Donald Trump is ready to enter a legal battle with CNN. According to Deadline, the former president filed a defamation lawsuit against the news outlet on Monday. He is seeking $475 million in damages.
According to the lawsuit, Trump states CNN worked to “defame the Plaintiff in the minds of its viewers and readers for the purpose of defeating him politically.”
In the suit, Trump targets CNN and their anchos for the “Big Lie,” which is the unfounded claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. In the suit, Trump states that the news painted him in the same light as Adolf Hitler.
“CNN’s highly defamatory and persistent association of the Plaintiff to Hitler and Hitler’s ‘Big Lie’ is no mistaken misappropriation,” Trump’s attorneys write. “It is wanton and malicious ‘reporting’ intended to feed a narrative and to achieve a desired end: to cause readers and viewers to associate the Plaintiff with the lowest of low, to fear him, to not vote for him, and to support campaigns against him. The inflammatory ‘reporting’ is not intended to help discover truth or actual facts or to help educate readers and viewers to come to their own informed decisions. It is intended to aggravate, scare, and trigger people. Indeed, the Hitler characterization is one that courts across jurisdictions have historically considered defamation per se.”
The lawsuit also states CNN’s efforts will once again ramp up as a possible second presidential run by Trump is likely for 2024.
