US President Donald Trump on Monday announced plans to file a $15 billion lawsuit against the New York Times, accusing the newspaper of defamation, bias and “smears” over its coverage of his administration and the 2024 election.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the lawsuit — to be filed in Florida — would target what he described as the Times’ “lies” and its role as a “mouthpiece for the Radical Left Democrat Party.”
“The New York Times has been allowed to freely lie, smear, and defame me for far too long, and that stops, NOW!” Trump wrote.
He singled out the paper’s 2024 endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris, calling it “unprecedented” and “heretofore unheard of” for being displayed prominently on the front page.
Trump further accused major media outlets of “smearing” him through “a highly sophisticated system of document and visual alteration.” The New York Times has not yet responded to the allegations.
This is not Trump’s first legal confrontation with the newspaper. In 2023, a judge dismissed his $100 million lawsuit accusing the Times and his niece Mary Trump of conspiring to obtain his tax records for a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation. That same year, he lost a $475 million defamation case against CNN after the network likened him to Adolf Hitler.
If filed, the lawsuit would be among the largest defamation claims ever brought by a sitting US president.
