissed by a judge

A federal judge dismissed a $475 million defamation lawsuit filed by former US President Donald J. Trump against CNN. The judge said that all of the CNN statements referenced by Trump were opinions and so Trump could not sue for defamation.

Trump filed the action in the U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in October. According to the lawsuit, the network’s usage of the phrase “the big lie” in regard to Trump’s efforts to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election amounted to equating him to Adolf Hitler and Nazism.

In dismissing the suit on 30th July 2023, Judge Raag Singhal, who was nominated to the District Court by Trump in 2019, stated that CNN’s use of the phrase 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.”

“The Court finds Nazi references in political discourse (made by whichever side’) to be odious and repugnant,” the judge continued. However, bad rhetoric is not defamation if it does not contain inaccurate representations of fact.” Singhal dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, which means Trump cannot bring another action based on the same premise.