Welcome to Stop the Presses, a weekly newsletter about how right-wing extremism has exploited the weaknesses in American journalism and what we can do about it. Trump pollutes our courts to punish the pressIf major media surrender to legal intimidation, we’re all losers.
Republicans have long criticized “frivolous lawsuits” and outsized monetary awards as unfair hindrances to commerce. Many were incensed, for example, in 1994, when a New Mexico woman who spilled McDonald’s coffee in her lap sued and won nearly $3 million. The amount was reduced on appeal, but the case remained a rallying cry in the battle for “tort reform.” Two years after the coffee-spill case, Republicans passed a bill to cap damages over defective products, but President Bill Clinton vetoed it. These days, Republicans have seen the light, led by the very litigious Donald Trump. MAGA is all in on dodgy lawsuits with big price tags as a handy weapon against the press. In fact, as Trump’s war against the news media intensifies, private lawsuits may have more of a freedom-killing role than government regulation. An alarming step came in December when ABC News settled Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the network and anchor George Stephanopoulos, giving Trump a note of regret published on its website, $15 million for his presidential library, and $1 million in legal fees. Trump had sued after Stephanopoulos said on the air that a civil jury had found Trump “liable for rape” in the E. Jean Carroll case. In fact, the jury determined he had committed sexual abuse, not rape. But a judge in the case had clouded the issue by saying Trump had committed rape “as many people commonly understand the word.” The law is clear that public figures like Trump must prove there was malice or reckless disregard for the truth in order to win such lawsuits. That high bar would have given ABC a real advantage at trial, as would the judge’s reference to rape. But ABC folded anyway. Some speculated that ABC didn’t want to be in the position of covering Trump’s presidency while fighting him in court. But the decision was undoubtedly made at the level of ABC parent Disney and reflected the trend in which major corporations have folded to Trump rather than risk his wrath. Within days of the ABC settlement, Trump sued the Des Moines Register and its pollster over a survey just before the election that showed Kamala Harris leading him in Iowa. He ended up beating her there by 13 points, so it’s hard to see how the poll damaged him. But Trump sued anyway, alleging violation of the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act. The Register is owned by Gannett, the nation’s biggest newspaper chain. Will Gannett go the route of ABC and settle even though it’s a stupid lawsuit? Perhaps. These nuisance suits can drain the legal budgets and patience of media organizations. Trump is still pursuing a lawsuit he filed in 2022 against the Pulitzer Prize board for honoring journalists who covered his 2016 campaign. The most closely watched Trump lawsuit against the media targets CBS News. In November, Trump sued over a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris, alleging that the editing caused “malicious, deceptive, and substantial news distortion.” This is ridiculous. News outlets cut things out of interviews all the time for a variety of reasons. It’s not a conspiracy. It’s editing. Trump’s lawyers went judge-shopping, filing their suit in the Amarillo, Texas, court where Trump-appointed extremist Matthew Kacsmaryk rules. The suit offers what the New York Times called “a largely untested interpretation of a Texas law that prohibits deceptive trade practices.” Despite the weakness of Trump’s case, Paramount and CBS are considering settling, which would be a grievous act of self-vandalism. They would be sliming their most prestigious news show, “60 Minutes.” Not to be outdone by Trump, co-president Elon Musk is pursuing his own outrageous lawsuit against a news organization. He has sued Media Matters for America, which tracks right-wing extremism in the media, over its report that ads for major companies appeared on Musk’s Twitter/X next to pro-Nazi content. Musk accused Media Matters of misconduct in its investigative reporting, but there’s no doubt that Musk welcomes Nazis on X. These lawsuits by Trump and Musk are private, but they carry government threats with them. After Musk sued Media Matters, the right-wing attorneys general of Texas and Missouri launched investigations of Media Matters. Then there’s the clout being wielded by Brendan Carr, one of the authors of Project 2025 and now chair of the Federal Communications Commission. Carr, a diehard Trump loyalist, has significant leverage over CBS. The network’s parent, Paramount, is seeking to merge with Skydance in a deal that requires FCC approval. That’s a key reason many observers expect Paramount to settle the CBS suit – because of an unrelated business deal. Carr has already muscled into the Trump-CBS dispute by demanding and getting a full transcript and video of the Harris interview. CBS said the full footage showed the broadcast was not “doctored or deceitful.” But facts aren’t important to the right wing; creating an air of suspicion is. Trump raised the price tag on his lawsuit from $10 billion to $20 billion after the release of the transcript – and added Paramount as a defendant. Then there’s the looming threat against the Supreme Court’s 1964 New York Times vs. Sullivan decision, which made it harder for “public figures” to win defamation cases. Without that protection, large segments of the press would be unwilling to report negatively about very rich and powerful people. Just a few days ago, Trump megadonor Steve Wynn petitioned the Supreme Court to revisit Sullivan – an idea that corrupt Justice Clarence Thomas has long urged. When federal prosecutors charged Trump over the Jan. 6 insurrection and his theft of classified records, Republicans called it “lawfare,” as in legal warfare. It wasn’t. There was overwhelming evidence against Trump. But what the right wing is doing now is actual lawfare – a campaign to intimidate the media through legal harassment. And Trump’s high-dollar lawsuits go even beyond harassment. They’re part of a mob-style protection racket. Corporate-owned media are being pressured to pay an extremely powerful newsmaker to dissuade him from using the government against them. Every time a news outlet surrenders to this, Trump and his fascist gang are emboldened. There’s every possibility that this tactic will become standard operating procedure for MAGA, both nationally and locally, with disastrous consequences for freedom of the press. |
