A federal judge has thrown out Donald Trump’s $475mn defamation lawsuit against CNN, in which the former president claimed the network’s description of his election fraud as the “big lie” associated him with Adolf Hitler.
In a ruling late on Friday night, US Judge Raag Singhal, who was nominated by Trump in 2019, said that CNN’s words were opinion, not fact, and therefore could not be the subject of a defamation claim.
“There is no question that the statements made by CNN meet the publication requirement for defamation under Florida law,” he said in his ruling. “The next question is whether the statements were false statements of fact. This is where Trump’s defamation claims fail.”
“The complained of statements are opinion, not factually false statements, and therefore are not actionable,” wrote Singhal, who sits in federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, near Trump’s home at his Mar-a-Lago resort. “CNN’s statements, while repugnant, were not, as a matter of law, defamatory. The case will, therefore, be dismissed.”
In a statement, a Trump spokesperson said: “We agree with the highly respected judge’s findings that CNN’s statements about President Trump are repugnant. CNN will be held responsible for their wrongful mistreatment of President Trump and his supporters.”
The statement did not say whether Trump would appeal the decision.
The lawsuit, which was filed in October 2022, highlighted five instances in which CNN either published stories or aired comments referring to Trump’s assertions about the 2020 election as his “big lie”.
The phrase is also associated with the Nazi regime’s use of propaganda.
The wording, the lawsuit said, constituted “a deliberate effort by CNN to propagate to its audience an association between the plaintiff and one of the most repugnant figures in modern history”.
However, the mere use of the phrase “big lie” is not enough to give rise to a true connotation, Singhal wrote.
“No reasonable viewer could (or should) plausibly make that reference,” he said.
Since launching his first presidential campaign in 2015, Trump has often attacked media outlets whose coverage he dislikes, with CNN a favourite target.
Trump had a caustic relationship with CNN and other major news outlets like the New York Times during his White House term, branding them “fake news” and repeatedly raging against them on social media.
The twice-impeached Trump, who has continued to insist falsely that he won the 2020 presidential election against Democrat Joe Biden, is to go on trial in Florida in May on charges of mishandling top secret government documents.
Trump is also facing dozens of felony charges in a case involving hush money payments to an adult entertainment star in New York and is bracing for indictment in state and federal investigations into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Trump is the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, despite facing both state and federal indictments.