Trump Is Suing Media Using Consumer Protection Laws

Morning! Thanks for your support as I’ve got this newsletter off the ground over the last few days. I’ve enjoyed an unusual feeling of empowerment since I started doing this. If you do share this link with a friend, they can subscribe here.

Today’s lead New York Times story reported by David Enrich (you can read it here) is about Mr. Trump suing CBS News and the Des Moines Register using consumer protection laws meant to protect consumers from things like deceptive advertising.

The president has always loved suing newspapers but tends to use old-fashioned defamation laws, and tends to lose. Although not always. In news which isn’t covered in today’s NYT story, ABC News recently settled a quaint defamation case bought by Mr. Trump for $16 million after George Stephanopoulous described Trump as having been “found liable for rape” last year. That, it turns out, was a dumb thing for George Stephanopoulous to have said on the television. From the AP:

Just so we’re clear, you can say Mr. Trump was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming Jean Carroll in the changing rooms at Bergdorf Goodman, on television. You can even say Miss Carroll alleged that Mr. Trump raped her there, on television. You just have to be careful about calling him “a rapist” or saying he was “found liable for rape” on television.

George Stephanopoulous also appears extensively in the documentary, “The War Room” (watch in on Max!) about his role in Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign. It’s a great movie based on a presidential campaign in which the economy became a defining issue against a one-term incumbent, and so, timely. Suing Mr. Stephanopoulous, specifically, is a shot across the bow of the Democratic establishment. It also undercuts Mr. Stephanopoulous’s claims to be objective — such contradictions are rife in the media on all sides. We’re all just people working for people, after all.

When Alexandria Ocasio Cortez skipped Mr. Trump’s second inauguration because “I don’t celebrate rapists,” she worded it carefully. As media reporting on her remarks pointed out, “it is unclear what Ocasio-Cortez…is specifically referring to with her public comments.”

Riiiiight?

Meanwhile, back to the NYT story, CBS News’ parent company, Paramount, has agreed to settle its consumer protection lawsuit brought by Mr. Trump rather than fight it, and that has first amendment experts concerned. “Mr. Trump,” as the New York Times insists on calling him under the terms of its haughty and delicious style guide, filed a suit against CBS in Texas in October, accusing the broadcaster of deceptively editing a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris. He also sued the Des Moines Register and a pollster, over a survey showing Ms. Harris leading Mr. Trump in the presidential race (Trump later won Iowa by a landslide).

There is no evidence CBS deliberately edited the Harris tape other than for brevity. There is no evidence the Des Moines Register manipulated the poll findings.

Still, “even a far-fetched legal argument can yield results,” as reporter Enrich writes:

It’s also notable that Mr. Trump sued CBS in Texas where a judge he appointed is more likely to be sympathetic to his claims:

The signal they’re sending by this kind of behavior is that they’re prepared to be aggressive in court. I apologize for stating the obvious but let’s talk about the chilling effect that has on the press.

As a one-time “journalist” with a highly questionable diploma in the subject, I can tell you that it is intimidating to write about powerful people with flesh-eating lawyers in the U.S., whatever the basis for your reporting.

Years ago I wrote a story about the mistreatment of a leading scientologist for an alternative weekly in Oregon, and fielded several phone calls from Tom Cruise’s friends including the leader of the church itself, David Miscavige. He was not very nice to me, although the fact that he had gotten on the phone personally made me feel like I must have struck a nerve. The story I was running included an allegation that Mr. Miscavige had struck my source across the face. He made it clear that he’d be reading the article very carefully when it came out, and we had a lawyer on retainer at the paper, but her time was billable by the hour. We weren’t exactly rolling in cash, unlike scientology. It was all a disincentive to run the story. I was grateful that my editor and publishers stood by it. Clearly it struck the church a devastating blow from which it never recovered. 🤦🏻‍♂️

Later my efforts to report on the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office around jail corruption were met with a systematic campaign to discredit my motives for doing so. People went through my trash. The sheriff’s people accused me of being a racist, which in New Orleans at the time was a smart tactic. All of this was done behind closed doors and not in public, between men of influence in the city. It undercut me successfully and made me question my resolve.

In such moments a reporter must be brave to take on powerful and monied people. The truth gets a little murkier. You need to be surer of yourself. I also don’t entirely dispute the idea that “we want to create a precedent that news media organizations take seriously that they need to be responsible in how they do their jobs,” to quote a conservative from this morning’s New York Times story. Journalists shouldn’t be encouraged in pursuing vendettas, particularly when dispassionate reporting of the truth should be damning enough.

The press really shouldn’t throw out damaging allegations without proof. For example, the Daily Mail settled with the Trump family in 2017 over a story about Melania Trump. In its apology, the paper acknowledged it had published "allegations that she provided services beyond simply modeling". A New York Times reporter later apologized for a private conversation, reported by someone overhearing it, in which he described Mrs. Trump as “a hooker.” In 2024, Mrs. Trump said she “stands proudly” by her nude modeling work, first reported by the New York Post in 2016.

Fair enough. It’s great nude modeling work. The bigger question is what stories reporters have heard but lack the publishable evidence to report. If you’re chatting with a journalist over the coming months, ask them to tell you about the best gossip they’ve heard. Then promise not to repeat it.

Matt Davis lives in New York with his wife and kid.