Donald Trump is once again taking his fight against the press to the courtroom, this time with a jaw-dropping $15 billion lawsuit against The New York Times—a suit that reads more like a campaign rally rant than a legal complaint.
In a raging post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said the Times “has been allowed to freely lie, smear, and defame me for far too long, and that stops, NOW.” He accuses the newspaper of acting as a “virtual ‘mouthpiece’ for the Radical Left Democrat Party,” and claims it has waged a “decades long method of lying” about him, his family, his business, the MAGA movement, and even the country as a whole.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Tampa, Florida, takes aim at several specific targets: a book by Times reporters, three articles published during the 2024 election cycle, and the paper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris for president — which Trump described as “deranged.”
In typical Trump fashion, he expressed outrage that the Harris endorsement was “actually put dead center on the front page of The New York Times, something heretofore UNHEARD OF!”
The 85-page filing accuses the Times of publishing content “carefully crafted … with actual malice, calculated to inflict maximum damage upon President Trump, and all published during the height of a Presidential Election.”
At the center of the lawsuit is the book Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success, authored by Times reporters Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner. Trump claims the book is “false, malicious, and defamatory.” The suit also names Penguin Random House, the book’s publisher, as a defendant.
In addition, the complaint targets reporting by Peter Baker and Michael Schmidt, along with a preview article of the book written by Craig and Buettner.
According to Trump, these journalists were not just reporting — they were on a mission to politically assassinate him. He insists the content was intentionally damaging and timed to interfere with the 2024 election.
But the Times isn’t backing down.
“This lawsuit is an attempt to stifle and discourage independent reporting,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “It lacks any legitimate legal claims. 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.”
This isn’t Trump’s first attack on the media through the courts. In July, he filed a separate $10 billion lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch over a story exploring his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. He also referenced recent settlements involving CBS News, Paramount, and ABC News in his Truth Social post — signaling he’s ramping up a broader war on major news outlets.
Whether this latest lawsuit actually holds up in court remains to be seen. Legal experts are already questioning its merits, pointing out that defamation suits from public figures have an extremely high bar to clear, especially when it comes to proving actual malice.
But Trump may not care about the legal outcome. This is, after all, classic Trump: make noise, play the victim, attack the press, and rally the base. The lawsuit may not win in court, but in the arena of public spectacle, it’s already doing what he wants.
