US President Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against the New York Times, four of its reporters, and publisher Penguin Random House, seeking at least $15 billion. He claims defamation and libel, citing reputational damage, as shown in a Florida court filing.
Trump’s lawsuit references a series of New York Times articles, including an editorial before the 2024 presidential election that declared him unfit for office, and a 2024 book published by Penguin titled “Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success.”
According to the filing lodged on Monday in the US District Court, Middle District Florida, “Defendants maliciously published the Book and the Articles knowing that these publications were filled with repugnant distortions and fabrications about President Trump.”
The New York Times and Penguin did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours.
Trump’s lawyers stated in the filing that the publications have harmed Trump’s business and personal reputation, causing massive economic damage to his brand value and significant damage to his future financial prospects.
“The harm to the value of TMTG (Trump Media and Technology Group) stock is one example of how the Defendants’ defamation has injured President Trump,” said his lawyers, citing “a precipitous decline in the stock price.”
TMTG stock has been under pressure in recent months due to concerns about the end of a so-called lock-up period related to its stock market debut in March.
The filing follows Trump’s threat last week to sue the New York Times for its reporting on an allegedly sexually suggestive note and drawing given to Jeffrey Epstein.
Epstein, the disgraced financier and sex offender, died by suicide in a New York jail cell in 2019.
Trump has stated that he parted ways with Epstein before the financier’s legal troubles became public in 2006.
“Today, I have the Great Honor of bringing a $15 Billion Dollar Defamation and Libel Lawsuit against The New York Times,” Trump announced earlier on Monday in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.
In his post, Trump accused the paper of lying about him, his family, and businesses, as well as Republican-led movements and ideologies such as the America First Movement and Make America Great Again, or MAGA.
During his second term, Trump has intensified his crackdown against media companies. Earlier this year, he sued the Wall Street Journal and its owners, including Rupert Murdoch, for at least $10 billion over the newspaper’s report that his name was on a 2003 birthday greeting for Epstein.
In July, CBS parent company Paramount agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by Trump, alleging that the CBS news program “60 Minutes” deceptively edited an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris that the network broadcast in October.
