On Monday, Donald Trumpโformer president and the biggest Karen of them allโsued CNN according to The Washington Post. He is accusing the network of defamation and asking for $475 million in punitive damages. The lawsuit, which is 29 pages long, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
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It accuses CNN of executing a โcampaign of dissuasion in the form of libel and slanderโ that has โescalated in recent monthsโ because the network believed that Trump would once again run for president. The lawsuit also calls out CNN for using words like โracistโ and โinsurrectionistโ to describe Trump.
This isnโt the first time Trump has directly taken on the media, though his efforts proved unfruitful. His campaign sued both the New York Times as well as The Washington Post for libel. The pieces under fire were opinion articles that connected the campaign to Russian electoral interference.
The suit against the New York Times was dismissed while the lawsuit against The Washington Post is forthcoming. In addition, Trumpโs campaign filed a separate libel suit against CNN in 2020 over an opinion piece. It was ultimately dismissed. Trumpโs legal team cites various examples of defamation from CNNโincluding specific clips and articles.
One of them includes a 2019 interview with singer Linda Ronstadt, who juxtaposed certain parts of Trumpโs presidency to Nazis in Germany. The attorneys said that Ronstadt โis a singer, not a historian.โ Trumpโs lawyers also labeled the interview a โpretext to repeat CNNโs message under the guise of real โreporting.โโ
CNN isnโt the first network, nor the last, to call out Trump on his dangerous antics. Although the lawsuit is most likely to be dismissed, it still begs the question: the truth hurts, doesnโt it?
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