Donald Trump’s claim of defamation against the BBC is weak in pure legal terms and will likely receive short shrift from US courts. Its real purpose appears to be part of a bigger plan to harass and intimidate media organisations. Some have capitulated, but refusing to be cowed by Trump shows that resisting has some value.
We saw in the first article in this series that Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the BBC for defamation is extremely weak, legally speaking. Could Florida courts really bend to Trump’s will, even if the law is so patently not on his side? Why have other media organisations paid out to Trump? What happens when individuals and organisations stand up to Trump’s legal bullying?
Can Trump’s defamation suits succeed?
One fear expressed is that US courts are stacked and will invariably find in Trump’s favour. This is unfair to the US justice system which, with the possible exception of the Supreme Court, has been resilient in standing up to Trump. Even the Supreme Court has recently ruled against Trump or expressed deep scepticism towards his legal arguments on significant issues: sending the National Guard into US cities, the legality of tariffs and his power to unilaterally impose them, and immigration policy – the last of these by upholding a lower court’s ruling directing the Trump government to repatriate a Salvadorian man illegally deported in March 2025. US pro-democracy activists estimated that Trump had lost 96% of his cases before lower courts as of May 2025.
Trump vNew York Times – ‘improper and impermissible’
In September 2025, Trump filed suit (in Tampa, Florida) against the New York Times, publishers Penguin Random House and individual authors. The claim was for defamation (again) during the 2024 election, after the newspaper published articles querying Trump’s past claims of success in respect of the TV showThe Apprentice and endorsed Trump’s rival Kamala Harris. The damages sought were $15 billion plus any other damages the court might see fit to award.
The case was assigned to Judge Steven Douglas Merryday, a George HW Bush appointee. Four days after the filing Merryday threw out Trump’s complaint, observing that Trump’s 85 page complaint was in large part political grandstanding that was “tedious and burdensome” and “often repetitive”.
“A complaint is not a public forum for vituperation and invective,” observed Merryday, before striking the complaint under Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which requires that a lawsuit must include “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief”.
Merryday noted that the claim for relief did not appear until page 80 of an 85-page document, with the rest being self-congratulatory overviews of Trump’s business career and presidential election victory. Trump was granted leave to file an amended complaint, no more than 40 pages long, which he did in October 2025. The case remains pending, with the newspaper having denied the allegations and filing motions for transfer to New York courts as well as dismissal for lack of actual malice.
Trump v Cohen and Trump v Pulitzer Prize Board – the respondents fight back
Michael Cohen was once Trump’s personal lawyer and ‘fixer’, where one of his actions was to pay hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels at Trump’s behest. Trump later falsified his business records to record this payment as being for Cohen’s legal services; this was the cause of Trump’s conviction for 34 felony counts in New York state court. Cohen’s evidence against Trump was key to securing the guilty verdict.
Trump subsequently sued Cohen in Florida (again) for defamation (again) and breach of confidence. Cohen fought back, compelling Trump to testify under oath. Trump voluntarily dismissed the case rather than give evidence. As non-profit US news organisation WhoWhatWhy noted: “Known for excessively lying and making unsubstantiated boasts, Trump could place himself in additional legal peril by being questioned under oath. Any lawyers representing him know that they should try to avoid putting him on the witness stand or allowing him to be deposed.”
Trump has also sued the Pulitzer Prize Board (in Florida, again, for defamation, again) for bestowing awards on the New York Times and The Washington Post for their reports on allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 US election (that Trump won). In Trump’s view, the awards should have been rescinded since the Russia scandal was a “hoax”. Pulitzer commissioned two independent reviews which concluded that the awards were entirely justified and had not been “discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes”. Trump still sued but the Board fought back. It has demanded Trump turn over his medical and tax records in order to justify his claims for emotional and financial harm. Watch for Trump dismissing this suit rather than producing this information.
Other media organisations sued by Trump
In March 2024, Trump sued US network ABC (in Florida, for defamation, again) over an interview which George Stephanopoulos did with Congresswoman Nancy Mace (R, South Carolina). The host repeatedly claimed that a jury found Trump (civilly) liable for rape when Trump was sued by author E Jean Carroll.
ABC had a solid defence against Trump (as per Masson vNew Yorker) because Trump’s claim for defamation rested purely on the narrow New York law (where Carroll had sued Trump) definition of rape. Trump argued that he was only found liable for sexual assault of Carroll and was thus defamed. ABC ultimately settled Trump’s suit for US$15 million in December 2024, most likely because ABC’s owner Disney Corp had noticed the direction of the political winds in the US since Trump’s election win.
Trump also sued CBS, this time in Texas in October 2024, for $10 billion (later increased to $20 billion), over what he claimed was deceptive editing of a 60 Minutes interview that CBS ran with his election opponent Kamala Harris. Specifically, Trump complained that Harris gave two different answers to questions about the Israel-Hamas conflict posed by host Bill Whitaker. Trump alleged that the manner of CBS’s editing of Harris’s responses breached the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices – Consumer Protection Act, which forbids the use of false, misleading or deceptive acts in commerce (emphasis mine).
Needless to say, CBS’s actions were not “in commerce” and after calling the suit “an affront to the First Amendment” and challenging another very tenuous link to Trump’s chosen venue (i.e. Texas), CBS ultimately settled with Trump for $16 million in July 2025. As in the ABC settlement, this sum was donated to Trump’s future presidential library rather than to him personally. The settlement was condemned by US free speech campaigners and was seen as a payoff to Trump’s administration aimed at getting regulatory approval for a proposed merger between CBS owner Paramount and Skydance Media.
Trump’s motivation for suing
Trump has been described as “a bully and a fraud” and he has participated in over 4,000 lawsuits during the course of his life. If success is to be taken as victory in court, few of his lawsuits have been successful. However, as a judge wrote in his order dismissing a frivolous case filed by Trump against Hillary Clinton: “Mr. Trump is a prolific and sophisticated litigant who is repeatedly using the courts to seek revenge on political adversaries … He is the mastermind of strategic abuse of the judicial process, and he cannot be seen as a litigant blindly following the advice of a lawyer.”
WhoWhatWhy observed in 2023 that “[i]n many cases, [Trump’s litigation] worked when these opponents did not have the means to fight back or stood little to gain from doing so. However, as Trump is finding out now, that tactic doesn’t work when he is up against the federal or state governments … or when his opponent is his former personal lawyer who is well aware of how the former president operates.”
Speaking to CNN, Bob Corn-Revere, chief counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said that the BBC suit “does not have any legal basis, either on defamation or jurisdictional grounds. This is nothing more than the president’s latest effort to intimidate media companies that he sees as adversarial to his administration.”Trump’s goal is possibly to deter media scrutiny of his abuse of the law. US media giants have caved to his pressure, being more directly exposed to the consequences of resisting him. The BBC has both an excellent legal defence against Trump and is less vulnerable to pressure from the US government. As we have seen, once defendants stand up to him, Trump Always Chickens Out. In January 2026, the BBC filed a motion to pause discovery in Trump’s suit pending their lawyers moving to dismiss the case.
Friends of Bylines Network
There has never been a greater need for grassroots journalism that investigates the stories that really matter, holds power to account and champions the voices of everyday citizens. We are proudly powered by volunteers but what we do isn’t free.
STAND WITH US for independent, citizen-led journalism that makes democracy stronger, and you will even get some exclusive benefits.
