Trump accuses The New York Times of engaging in a decades-long campaign of "lying" about him, his business, family, and the MAGA movement.
"Today, I have the Great Honor of bringing a $15 Billion Dollar Defamation and Libel Lawsuit against ... one of the worst and most degenerate newspapers in the History of our Country, becoming a virtual 'mouthpiece' for the Radical Left Democrat Party. I view it as the single largest illegal Campaign contribution, EVER," he wrote on Truth Social Monday.
"Their Endorsement of Kamala Harris was actually put dead center on the front page of The New York Times, something heretofore UNHEARD OF!"
Pointing out he is not a lawyer, Tim Graham of Media Research Center asserts the paper has a liberal bias, but he does not know if there is $15 billion in damages on this.
"It's certainly true that The New York Times has a great animus against Trump, that it has very much tried to suggest that Trump's businesses are scams, that he's a tax evader," Graham observes. "Any sort of negative spin they can get going, they have tried to do."
The lawsuit claims Trump had to overcome "persistent election interference from the legacy media," that was led by The Times.
The president rump has previously sued The Wall Street Journal, CBS News, ABC News, and Gannett. The Wall Street Journal and Gannett cases are still in the courts; CBS and ABC settled out of court – the former to pave the way for a merger and the latter, Graham says, to keep the courts from opening up their private conversations.
"ABC and CBS didn't want people going through their dirty laundry, the kind of emails they were sending each other," he summarizes.
The lawsuits have also effectively tarnished the news outlets.
"Trump has done a bunch of these lawsuits, in a sense calling out these news outlets as a way to undercut their credibility, whatever credibility they still might have left," says Graham.
The New York Times released a statement Tuesday calling the lawsuit meritless and an intimidation tactic.
