{"id":6848,"date":"2025-10-17T20:06:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T20:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/6848\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T20:06:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T20:06:19","slug":"trump-refiles-15b-lawsuit-against-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/6848\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump refiles $15B lawsuit against New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Trump has refiled his $15 billion defamation lawsuit against the New York Times <\/a>\u2014 one month after a federal judge threw out his original 85-page complaint for being too long and \u201cimproper.\u201d<\/p>\n

The amended 40-page filing, submitted Thursday in Florida\u2019s Middle District court<\/a>, renews Trump\u2019s claims that the paper and its reporters defamed him in coverage of his business career and his reality TV years.<\/p>\n

The suit also targets Penguin Random House<\/a>, which published the book \u201cLucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father\u2019s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success\u201d<\/a> by Times journalists Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s refiling follows a Sept. 19 order<\/a> from US District Judge Steven Merryday, who dismissed the initial version as \u201cdecidedly improper and impermissible.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Trump has refiled his $15 billion defamation lawsuit against the New York Times. REUTERS<\/p>\n

Merryday ruled that the 85-page document violated Rule 8 of federal civil procedure, which requires a \u201cshort and plain statement\u201d of the claim.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cAlleging only two simple counts of defamation, the complaint consumes 85 pages,\u201d Merryday wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven under the most generous and lenient application of rule 8, the complaint is decidedly improper and impermissible.\u201d<\/p>\n

He criticized the original filing for \u201cmany, often repetitive, and laudatory (toward President Trump) but superfluous allegations,\u201d adding that \u201ca complaint remains an improper and impermissible place for the tedious and burdensome aggregation of prospective evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new complaint trims the excess but keeps the scope. Trump again seeks $15 billion in compensatory damages plus punitive damages, according to the filing.<\/p>\n

The case stems from a series of Times reports published in 2024, along with the \u201cLucky Loser\u201d book, which examined Trump\u2019s finances and his family\u2019s real estate empire. <\/p>\n

The amended 40-page filing, submitted Thursday in Florida\u2019s Middle District court, renews Trump\u2019s claims that the paper and its reporters defamed him in coverage of his business career and his reality TV years. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The reporting detailed alleged tax avoidance schemes <\/a>by Trump\u2019s father, Fred C. Trump, and described the president\u2019s rise through the television show \u201cThe Apprentice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s lawyers argue those accounts falsely portrayed him as a creation of Hollywood producers rather than a self-made businessman. <\/p>\n

The new filing lists dozens of allegedly defamatory statements and descriptions pulled from the Times\u2019 coverage and the book.<\/p>\n

The amended version still names Craig, Buettner and Times White House correspondent Peter Baker as defendants, but drops reporter Michael S. Schmidt, who had been included in the first filing.<\/p>\n

Trump first announced the lawsuit on Truth Social<\/a> on Sept. 15, calling the Times \u201cone of the worst and most degenerate newspapers in the nation\u2019s history.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe New York Times has been allowed to freely lie, smear, and defame me for far too long, and that stops, NOW!\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

The original complaint accuses the Times and its reporters of running a \u201cfact-free narrative\u201d about his career, alleging \u201creputational injury\u201d worth billions of dollars.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we said when this was first filed and again after the judge\u2019s ruling to strike it: this lawsuit has no merit,\u201d the Times said in a statement on Thursday. <\/a><\/p>\n

The suit also targets Penguin Random House, which published the book \u201cLucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father\u2019s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success\u201d by Times journalists Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner. Penguin Press<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing has changed today. This is merely an attempt to stifle independent reporting and generate PR attention, but The New York Times will not be deterred by intimidation tactics.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Post has sought comment from Random House.<\/p>\n

The defamation suit is the latest in a string of Trump-led legal actions against major media outlets. He previously reached multimillion-dollar settlements with ABC News and CBS News following separate defamation and \u201celection interference\u201d claims.<\/p>\n

Trump has also sued the Wall Street Journal<\/a> and its owner, media executive Rupert Murdoch, over coverage linking him to financier Jeffrey Epstein. <\/a><\/p>\n

Murdoch is chair emeritus of The Post\u2019s parent company<\/a>, News Corp.<\/p>\n

Peter Baker, a White House correspondent for the Times, is named in the suit. Paul Morigi\/NBC via Getty Images<\/p>\n

In 2023, Trump\u2019s social media company filed a complaint against the Washington Post.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Times\u2019 coverage of Trump\u2019s finances has been a repeated flashpoint. The paper won a Pulitzer Prize in 2019 for its earlier reporting<\/a> on Trump family tax practices \u2014 work led by the same reporters now named in the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

Legal experts say Trump faces long odds in his latest case. <\/p>\n

The Post has sought comment from the White House and the Times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Trump has refiled his $15 billion defamation lawsuit against the New York Times \u2014 one month after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[153,2850,1208,9,11,10,980],"class_list":{"0":"post-6848","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-lawsuits","10":"tag-media","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-news","14":"tag-new-york-times"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}