ABC has agreed to donate $15 million to President-elect Donald Trump's foundation, it was announced Saturday. settle a defamation case It was a rare victory for Trump in years of lawsuits against news organizations.
After the settlement, Trump said at a news conference in Florida on Monday that he planned to sue the Des Moines Register over a poll and vowed to continue filing lawsuits against news outlets he blames. There have been allegations of bias for a long time.
He complained that the surveyor, J. Ann Selzer, “said I'm going to lose by three or four points,” adding that previous Iowa polls had shown he would easily win the state, “by 20 points.” Trump won the state By 13 points.
“In my opinion, it was fraud and it was election interference,” he said, adding, “We'll probably file a big lawsuit against them today or tomorrow.”
“We acknowledge that the Selzer/Des Moines Register pre-election poll does not reflect President Trump's final margin of Election Day victory in Iowa,” Des Moines Register spokeswoman Lark-Marie Anton said in a statement to CBS News. By releasing the poll's full demographics, crosstabs, weighted and unweighted data, as well as a technical clarification from pollster Ann Selzer.”
Anton said, “We stand by our reporting on this case and believe the lawsuit will be without merit.”
According to Ohio University professor Amy Edmondson, this kind of litigation is unusual for presidents. Trump has a long history of suing the media, he said, although his lawsuits are often not successful.
“It's so rare to actually win a settlement against a journalism outlet, I was surprised when I saw that,” said Edmondson, who researches media law and the history of journalism.
Trump has sued CNN, The Washington Post and The New York Times multiple times, including during his first term in office. It's a strategy he adopted before and after his presidency, suing journalists and major outlets, including his book publishers and CBS News, over coverage he didn't like.
Edmondson said it appeared likely the lawsuits would yield additional benefits for Trump.
“They've done a really good job of reiterating that message that journalists are the enemy of the people,” Edmondson said.
During a press conference on Monday, Trump said, “I think I have to do it,” adding, “It costs a lot of money to do it but we have to straighten out the press.”
While Trump's recent lawsuits have focused on outlets that are subsidiaries of deep-pocketed corporations, Edmondson said he worries they will lead others to sue “mom and pop” local media in response to the coverage. Can inspire.
“Think about state and county local officials who might say, “Oh, this would be a great way to punish local journalists,” Edmondson said.
Trump's lawsuits often demand extraordinary figures from defendants. Trump sued Timothy O'Brien and sought $5 billion in damages after the journalist wrote a book questioning Trump's claims about his net worth. The case was dismissed, and Trump later told a reporter from The Washington Post He knew that he could not win the case.
Trump said, “I spent a few bucks on legal fees, and he spent a lot more. I did it to make his life miserable, which I'm happy with.”
Trump sued ABC for defamation after anchor George Stephanopoulos said Trump was “found liable for rape” during an interview with Republican Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina on March 10.
A unanimous civil jury finds Trump liable for sexually assaulting the author in 2023 E. Jean CarrollThe sexual abuse claim also included allegations that Trump inserted his fingers into Carroll against her will. The federal judge presiding over the case later wrote, “The jury clearly found that Mr. Trump had indeed digitally raped Ms. Carroll.”
trump CBS News sued In October, the network was accused of “fraudulent” editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump has claimed that CBS News edited Harris' response to a question about the conflict in the Middle East to mislead the public. He repeated this claim on Monday.
“They took Kamala's answer, which was a crazy answer, a terrible answer, and they took out the entire answer and replaced it with something else that she said later in the interview,” Trump claimed.
CBS News said in a statement after the lawsuit was filed that her claims are “completely baseless.” The network said it would vigorously defend against the lawsuit.
CBS filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit on December 6, arguing that the case had no merit and should not have been filed in Texas, which is home to neither the defendants nor the plaintiffs. CBS is based in New York, and Trump lives in Florida.
Trump has also sued the journalist bob woodward And publisher Simon & Schuster claimed in January 2023 that Woodward publicly released interview recordings she made for the book “Rage” without Trump's permission.
Trump said Monday that Woodward “did not quote me properly from the tapes,” and he claimed Woodward “sold tapes that he didn't have permission to do.”
The publisher's parent company at the time, Paramount Global, was also named as a defendant. Paramount is also the parent company of CBS News.
Shortly after the case was filed, Simon & Schuster and Woodward issued a joint statement denouncing the lawsuit as frivolous.
“All of these interviews were on the record and were recorded with the knowledge and consent of President Trump,” the statement said. “Furthermore, it is in the public interest to have this historical record in Trump's own words. We are confident that the facts and the law are on our side.”
The case is ongoing, and the defendants have asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit.
In 2022, Trump sued the board that awards journalism's most prestigious award, the Pulitzer Prize. The case revolves around a statement the board made in 2018 confirming its decision to award the prize to The New York Times and The Washington Post for reporting on Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller III later found “insufficient evidence to allege a widespread conspiracy”.
“It turned out to be a hoax and they were dead wrong,” Trump said Monday.
The Pulitzer Prize Board made its statement after Trump called for the 2018 awards to be canceled. The board said that two independent reviews found that “no excerpts or headlines, controversies or claims in any of the winning presentations were discredited by facts that emerged after the awards were awarded.”
In July a Florida judge rejected the defendants' attempt to dismiss the case. This continues continuously.