Updated September 16, 2025 at 7:50 AM MDT
President Trump filed a $15 billion defamation lawsuit late Monday against the New York Times and some of its most prominent reporters for articles and a book making the case that he built his fortune and reputation in part through fraud.
The suit also cites an interview that the Times conducted ahead of last year's elections. Retired U.S. Army Gen. John F. Kelly, who served as chief of staff during Trump's first term, warned that he believed Trump met the definition of fascist.
And Trump's legal team also argued that the Times wrongly gave producer Mark Burnett credit for the success of the NBC reality contest show The Apprentice, rather than to Trump, who served as the show's host and star.
"Today, the Times is a full-throated mouthpiece of the Democrat Party," Trump's lawyers argued in the filing.
In a statement released by a spokesperson, the New York Times Co. called the case meritless.
"It lacks any legitimate legal claims and instead is an attempt to stifle and discourage independent reporting" the newspaper company said. "The New York Times will not be deterred by intimidation tactics. We will continue to pursue the facts without fear or favor and stand up for journalists' First Amendment right to ask questions on behalf of the American people."
The case was filed by Trump as a private individual in federal court in Tampa. The filing itself is strewn with praise of Trump as a politician, a president, an entrepreneur and an entertainer. And it was submitted by a team of attorneys who have represented Trump in his other lawsuits against major media companies, including ABC, CBS, and the Wall Street Journal.
On social media, Trump said the suit represents a major expansion of his full-court press against the press.
"The 'Times' has engaged in a decades long method of lying about your Favorite President (ME!), my family, business, the America First Movement, MAGA, and our Nation as a whole," Trump wrote. "I am PROUD to hold this once respected 'rag' responsible, as we are doing with the Fake News Networks such as our successful litigation against George Slopadopoulos/ABC/Disney, and 60 Minutes/CBS/Paramount."
Public figures such as the president must meet a high bar to prove defamation in court. They need to show that the defendants knew what they were publishing was false – or that they had serious doubts about the truth of those statements.
Yet Trump has not had to press his cases in the judicial system. When faced with his lawsuits, other big media players have agreed to settle.
ABC's parent company, the Walt Disney Co., paid $16 million to settle Trump's suit over misstatements by anchor George Stephanopoulos.
CBS's parent company, Paramount Global, paid the same to settle Trump's suit over objections to how the network edited an interview last year with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent in the presidential election. Paramount Global was seeking regulatory approval of its sale to Skydance Media at the time, which it soon secured.
Most recently, Trump has sued the Wall Street Journal for reporting he had sent a bawdy and sexually suggestive birthday message two decades ago to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein died in jail while facing sex trafficking charges involving minors. The Journal – which is owned by Trump's political ally, Rupert Murdoch – has promised to fight the suit in court. It subsequently published a replica of the signed note, which Trump says is a fake.
The Trump administration has used its regulatory powers to wrest concessions from television networks. It has blocked mainstream media access to coverage at the White House and the Pentagon. And, it has convinced the Republican-led Congress to claw back all federal funding for public media – that's $1.1 billion over the next two years that Congress approved earlier in the year and Trump had signed into law.
The lawsuit names veteran investigative reporters Suzanne Craig, Russ Buettner and Michael S. Schmidt and the paper's chief White House correspondent, Peter Baker. Trump is also suing Penguin Random House for printing a book by Craig and Buettner in September 2024 about Trump's financial rise, building on their reporting for the paper. They suggested Trump committed a vast tax fraud on his inheritance from his father, denied family members money they were due, and structured his business fraudulently to avoid taxes.
Trump's suit was filed the same day that his vice president and senior administration officials appeared on the podcast of the late Charlie Kirk to pay tribute to their friend. They swore vengeance against those on the left they blamed for fostering the divisive environment in which the conservative activist was killed.
Former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt appears to have been the last president to have sued someone for defamation. He filed suit over a report by the publisher of a small Michigan weekly newspaper that he had been intoxicated repeatedly during his unsuccessful third-party run for a third term in office.
According to a 2023 account in the Washington Post, the publisher was moved by a parade of witnesses who attested that Roosevelt, though boisterous, only drank modestly; on the stand, the newspaperman withdrew his claims.
"In view of the statement by the defendant," Roosevelt said, "I shall ask the court to instruct the jury that I desire only nominal damages. I did not go into this suit for money. I did not go into it with any vindictive purpose. I have achieved my purpose, and I am content."
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