Donald Trump’s already-shaky defamation lawsuit against CNN officially flopped Friday, with the federal judge he appointed dismissing the case despite his pleas that the network had associated him with Adolf Hitler.
The lawsuit centered around CNN’s coverage of Trump after his failed 2020 bid for re-election, where the network repeatedly used the term “the Big Lie” to refer to Trump’s claims the election was stolen.
Trump asserted the phrase likened him to Hitler because it’s been used to describe lies told by the Nazis to justify atrocities in the Holocaust. Trump claimed the phrase defamed him and suggested to viewers he’d be “Hitler-like” in a future political position.
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Judge Raag Singhal disagreed, however. In a motion to dismiss seen by The Daily Beast, he wrote that Trump’s claims were a “stacking of inferences that cannot support a finding of falsehood.” In short, the claims against CNN didn’t amount to defamation under federal law.
“CNN’s use of the phrase ‘the Big Lie’ in connection with Trump’s election challenges does not give rise to a plausible inference that Trump advocates the persecution and genocide of Jews or any other group of people,” Singhal wrote. “No reasonable viewer could (or should) plausibly make that reference.”
Trump was demanding $475 million in the suit, which was filed in the Southern District of Florida—the jurisdiction that covers Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach estate.
The former president had pointed to five instances where “the Big Lie” was used to describe his unfounded election claims—some stated live on air, others in opinion pieces published on CNN’s website. The suit said CNN refused to retract the phrases when asked.
Singhal made clear he wasn’t a fan of CNN using the phrase, saying it was “odious and repugnant” to use it or other potential references to Hitler and the Holocaust in news stories.
Despite this, Singhal acknowledged, “bad rhetoric is not defamation when it does not include false statements of fact.” And, as has been proven in numerous recounts and audits, Trump’s claims about the 2020 election were indeed lies.
As of Saturday morning, Trump had made no acknowledgment of his loss in court.
