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President Donald Trump’s $15 billion lawsuit against The New York Times has been tossed, for now.
Calling the president’s 85-page lawsuit “decidedly improper and impermissible,” a federal judge in Tampa threw it out on Friday and gave him 28 days to file a new complaint that had to be under 40 pages.
U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday blasted the Trump suit for alleging only two acts of defamation, yet “Count I appears on page eighty, and Count II appears on page eighty-three.” He also criticized the suit’s flowery descriptions about Trump and overly political language, writing a complaint is not a “public forum for vituperation and invective” or a “megaphone for public relations or a podium for a passionate oration at a political rally,” saying its length violated rules of civil procedure that dictate complaints contain a “short and plain statement” of the claim seeking relief.
Trump’s lawsuit filed this week was his latest against a major media organization, following others against ABC News, CBS News and The Wall Street Journal. He accused The New York Times of being a virtual “mouthpiece” for the Democratic Party and making an illegal “campaign contribution” in 2024 to opponent Kamala Harris.
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President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against The New York Times was tossed out on Friday. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
The Times responded that the lawsuit was an intimidation tactic and meritless.
“This lawsuit has no merit,” a spokesperson said. “It lacks any legitimate legal claims and instead is an attempt to stifle and discourage independent reporting. The New York Times will not be deterred by intimidation tactics. We will continue to pursue the facts without fear or favor and stand up for journalists’ First Amendment right to ask questions on behalf of the American people.”
Reached for comment on Friday, a spokesman for Trump’s legal team signaled the lawsuit will proceed.
“President Trump will continue to hold the Fake News accountable through this powerhouse lawsuit against the New York Times, its reporters, and Penguin Random House, in accordance with the judge’s direction on logistics,” the spokesman told Fox News Digital.
Trump’s lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for Florida’s Middle District. The named defendants were the New York Times Company, reporters Susanne Craig, Russ Buettner, Peter Baker and Michael S. Schmidt, and Penguin Random House, which published “Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success,” which was authored by Craig and Buettner.
President Donald Trump accused The New York Times of being a virtual “mouthpiece” for the Democratic Party in his lawsuit. (Getty Images / iStock)
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The suit alleged decades of defamation and libel by the Times over everything from how it reported on “The Apprentice” to its stories claiming he’d engaged in suspect tax maneuvers. It also said its 2024 endorsement of Kamala Harris was “deranged” and placed on the front page, “a location never seen before.”
“The newspaper’s editorial routine is now one of industrial-scale defamation and libel against political opponents. As such, the Times has become a leading, and unapologetic, purveyor of falsehoods against President Trump on the legacy media landscape,” the lawsuit stated.
In the withering ruling tossing the suit, Judge Merryday castigated Trump’s legal team for making readers “labor through” flowery phrases like accusing the Times of a “desperate need to defame with a partisan spear rather than report with an authentic looking glass” and an allegation that “the false narrative about ‘The Apprentice’ was just the tip of Defendants’ melting iceberg of falsehoods.”
He also took exception to the line about “The Apprentice” representing “the cultural magnitude of President Trump’s singular brilliance, which captured the zeitgeist of our time.”
“A complaint is a short, plain, direct statement of allegations of fact sufficient to create a facially plausible claim for relief and sufficient to permit the formulation of an informed response,” the judge wrote. “Although lawyers receive a modicum of expressive latitude in pleading the claim of a client, the complaint in this action extends far beyond the outer bound of that latitude.”
The New York Times building in New York City. (Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
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Merryday concluded by giving the Trump legal team 28 days to amend the complaint.
Fox News Digital reached out to The New York Times and the White House for comment.
Trump has already secured eight-figure settlements over suits he filed against ABC News and CBS News over the past year.
ABC agreed to pay $15 million last December as a charitable contribution to a future presidential museum or foundation to settle Trump’s defamation lawsuit. The suit was prompted by anchor George Stephanopoulos repeatedly saying on the air Trump had previously been held liable for rape, rather than sexual abuse. It also paid $1 million in legal fees.
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Trump also launched an “election interference” lawsuit against CBS over its “60 Minutes” interview of Harris last year, saying its editing decisions amounted to deceiving the public. Ahead of a planned $8 billion merger with Skydance Media, CBS parent company Paramount settled the lawsuit in July to a total that could be upwards of $30 million.