In his lawsuit alleging defamation against CNN, Donald Trump is asking $475 million in punitive damages. According to Deadline, CNN allegedly used its “massive influence” to “defame the Plaintiff in the minds of its viewers and readers for the purpose of defeating him politically,” according to Trump. The 76-year-lawyers old’s allege the term “Big Lie” was also used by Adolf Hitler in his manifesto Mein Kampf and accuse the media outlet of using it numerous times to refer to Trump’s still-unfounded allegation that voter fraud contributed to his loss in the 2020 presidential election.
“CNN’s highly defamatory and persistent association of the Plaintiff to Hitler and Hitler’s ‘Big Lie’ is no mistaken misappropriation,” his attorneys wrote. “It is wanton and malicious ‘reporting’ intended to feed a narrative and to achieve a desired end: to cause readers and viewers to associate the Plaintiff with the lowest of low, to fear him, to not vote for him, and to support campaigns against him.”
In July, Trump made a lawsuit threat against CNN. The defeated former president demanded that CNN “publish a full and fair correction, apology, or retraction,” adding that failure to do so would “result in the filing of a lawsuit and damages being sought against you, CNN,” in a 282-page letter defending his claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Trump claims that CNN has intensified its defamatory remarks in recent months due to worries that he will run for president in 2024.