Trump Asks Supreme Court to Review CNN Defamation Case

WASHINGTON – Former President Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to consider his defamation case against CNN. A filing submitted on August 14 and docketed on Thursday states that Trump contends CNN "falsely and maliciously portrayed" him "as a knowing liar who fabricated objections to the 2020 election, lacked supporting evidence, and deliberately deceived the American people."

The dispute originates from CNN's reporting on events following the 2020 presidential election. Trump argues that when CNN used the phrase "the Big Lie" to describe his assertions of a stolen election, it aimed to associate him with Adolf Hitler and Nazi propaganda. Trump characterized this association as defamation.

A federal judge in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, initially dismissed Trump's case. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld that dismissal in an eight-page, unsigned opinion.

The appeals court explained that a defamation claim requires a false statement of fact. The court found that CNN had not "explicitly claimed that Trump's 'actions and statements were designed to be, and actually were, variations of those [that] Hitler used to suppress and destroy populations.'" It rejected Trump's argument that CNN's "use of the phrase 'Big Lie'" "*could* reasonably be interpreted'" as equating his actions with Hitler's. Instead, the court described the phrase "Big Lie" as "at least … ambiguous." The court also suggested that Trump's claim of "exercising a constitutional right to identify his concerns with the integrity of elections" was "susceptible to multiple subjective interpretations."

Trump's petition to the Supreme Court references the court's 1990 decision in *Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co.*, which established that the First Amendment does not shield an article categorized as "opinion" from a defamation claim if it conveys objectively verifiable facts.

Trump asserts that courts of appeals have applied *Milkovich* inconsistently, a factor the Supreme Court considers when deciding whether to grant review. He notes that four courts of appeals use "contextual, multi-factor tests to consider whether a statement of opinion conveys objectively verifiable facts to a reasonable observer." He argues the 11th Circuit, in this case, made a "subjective assessment." Trump contends that after deeming the phrase "Big Lie" ambiguous, the lower court "ignored the false factual claims for which CNN used the 'Big Lie' as a shorthand, including its use of photographs comparing President Trump to Hitler."

CNN's response to Trump's petition for review is due by September 21.