Trump slaps New York Times with $15B defamation suit

President Donald Trump on Monday filed a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times, four of its reporters, and the Penguin Random House publishing company. The defendants published several articles and a book that included what Trump called defamatory statements intended to undermine his business, personal, and political reputation. Trump asked a Florida federal court to award him $15 billion in damages.

In a Monday post about the lawsuit, Trump accused the Times of acting as a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party and engaging in a long-term pattern of lies about him. He took particular issue with the paper’s front-page endorsement of Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, he said. Trump’s filed lawsuit argued that the endorsement editorial defamed him by stating that he would dismantle American norms and institutions.

How did The New York Times respond? The lawsuit had no merit and was an attempt to stifle independent reporting, its leadership wrote in a Tuesday statement. A Penguin Random House spokesperson told Reuters the lawsuit was meritless.

Dig deeper: Read my report on Paramount’s $16 million settlement with Trump over an edited Kamala Harris interview.