- Donald Trump is threatening publishers again.
- A New York Times editor who's out with a new book says we need to take him seriously.
- A landmark free-speech case could be at risk.
Donald Trump, who is used to suing journalists and media companies about stories he doesn't like, says he's going to do more of it.
In a post published on his Truth Social platform Wednesday, Trump vowed to "sue some of these dishonest authors and book publishers, or even media in general," arguing that they make up stories about him and "a big price should be paid for this blatant dishonesty."
"I'll do it as a service to our Country," Trump continued. "Who knows, maybe we will create some NICE NEW LAW!!!"
Trump is presumably referring to the newest book by author Michael Wolff, who chronicled Trump's first term and is back at it again with "All or Nothing: How Trump Recaptured America," which is out this week. Trump complained about the book in an earlier Truth Social post this week. I've asked Wolff and the White House for comment.
Complaining about people who say or publish unflattering things about him, threatening to sue them, and actually suing them are nothing new for Trump. And up until recently, it was relatively easy for media companies and journalists to shrug off those threats and threatened suits. Even when Trump did lodge a claim, he rarely won in court.
But in Trump 2.0, it is getting harder to dismiss a Trump rant about the media. Since his election last fall, he has already extracted a settlement from Disney and ABC over a defamation suit he filed last year, and he is in discussions with CBS and Paramount to settle another suit, this one over alleged "election interference" because he didn't like a "60 Minutes" interview with Kamala Harris. He has lodged a similar lawsuit against Gannett and its Des Moines Register.
How a key free speech ruling could be at risk
And while Trump's threat to create a new law about defamation seems like a reach — in the US, laws are hard to pass, even when the same party controls the White House, the House, and the Senate — the direction he's headed is worth taking very seriously.
That's the underlying message of "Murder the Truth," an upcoming book from New York Times editor David Enrich, which details an ongoing push to tear down the legal underpinnings that support freedom of speech in the US. Enrich is specifically focused on New York Times v. Sullivan, a 1964 Supreme Court ruling that established the basic framework for defamation law in the US: In short, it should be very hard to successfully sue someone because you don't like what they say.
As Enrich notes in his book, this was both a landmark ruling and a popular one, cherished by free speech advocates across the political spectrum. But that has started to change in recent years.
There are multiple reasons for that, but the main one is Trump himself, Enrich told me on this week's episode of my Channels podcast.
On the campaign trail in 2016, Trump mused about wanting to "open up our libel laws, so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money." Which, again, was easy to dismiss at the time, for multiple reasons. But Trump kept coming back to the idea — and as we're seeing now, he has already had success on the payments front.
Next up: A potential showdown at the Supreme Court, where Justice Clarence Thomas has already said he is eager to revisit NYT v. Sullivan, as has fellow Justice Neil Gorsuch. So it's possible Trump could end up getting his way without passing a new law.
There's been a slew of news about Trump and his allies battling with the press in recent weeks — see his fight with the Associated Press over the Gulf of Mexico/Gulf of America, and his dustups with the press corps over who gets to ask questions at press conferences, and who gets to participate in the White House press pool.
And those stories unsettle me and other observers. But they're ultimately about access, not about limiting what the press — who, as Elon Musk likes to remind us, is everyone now — actually says, writes, and publishes. Threatening lawsuits, filing lawsuits, and extracting settlements from lawsuits is very much about that. Actually changing the law to make those suits that much more powerful is something that should alarm all of us.
