Trump Files $15 Billion Lawsuit Against New York Times (4)

President Donald Trump filed a $15 billion defamation suit against The New York Times Co. and Penguin Random House LLC, accusing the paper of serving as a “mouthpiece” for the Democrats and pitting himself against one of the world’s oldest and most prominent news organizations.

The suit claims Trump’s reputation was harmed by the 2024 book Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success and by three Times articles that were published in the runup to the 2024 election.

In the complaint, filed Monday in federal court in Tampa, Florida, Trump claims the book and articles are part of a “decades-long pattern by the New York Times of intentional and malicious defamation” against him. The suit raises numerous disputes with the Times, including its “deranged” front-page endorsement of former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, that are not included in his legal claims.

The New York Times said in a statement that the lawsuit “has no merit.”

“It lacks any legitimate legal claims and instead is an attempt to stifle and discourage independent reporting,” a spokesperson for the Times said Tuesday. “The New York Times will not be deterred by intimidation tactics.”

Penguin Random House, which published the book, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a Truth Social post announcing the suit, Trump accused the paper of a “decades long method of lying about your Favorite President (ME!), my family, business, the America First Movement, MAGA, and our Nation as a whole.”

Trump is seeking $15 billion to compensate him for damages including to his “one-of-a-kind, unprecedented personal brand,” the value of which which he estimates as more than $100 billion. He’s also seeking unspecified punitive damages.

“Defendants simply ignored their breach of journalistic ethics because the Book and the Articles would further the goals of the New York Times and its backers in the Democrat Party,” he said in the suit.

In addition to the Times and Penguin, defendants include reporters Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner, who are the authors of Lucky Loser, as well as reporters Peter Baker and Michael S. Schmidt.

The filing describes the Times editorial approach as “one of industrial-scale defamation and libel against political opponents.”

Media Lawsuits

The case adds to Trump’s running battles with the press. In July, he sued Dow Jones & Co., News Corp. and Rupert Murdoch for libel, seeking $10 billion in damages after the Wall Street Journal published a story alleging that Trump once sent a suggestive birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein. House Democrats later released the alleged birthday note as part of a trove of documents received by the House Oversight Committee.

Trump reached a settlement with Paramount Global in July over a lawsuit tied to CBS news network’s 60 Minutes interview with then-Vice President Harris. In December, ABC agreed to give $15 million to Trump’s future presidential foundation or museum to resolve a separate defamation claim.

He cited his success in the ABC lawsuit in remarks at the White House Tuesday, before leaving on a trip to the United Kingdom.

“Look we want everything to be fair, it hasn’t been fair,” Trump said. “The radical left has done tremendous damage to the country, but we’re fixing it.”

But Trump has also faced setbacks, including a Manhattan judge’s dismissal of his suit against journalist Bob Woodward and a publishing house over the release of interview recordings from his first term in office.

In 2009, when Trump was still a real estate developer, he lost his bid for $5 billion in libel damages from Timothy O’Brien, who was an editor at the Times and published a 2005 book questioning Trump’s billionaire status. O’Brien now oversees opinion columns for Bloomberg News.

‘Powerful People to Account’

After Trump criticized Times reporters in March, the newspaper said Trump’s approach has “never caused us to back down from our mission of holding powerful people to account, regardless of which party is in office,” it said at the time in a post on X.

Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger said in May that the paper will cover the Trump administration “fully and fairly, regardless of what attacks it sends our way.”

Trump has a history of suing the media over unfavorable coverage. Under the 1964 Supreme Court case New York Times v. Sullivan, public figures such as Trump have a higher burden to prove libel: That the defendant knew that the statement was false or was reckless. Trump and other conservative activists have urged the Supreme Court to reconsider that decision.

Trump referenced the Paramount and ABC settlements in his social-media post, claiming “longterm INTENT and pattern of abuse, which is both unacceptable and illegal.”

“The New York Times has been allowed to freely lie, smear, and defame me for far too long, and that stops, NOW!” Trump said.

The case is Trump v. New York Times Company, 8:25-cv-02487, U.S. District Court, Middle District of Florida (Tampa).

(Updates with Trump quote at White House in 15th paragraph.)

--With assistance from Mark Anderson.

To contact the reporters on this story:
Alastair Gale in Tokyo at agale27@bloomberg.net;
Bob Van Voris in federal court in Manhattan at rvanvoris@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Jasmine Ng at jng299@bloomberg.net

Peter Blumberg, Anthony Aarons

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