The New York Times lost its latest bid to have President Donald Trump’s $15 billion lawsuit against it thrown out.
On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Steven D. Merryday gave Trump’s legal team until Aug. 27 to file an amended complaint, according to Forbes.
Merryday did not explain why the lawsuit needed to be revised.
The judge’s order said that after Trump’s team files its amended complaint, the Times will have three weeks to respond to it.
Trump filed the $15 billion lawsuit in September. Not long after it was filed, Merryday ordered Trump to refile the suit with winnowed-down language.
The Times then sought to dismiss the suit.
“The Failing New York Times, after 10 years of harassment, slander, and libel, just failed again in their desperate attempt to have our powerful Defamation Lawsuit against them dropped,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
Do you trust the New York Times?
“As we requested, the Highly Respected Judge has called for an updated complaint, which will lay out, in extreme detail, all the ways in which The Times has repeatedly and consistently acted, with actual malice in defaming me, my family, our Great MAGA Movement, and America, itself,” the post said.
“We will continue to hold The Times and their ‘comrades’ in the Mainstream Media accountable for publishing, promoting, and dealing in Fake News,” the post said
In the initial lawsuit, Trump said in the 2024 election, he had to overcome “persistent election interference from the legacy media led most notoriously by The New York Times.”
“All across our country, Americans from a wide array of backgrounds saw the truth about him and voted accordingly — the same truth that the New York Times refused to recognize as it continued spreading false and defamatory content about President Trump,” the suit said.
“Defendants’ pre-election goal was to kill three birds with one stone: (a) damage President Trump’s hard-earned and world-renowned reputation for business success, (b) in the process, sabotage his 2024 candidacy for President of the United States, and (c) prejudice judges and juries in the unlawful cases brought against President Trump, his family, and his businesses by his political opponents for purposes of election interference,” the lawsuit said.
At the time of the initial filing, Trump called the Times “one of the worst and most degenerate newspapers in the History of our Country, becoming a virtual ‘mouthpiece’ for the Radical Left Democrat Party” in a post on Truth Social.
Trump wrote that the Times’ efforts against him go back well beyond the last election.
“The ‘Times’ has engaged in a decades long method of lying about your Favorite President (ME!), my family, business, the America First Movement, MAGA, and our Nation as a whole. I am PROUD to hold this once respected ‘rag’ responsible,” Trump wrote, noting other lawsuits against media outlets including ABC and CBS in which the outlets “settled for record amounts.” As noted by Fox News, ABC settled for $15 million; CBS for $30 million.
“The New York Times has been allowed to freely lie, smear, and defame me for far too long, and that stops, NOW! The suit is being brought in the Great State of Florida. Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Trump wrote.
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