Trump lawsuits seek to muzzle media, posing serious threat to free press
- Written by Kathy Kiely, Professor and Lee Hills Chair of Free Press Studies, University of Missouri-Columbia
In December 2025, President Donald Trump filed a US$10 billion lawsuit[1] against the BBC in a federal court in Florida. It was only the latest in a long series of high-dollar legal challenges Trump has brought against prominent media organizations, including ABC[2], CBS[3], The New York Times[4] and The Wall Street Journal[5], among others.
Trump has won some sizable settlements in cases legal scholars had dismissed as largely lacking in merit. But as media[6] scholars[7], we believe prevailing in court is not necessarily his primary goal. Instead, Trump appears to use lawsuits as a strategic weapon designed to silence his enemies and critics – who sometimes seem to be one and the same in his eyes.
Trump has always been litigious. Over the course of his life, he has been involved in more than 4,000 lawsuits[8]. Many of these[9] involved Trump suing for defamation[10] over perceived threats to his reputation. Relatively few, however, have been successful, if success is defined as prevailing in courts of law.
But using litigation as a tool for intimidation can produce other results that can count as victory. We are concerned that the president may be using the courts as a tool not to correct the record but to muzzle potential watchdogs and deprive the public of the facts they need to hold him accountable.
Winning major settlements
Trump claims the BBC attempted to interfere with the 2024 election by misrepresenting statements he’d made. As with Trump’s other defamation suits, the odds appear long against the president winning[11] his case against the British broadcaster in court.
Just after Trump’s election in 2024, ABC, whose parent company is Disney, promised to make a $15 million contribution[12] to the Trump presidential library to settle a defamation suit many experts said had dubious merit[13].
CBS and its parent company Paramount Global settled an arguably weaker defamation suit[14] involving editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris that Trump said[15] was done “to make her look better.” Paramount contributed $16 million to Trump’s presidential library[16] and his legal fees in order, the company said, to avoid the “uncertainty and distraction” of litigation. That same month, the Federal Communications Commission approved the $8 billion acquisition of Paramount by Skydance Media[17].
Those two defamation suits were filed while Trump was still a presidential candidate. Weeks after winning reelection, Trump sued The Des Moines Register[18] for publishing a preelection poll that suggested he might lose the swing state of Iowa. Instead, he carried the state by 13 percentage points[19].
Trump could have just gloated over his victory, as President Harry Truman did when he famously posed[21] holding the Chicago Tribune’s “Dewey Beats Truman” headline the day after his reelection. Instead, Trump went to court, accusing The Des Moines Register and its pollster, J. Ann Selzer, of violating Iowa’s consumer protection laws by fraudulently deceiving consumers and campaign donors.
Even if Trump loses this suit, he has inflicted expensive litigation costs on a news organization.
The considerable costs of defense
From the 1960s until the late 1990s, leading media outlets, rich from advertising dollars, could afford to hire lawyers to defend against governmental overreach and protect their role in the U.S.’s democratic order[22]. Those fights led to Supreme Court decisions shielding media outlets from most libel complaints[23] and government censorship prior to publication[24].
But the rise of the internet and then social media led to the collapse of the economic model[25] supporting traditional news production. As audiences and advertisers have fled traditional media outlets, including newspapers and broadcasters, the money to hire lawyers to defend against expensive defamation suits or fight for access to government information is much harder to find.
If even media giants such as ABC and CBS are settling rather than fighting, what local news editor is going to assign a story that might trigger a presidential lawsuit? That’s why Trump’s suit against The Des Moines Register is such an ominous development.
Giving up without a fight
What’s disheartening about the media giants’ capitulation is that they are at risk of squandering the protections afforded by the Constitution and the courts.
In medieval England, criticizing the king or peers of the realm[26] was a crime. But early in U.S. history, attempts to enforce seditious libel laws[27] by the British government and later by President John Adams and the Federalist-controlled Congress generated public outcry and rebuke[28]. This was based in part on the understanding that in a democracy the people must be free to criticize those who govern them, a principle enshrined in the First Amendment.
The Supreme Court ratified this understanding of press freedom in its 1964 decision New York Times v. Sullivan[29]. In a resounding victory for free expression, the justices held that government officials cannot prevail in defamation cases unless there is clear and convincing proof that their critics knowingly or recklessly disregarded the truth. Careless errors are not enough.
Under these protections, even Trump’s case against the BBC – where the network has admitted an ethical lapse[31] – is not a certain winner, especially since the contested content didn’t air in Florida, where the lawsuit was filed.
Although Trump claims the BBC’s misleading edits implied that he directly incited protesters to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the network can argue in court that the inaccuracy is only technical, given that Trump truly did give a firebrand speech that was widely criticized as at least indirectly leading to the violence[32] that followed . If the edited version of Trump’s speech is not appreciably more harmful to Trump’s reputation than his actual speech, Trump’s defamation claim would likely fail.
Trump is the first U.S. president to use the weight of his office to extract private settlements from news outlets tasked with holding him accountable. Ostensibly, these suits are to recover monetary damages for harm to his reputation, but they are part of a broader attack on what Trump perceives as hostile media coverage[33].
New limits from states
Some of Trump’s targets are fighting back.
One is the Pulitzer Prize Board, the defendant in yet another Trump defamation suit – in this case, over the awards the board gave for reporting on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
In December 2025, the Pulitzer Prize Board asked the judge in the case[34] to force the president to hand over tax and medical records to prove that he had suffered the financial and emotional harm he is claiming.
Another key development: Most states have enacted anti-SLAPP laws[35]. SLAPP stands for “strategic lawsuits against public participation,” referring to cases filed to intimidate and discourage public criticism. Thirty-eight states, plus the District of Columbia, now have anti-SLAPP laws in place[36]. It’s probably not a coincidence that Trump filed the latest iteration of his suit against The Des Moines Register on June 30, which happened to be one day before Iowa’s anti-SLAPP law took effect.
These state laws allow targets of SLAPPs to get early resolutions of meritless suits and can force people found to have filed such suits to pick up their targets’ legal bills.
Without such tools protecting First Amendment rights – and media organizations taking steps themselves to defend such rights – dissent might be characterized as a “deceptive trade practice,” and speech is no longer truly free.
References
- ^ US$10 billion lawsuit (www.msn.com)
- ^ ABC (apnews.com)
- ^ CBS (www.reuters.com)
- ^ The New York Times (www.nytimes.com)
- ^ The Wall Street Journal (abcnews.go.com)
- ^ media (scholar.google.com)
- ^ scholars (journalism.missouri.edu)
- ^ more than 4,000 lawsuits (www.usatoday.com)
- ^ Many of these (www.axios.com)
- ^ suing for defamation (www.thelist.com)
- ^ odds appear long against the president winning (www.cnn.com)
- ^ $15 million contribution (apnews.com)
- ^ dubious merit (www.law.com)
- ^ arguably weaker defamation suit (firstamendment.mtsu.edu)
- ^ Trump said (apnews.com)
- ^ $16 million to Trump’s presidential library (www.latimes.com)
- ^ acquisition of Paramount by Skydance Media (insight.discovery.academicanalytics.com)
- ^ sued The Des Moines Register (www.desmoinesregister.com)
- ^ 13 percentage points (www.cnn.com)
- ^ AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin (newsroom.ap.org)
- ^ he famously posed (www.life.com)
- ^ democratic order (scholarship.law.missouri.edu)
- ^ most libel complaints (www.law.cornell.edu)
- ^ government censorship prior to publication (constitutioncenter.org)
- ^ collapse of the economic model (www.unesco.org)
- ^ peers of the realm (www.jstor.org)
- ^ attempts to enforce seditious libel laws (constitutioncenter.org)
- ^ public outcry and rebuke (www.archives.gov)
- ^ New York Times v. Sullivan (knightcolumbia.org)
- ^ AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin (newsroom.ap.org)
- ^ the network has admitted an ethical lapse (www.bbc.com)
- ^ at least indirectly leading to the violence (www.citizensforethics.org)
- ^ broader attack on what Trump perceives as hostile media coverage (www.bing.com)
- ^ asked the judge in the case (www.newsweek.com)
- ^ states have enacted anti-SLAPP laws (www.rcfp.org)
- ^ anti-SLAPP laws in place (www.ifs.org)
Authors: Kathy Kiely, Professor and Lee Hills Chair of Free Press Studies, University of Missouri-Columbia
