By Jack Queen
(Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is making good on his threats to go after the media in court, with several recent lawsuits seeking damages against major publishers over what he describes as false or misleading coverage.
Here is a look at five of the cases and where they stand:
DES MOINES REGISTER POLL LAWSUIT
Trump on Monday sued the Des Moines Register and its former pollster J. Ann Selzer in Iowa state court over an opinion poll published ahead of the Nov. 5 U.S. election showing Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris leading Trump by 3 percentage points in Iowa.
Trump, a Republican who ultimately won Iowa, accused the Register and Selzer of engaging in “brazen election interference” by manipulating the poll and leaking it to Democratic operatives before publication.
A spokesperson for the Des Moines Register acknowledged that “the poll did not reflect the ultimate margin” of Trump’s victory in Iowa, but said “we stand by our reporting on the matter and believe a lawsuit would be without merit.”
The lawsuit also names the Register’s parent company Gannett and accuses the defendants of violating Iowa’s Consumer Fraud Act, which makes it illegal to use deceptive or misleading practices in connection with the sale or advertisement of goods.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and an order that would bar the defendants from “deceptive and misleading acts” related to the poll and compel them to disclose all information related to it.
ABC ‘RAPE’ COMMENTS LAWSUIT
ABC News settled a defamation suit brought by Trump on Dec. 14, agreeing to donate $15 million to his presidential library and issue a statement saying it regretted comments about Trump made by anchor George Stephanopolous.
Trump alleged in the lawsuit filed in March in federal court in Florida that Stephanopolous defamed him by saying he had been found liable for “rape.”
Stephanoplous was referring to a civil case brought against Trump by writer E. Jean Carroll, who accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in a New York department store in the 1990s. A jury found Trump liable for defamation and sexual abuse but not rape, which is a separate offense under New York state law.
Trump has denied assaulting Carroll. He is appealing the judgment, as well as a jury verdict finding him liable for defaming Carroll in a separate case she filed over the same alleged incident.
U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga in Miami had denied ABC’s initial motion to dismiss the case, though that did not necessarily mean Trump would have won.
An ABC News spokesperson said in a statement that the network was pleased that the parties had reached an agreement to dismiss the lawsuit.
CBS ‘60 MINUTES’ HARRIS INTERVIEW LAWSUIT
Trump filed a $10 billion lawsuit against CBS in October, alleging the network deceptively edited an interview with then-presidential candidate Harris to “tip the scales in favor of the Democratic Party” in the election.
CBS aired two versions of the Harris interview in which she appears to give different answers to the same question about the Israel-Hamas war, according to the lawsuit filed in federal court in Texas.
Trump alleged CBS’s editing of the interview violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices-Consumer Protection Act, which makes it illegal to use false, misleading or deceptive acts in commerce.
“Millions of Americans, including residents of Texas and this district, were confused and misled by the two doctored Interview versions,” the lawsuit says.
CBS said in a statement that the lawsuit is meritless and that it did not doctor the interview or hide any parts of Harris’ answers.
CBS filed a motion to dismiss on Dec. 6, saying the lawsuit should be thrown out for lack of jurisdiction or at least transferred to New York.
Trump’s lawyers have not yet responded.
SIMON & SCHUSTER RECORDING COPYRIGHTLAWSUIT
Trump sued Simon & Schuster in federal court in Florida in January 2023, accusing the book publisher and author Bob Woodward of violating copyright laws through “systematic usurpation, manipulation, and exploitation” of audio recordings of Trump that the veteran journalist gathered during interviews.
Trump accuses the defendants of illegally profiting from the recordings by distributing them without his permission and taking them out of context to cast him in a poor light. He seeks unspecified damages.
Simon & Schuster and Woodward said in a statement that the lawsuit was meritless and that the interviews were on the record and recorded with Trump’s consent. The publisher is trying to get the case moved to a federal court in New York.
Discovery in the case has been put on hold while a judge weighs whether it was brought in the proper court.
In a Tuesday court filing, Trump’s lawyers told a judge they hope Simon & Schuster would “follow Mr. Stephanopoulos’ expression of contrition,” adding that Trump’s election win has led to “renewed accountability among those who violated his rights over the last four years.”
CNN ‘BIG LIE’ DEFAMATION LAWSUIT
A federal judge in July 2023 dismissed a $475 million defamation lawsuit Trump brought against CNN over the network’s use of the term “the big lie” to describe his false claims that he won the 2020 election and allegedly comparing him to Adolf Hitler.
In his October 2022 suit in a federal court in Florida, Trump argued that CNN’s repeated use of “big lie” and the Hitler comparison in a January 2022 special report were intended to “aggravate, scare, and trigger people.”
U.S. District Judge Raag Singhal in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, found that CNN’s use of “big lie” and the comparisons to Hitler were opinions, not facts.
“Being ‘Hitler-like’ is not a verifiable statement of fact that would support a defamation claim,” Singhal said.
Trump is appealing the order.
(Reporting by Jack Queen; editing by Amy Stevens and Jonathan Oatis)
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