Donald Trump has never met a lawsuit he did not like. Particularly when the target is a media organisation he believes can be frightened into toning down unfavourable coverage. With a growing list of legal actions aimed at newspapers and broadcasters he sees as hostile, the US President has turned litigation into as much a political tool as a legal one. One of his opponents has now struck back.
The Pulitzer Prize Board, the body that awards America’s most prestigious journalism prizes and is synonymous with press freedom, has rolled out heavy legal artillery in its battle with Trump. In court filings, the board has demanded access to Trump’s medical records and detailed information about his vast personal wealth, including how it was accumulated.
The Pulitzer Board is not the only institution pushing back against Trump’s legal onslaught. The BBC announced that it will vigorously defend itself against Trump’s demand for a massive $10 billion in damages, rejecting what it describes as an attempt to intimidate a public service broadcaster into silence.
There are few things Trump enjoys more than a courtroom fight and he has made aggressive litigation against journalists and broadcasters a central feature of his political strategy. In a Trump lawsuit, the sums involved are almost always eye-watering, guided by his belief that the higher the figure, the greater the pressure on defendants to settle rather than risk years of costly litigation.
Trump has also demanded $10 billion from The Wall Street Journal and its owner Rupert Murdoch, despite the Journal being a conservative newspaper that might normally be expected to be sympathetic to a Republican President. The paper has said it stands by its reporting and will not pay a cent.
The case centres on a “bawdy” birthday card Trump is alleged to have sent to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Trump has furiously denied the claim. Writing on his Truth Social platform, he warned: “We have just filed a powerhouse lawsuit against everyone involved in publishing the false, malicious, defamatory, fake news article. I hope Rupert and his friends are looking forward to the many hours of depositions and testimonies they will have to provide in this case.”
Some media organisations have chosen surrender over confrontation when faced with a President who controls the levers of federal power. Trump sued broadcaster CBS for $10 billion, later increasing the claim to $20 billion. CBS, owned by the Ellison family of Oracle fame, quickly agreed to pay $16 million. The Ellisons are strongly right-wing and also control Paramount Skydance, a major entertainment conglomerate that has recently launched a $108-billion hostile takeover bid for rival Warner Bros and is keen to remain on good terms with the President.
ABC also opted to settle, paying $15 million. The settlement arose from a defamation lawsuit Trump filed against the network and its anchor George Stephanopoulos after a March 2024 interview in which Stephanopoulos repeatedly stated that a jury had found Trump “liable for rape” in relation to the writer E. Jean Carroll’s civil claims.
In fact, jurors found Trump liable for sexual abuse but not rape under New York law. Trump’s lawyers argued the network’s repeated misstatement was false, malicious and defamatory.
By contrast, Trump’s attempt to take revenge on CNN ended abruptly when the case was thrown out. Trump’s legal action had alleged CNN repeatedly characterised him as a “Russian asset,” implying he acted on behalf of Russia. The court ruled that CNN’s statements were opinion and political commentary, strongly protected under the First Amendment and a three-judge appeals panel described the claim as “meritless”. The case is often cited as an example of the limits of Trump’s legal strategy against the press.
Trump has long been a legal chancer, ready to threaten rivals and critics with litigation. It is estimated he has filed between 20 and 30 lawsuits against media organisations alone since the 1980s, and between 2,000 and 3,000 legal actions in total, far more than most real estate developers. His eagerness to sue has rarely been matched by courtroom success.
One of his most costly defeats came in the Trump University case, which ended with a $25-million settlement in 2016, just weeks after he was first elected President. The case was humiliating because it punctured his image as an unbeatable businessman. His for-profit real estate institute, which was not a real university, was accused of fraud and misleading students into paying tens of thousands of dollars. After years of vowing to fight, Trump abruptly settled, widely seen as an effort to avoid damaging testimony being aired publicly.
More recently, the courts swiftly rejected attempts by his administration to pursue ex-FBI director James Comey and New York attorney general Letitia James as groundless. The Comey action sought to challenge his handling of the Russia investigation which looked into allegations Trump’s campaign coordinated with Moscow to influence the election. and accused him of mishandling classified information and lying to Congress. In the case of James, who had pursued him for fraud, Trump accused her of political persecution.
Trump’s aggressive legal instincts are traced back to Roy Cohn, the notorious New York lawyer who mentored him early in his career. Cohn, famed for his ruthless tactics, taught Trump to treat the law as a weapon, to threaten opponents with overwhelming litigation, to attack judges and critics publicly, and never to admit fault or apologise. Their relationship was close until the mid-1980s, when Cohn was disbarred for unethical conduct. Trump distanced himself as Cohn fell ill and eventually died of AIDS in 1986, a rift that was never mended.
Whether Trump can successfully cow his latest media targets into submission remains an open question. The lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize Board is particularly unusual. He is suing the board for awarding prizes to The New York Times and Washington Post for reporting on controversial and damaging episodes from his past. It is unclear whether a sitting President has ever before attempted to sue a prize-giving body over the journalists it chose to honour.
Florida has increasingly become Trump’s legal stomping grounds. The state’s courts apply defamation rules slightly more favourable to plaintiffs than those in New York, where First Amendment protections are robust. Under US constitutional law, defamation claims against the media can succeed only if actual malice is proven.
The BBC argues that Trump’s case against it cannot even be heard in Florida, raising jurisdictional objections that could yet derail one of the US President’s most high-profile legal threats.