A federal judge in Florida has dismissed President Trump's defamation suit against The New York Times just four days after it was filed, labeling the complaint as “improper and impermissible” in its current form. This ruling from Judge Steven D. Merryday of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida has granted Mr. Trump’s legal team a period of 28 days to submit an amended complaint.
The lawsuit, which sought a staggering $15 billion in damages, accused The Times, along with four of its reporters and the book publisher Penguin Random House, of damaging Mr. Trump’s reputation as a successful businessman. Judge Merryday criticized the 85-page complaint for being excessively lengthy and digressive. He pointed out that the formal allegation of defamation appeared only on the 80th page, preceded by numerous pages that praised the president and detailed various grievances.
In his ruling, Judge Merryday emphasized, “A complaint is not a public forum for vituperation and invective,” stressing that it should not serve as a platform for expressing anger against an adversary. He mandated that any revised complaint must be limited to 40 pages, urging a more concise and focused approach.
A spokesperson for The New York Times welcomed the judge’s swift decision, stating, “We recognize that the complaint was a political document rather than a serious legal filing.” Similarly, a representative from Penguin Random House expressed approval of the ruling. In response, a spokesman for Mr. Trump’s legal team commented that the president would persist in holding “Fake News” accountable through this significant lawsuit against The Times, its reporters, and Penguin Random House, in line with the judge's directives.
This latest lawsuit is part of a broader pattern by President Trump, who has been leading a severe crackdown on media institutions in recent times. Earlier in July, he filed a lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal concerning an article about his ties to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. He has also pursued legal action against CBS News and ABC News over their coverage, successfully extracting settlements of $16 million from each network.
In the complaint filed this week, Mr. Trump alleged that a series of articles published before the 2024 election aimed to undermine his candidacy and resulted in “enormous” damage to his “professional and occupational interests.” The defendants in this case included The Times and its reporters—Peter Baker, Russ Buettner, Susanne Craig, and Michael S. Schmidt—as well as Penguin Random House, which published a book about Mr. Trump by Craig and Buettner.
While the complaint raised objections to specific details and anecdotes in The Times’s coverage, it also included lengthy praises for Mr. Trump, referring to his “singular brilliance” and describing his potential win in the 2024 election as “the greatest personal and political achievement in American history.” Judge Merryday critiqued these asides as “tedious and burdensome” for a legal document, reiterating that a complaint should not serve as a public relations tool.
Judge Merryday's ruling made it clear that his decision did not comment on the truth of the allegations or the validity of the claims but focused solely on the presentation of those allegations. Mr. Trump previously sued The Times in 2021 over an investigation into his financial history, which was dismissed, resulting in an order for him to cover The Times’s legal expenses. In another instance, his re-election campaign sued the newspaper for libel concerning an opinion essay in 2020, which also resulted in dismissal.
