{"id":547,"date":"2026-08-21T04:14:31","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T04:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=547"},"modified":"2026-08-21T04:14:31","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T04:14:31","slug":"trump-asks-supreme-court-to-hear-his-defamation-case-against-cnn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=547","title":{"rendered":"Trump asks Supreme Court to hear his defamation case against CNN"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>President Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to weigh in on his defamation case against cable news giant CNN. In  submitted on Aug. 14 but docketed on Thursday, Trump told the justices that \u201cCNN falsely and maliciously portrayed\u201d him \u201cas a knowing liar who fabricated objections to the 2020 election, lacked supporting evidence, and deliberately deceived the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=545\">Slaughter\u2019s vice<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The dispute has its roots in CNN\u2019s coverage of the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election. Trump contended that when CNN used the phrase \u201cthe Big Lie\u201d to describe his insistence that the election had been stolen, and that he was the actual winner, it did so to link him with Adolf Hitler and Nazi propaganda \u2013 which, Trump said, was defamation.<\/p>\n<p>A federal judge in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, dismissed Trump\u2019s case. In an eight-page, unsigned opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld that ruling.<\/p>\n<p>The court of appeals explained that whether a plaintiff has a defamation claim hinges on whether the defendant made a false statement of fact. But CNN had not \u201cexplicitly claimed that Trump\u2019s \u2018actions and statements were designed to be, and actually were, variations of those [that] Hitler used to suppress and destroy populations,\u2019\u201d the court wrote. The court rejected Trump\u2019s contention that CNN\u2019s \u201cuse of the phrase \u2018Big Lie\u2019\u201d \u201c<em>could<\/em> reasonably be interpreted\u2019\u201d as equating Trump\u2019s actions with Hitler\u2019s. Instead, the court said, the phrase \u201cBig Lie\u201d \u201cis at least \u2026 ambiguous\u201d \u2013 just as, the court suggested, Trump\u2019s contention that he was merely \u201cexercising a constitutional right to identify his concerns with the integrity of elections\u201d was \u201csusceptible to multiple subjective interpretations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=544\">What the public thinks about the emergency docket<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Trump then came to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to take up his case. He pointed to the court\u2019s 1990 decision in , holding that the First Amendment did not shield an article that was \u201ccategorized as \u2018opinion\u2019 as opposed to \u2018fact\u2019\u201d from a defamation claim.<\/p>\n<p>The courts of appeals, Trump contended, have divided \u2013 an important factor that the Supreme Court considers in deciding whether to grant review \u2013 on how to apply <em>Milkovich<\/em>. Four courts of appeals, he said, use \u201ccontextual, multi-factor tests to consider whether a statement of opinion conveys objectively verifiable facts to a reasonable observer.\u201d But the 11th Circuit in this case effectively made \u201ca \u2018subjective assessment\u2019\u201d instead, he argued. Having determined that the phrase \u201cBig Lie\u201d was ambiguous, he contended, the lower court \u201cignored the false factual claims for which CNN used the \u2018Big Lie\u2019 as a shorthand, including its use of photographs comparing President Trump to Hitler.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=543\">Ballroom dispute now fully briefed<\/a><\/p>\n<p>CNN\u2019s response to Trump\u2019s petition for review is due on Sept. 21.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to weigh in on his defamation case against cable news giant CNN. In submitted on Aug. 14 but docketed on Thursday, Trump told the justices that \u201cCNN falsely and maliciously portrayed\u201d him \u201cas a knowing liar who fabricated objections to the 2020 election, lacked supporting evidence, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":546,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-court-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Trump asks Supreme Court to hear his defamation case against CNN - American Service Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=547\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump asks Supreme Court to hear his defamation case against CNN - American Service Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"President Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to weigh in on his defamation case against cable news giant CNN. 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