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10. MaddowBlog-Why Trump's new civil suit against The New York Times is so bizarre
Tue Sep 16, 2025, 02:12 PM
Yesterday

Americans have never had a president who, while in office, sued independent news organizations for publishing reports the White House disapproved of.

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-new-york-times-lawsuit-rcna231651

About a week ago, for reasons that were not altogether clear, Donald Trump threatened to sue The New York Times. Evidently, the president wasn’t kidding. NBC News reported:

President Donald Trump on Monday filed a federal defamation lawsuit against the New York Times, four of its reporters and Penguin Random House over coverage of his 2024 campaign. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, which covers the area where Trump resides outside the White House, accused the newspaper of attempting to ruin his reputation as a businessman, sink his campaign and prejudice judges and juries against him in coverage of his campaign.


......Right off the bat, it’s important to note that describing the court filing as a “lawsuit” is itself generous. As writer Jesse Berney summarized, the lawsuit is “like an 85-page Trump Truth Social post. It’s hilarious.”

That characterization is more than fair. Reading it, I felt a little embarrassed for the lawyers who were responsible for producing it, especially after seeing random Trump-related images that seemed to have been included in this dreadfully silly document for no apparent reason.

There’s no reason to think the case will succeed. For that matter, Trump’s attorneys should hope they avoid sanctions for having filed such an absurdity in the first place......

The volume of cases might make it seem as if this has become routine, but the broader circumstances remain bizarre: Americans have never had a president who, while in office, sued independent news organizations for publishing reports the White House disapproved of.

And yet, Trump can’t seem to stop suing independent news organizations for publishing reports the White House disapproves of.

This lawsuit is truly bizarre and the lawyers involved should be sanctioned or disbarred. Again, one of the firms is based in Houston and no one at my firm has heard of them.

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