Former President Donald Trump has sued CNN, one of the country’s biggest cable news networks. He filed the lawsuit seeking $475 million in punitive damages and accused the network of damaging his reputation, in their attempt to squash any possibility of a future political career.
In the lawsuit filed Monday, Trump’s attorneys claim CNN “has sought to use its massive influence – purportedly as a ‘trusted’ news source – to defame the Plaintiff in the minds of its viewers and readers for the purpose of defeating him politically, culminating in CNN claiming credit for ‘[getting] Trump out’ in the 2020 presidential election.”
Trump’s lawyers filed the lawsuit in Fort Lauderdale’s US District Court, and the main focus of the suit is “the big lie,” a phrase used by media, which refers to the former president’s propaganda about widespread election fraud. According to Trump, election fraud was the major factor that led to his 2020 presidential election defeat.
During Trump’s presidential term, he often came at odds with many media companies, including CNN, which he continuously attacked on Twitter and in his speeches. The attacks on the press seemed to go well with his conservative supporters.
Trump has previously tried to sue other media companies to no avail. The former president said he will be busy filing lawsuits against other media outlets in the following months. He could take serious actions against the House Committee, looking into the Capitol Hill attack carried out by his supporters on January 6, 2021.
He had filed a lawsuit against Twitter after they deleted his account and blocked him from the social media platform after the January 6 attack. However, the case was thrown out by a California judge early this year.
Trump’s allegations of election fraud have mostly been disproven by many federal and local election officials who were representing both political parties, former members of his campaign staff, numerous courts that have thrown out related cases, and his own appointed attorney general, Bill Barr. They all claim there was no credible evidence of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
In the lawsuit, Trump alleges that CNN has used the term “the big lie” when speaking about him, more than 7,700 times since the beginning of 2021. He claims that CNN compared “the big lie” to a term that Adolf Hitler first coined as a propaganda technique to mean a gross misrepresentation of the truth. He alleges that CNN commentators compare him to Hitler. Trump and his lawyers also objected to the use of terms such as “racist” and “insurrection” when referring to Trump or his activities.
In 2021, Donald Trump used various propaganda techniques to attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. He on numerous occasions made claims of massive election fraud.
President Joe Biden himself termed Trump’s efforts as “the big lie.” Since then, many Democrats, and President Biden’s supporters have used the term when referring to the former president’s claims about election fraud.
Trump’s lawsuit claims that CNN had a long history of targeting harsh criticism towards him and that the media house had recently increased its attacks on him to stop him from running in the coming 2024 presidential election. He said that the attacks were meant to scare and encourage people to withdraw their support for him.
Chris Licht, the new CNN Chief Executive Officer as of May 2022, told news reporters on CNN three months ago to avoid using the phrase because Democrats commonly used it to brand Donald Trump.
CNN said it had no comment on the lawsuit.