Former President of the United States Donald J. Trump announced on Monday that he will be suing the cable news network CNN for defamation against him, seeking $475 million in punitive damages.
As reported by the New York Post, President Trump declared that CNN was guilty of a “campaign of libel and slander” against him during his initial presidential campaign, during his administration, and since he has left the White House. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. In the 29-page lawsuit, Trump outlined how the network has only increased its attacks against him in recent months, out of fear that he will run for President once again in 2024.
“As a part of its concerted effort to tilt the political balance to the left, CNN has tried to taint the Plaintiff with a series of ever-more scandalous, false, and defamatory labels of ‘racist,’ ‘Russian lackey,’ ‘insurrectionist,’ and ultimately ‘Hitler,’” the lawsuit reads.
The lawsuit includes several examples of CNN pundits explicitly comparing President Trump to the infamous Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, with one such segment airing in January of 2022, when host Fareed Zakaria played footage of Hitler.
CNN has long been one of the top opponents of President Trump throughout his political career, perhaps most infamously through its previous White House Correspondent Jim Acosta, who hit a female White house intern when she attempted to take his microphone away from him during a press briefing, after he refused to stop talking despite no longer having been called on. The channel also heavily promoted numerous false conspiracy theories against President Trump, including the debunked “Russian collusion” story and the false rape allegations against the 45th President by author E. Jean Carroll.
The network has since seen a sharp decline in its ratings, and its recent attempt at launching an exclusive streaming website, CNN+, ended in failure with the site being shut down less than one month after launch due to underwhelming subscription numbers. The network has since seen numerous massive changes in its lineup under the new CEO Chris Licht, who is allegedly attempting to rebrand the network by shifting away from its previous partisan leanings. Under Licht’s direction, the network fired primetime host Brian Stelter and several other employees, and shifted primetime host Don Lemon to a morning show with several co-hosts.