Donald Trump filed a $15 billion defamation lawsuit against the New York Times magazine and Penguin Random House. According to the lawsuit, the NYT’s alleged smear campaign was intended to harm his reputation and business. The token is 70% down after its peak on the second day after the launch in January 2025. Did NYT harm it?
Summary
- The NYT has been criticizing Donald Trump for years. It endorsed Kamala Harris in the fall of 2024.
- Trump believes the magazine breached journalistic ethics to pursue the interests of the Democratic Party.
- Trump filed a $15 billion defamation lawsuit against the Times and Penguin Random House that published a critical book on Trump, “Lucky Loser.” The book was written by the NYT journalists.
- Trump believes the book and three NYT articles are full of distorted facts that harmed his reputation and business.
What’s in the lawsuit?
Trump took to Truth Social to announce he is suing The NYT for alleged intended defamation during the 2024 presidential race. The Penguin Random House publisher is another target in the president’s $15 billion lawsuit. The trial is set to take place in a Florida federal court.
The lawsuit is focused on the book published by Penguin and three NYT articles. The book is titled “The Luckiest Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success.” It was written by Pulitzer-winning NYT reporters Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig. The articles are:
- “The Star-Making Machine That Created ‘Donald Trump, written by the authors of ‘Lucky Loser.’ It outlines how the public image of Trump was enhanced by the producers of ‘The Apprentice’ show. The article was released on Sep. 14, 2024.
- “For Trump, a Lifetime of Scandals Heads Toward a Moment of Judgment,” released on Oct. 20, 2024.
- “As Election Nears, Kelly Warns Trump Would Rule Like a Dictator,” released on Oct. 24, 2024.
According to the lawsuit, The Times betrayed journalist ideals of honesty, objectivity, and accuracy.
The lawsuit reads:
“The First Amendment has never furnished the Times — or Penguin, or anyone else — with an unqualified privilege to make false, malicious, and defamatory statements about its opponents in order to try and ruin their lives and livelihoods.”
According to the lawsuit, the actions of the publisher and NYT were aimed at harming Trump’s business reputation, sabotaging his candidacy for President, and prejudicing juries and judges in the “unlawful cases brought against President Trump, his family, and his businesses by his political opponents for purposes of election interference.”
The lawsuit suggests that the Harris endorsement article opens with a “hyperbolic line” claiming that Trump is the least fit to serve as the President of the United States. It provides a quotation saying that in the event that Trump gets elected, he will “defy the norms and dismantle the institutions that have made our country strong.” According to the text of the lawsuit, this statement is hypocritical. The text provides several extracts from other NYT articles. One of the articles urges the U.S. people to reject the filibuster tool as anti-democratic. The other one suggests that the U.S. Constitution is “broken” and “dangerous” and calls Americans to “reclaim from constitutionalism.”
The text of the lawsuit reads that repugnant distortions and fabrications about Trump were spread through the NYT and “Lucky Loser” to further the goals of the Times and its Democrat Party backers.
A substantial portion of the lawsuit is dedicated to listing Donald Trump’s achievements. This segment suggests it was his charisma and “unique business acumen” that propelled him to success in show business and politics. Also, it disputes certain narratives from the book and articles in question. These include depicting Trump as a liar, a weak businessman and unreliable business partner, questioning the quality of his real estate, suggesting Trump has ties with the mafia, accusing Trump’s father of multi-million dollar tax evasion, etc.
Did NYT and “Lucky Loser” harm Trump’s cryptocurrency business?
While the lawsuit itself contradicts the damage done to Trump’s reputation by stressing his sweeping victory in the 2024 election, it mentions financial damages caused by the journalists in question.
For instance, it associates the articles and the book with the decline of Trump Media’s stock price, which impacted Trump’s stake in the company. According to the lawsuit, Trump’s one-of-a-kind personal brand is worth $100 billion. It means that any damage to his personal brand is evaluated in billions of dollars.
The lawsuit barely mentions the cryptocurrency ventures of Trump and his family. And it’s not surprising, considering the fact that it is focused on the pre-election material. Actually, the lawsuit doesn’t contain any mention of harm caused by the Times to Trump’s crypto business.
Nevertheless, the legal fight that may cost NYT too much if Trump wins targets the ongoing criticism of the Trump family’s crypto business. The Times has been covering Trump’s controversial crypto business before Trump’s second inauguration. It includes critical coverage of Official Trump memecoin and the entire crypto empire of the Trump family.
The NYT’s point of view often echoes the Democratic Party’s urges to ban crypto business for presidents, vice presidents, and their families. The New York Times continued to publish revelatory and investigative articles on the crypto business of the POTUS after the lawsuit was filed.
The NYT spokesperson published an answer to Trump’s lawsuit:
“This lawsuit has no merit. It lacks any legitimate legal claims and instead is an attempt to stifle and discourage independent reporting. The New York Times will not be deterred by intimidation tactics. We will continue to pursue the facts without fear or favor and stand up for journalists’ First Amendment right to ask questions on behalf of the American people.”
The NYT publisher, A.G. Sulzberger, sent a note to staff calling the lawsuit “frivolous” and saying that “everyone, regardless of their politics, should be troubled by the growing anti-press campaign led by President Trump and his administration.”
Despite the NYT’s questioning of the legitimacy of Trump’s crypto business, there is no visible correlation between the Trump token market performance and the critical articles. Conflict of interests associated with the Trump memecoin is often mentioned in various publications, including Cointelegraph, or is addressed in the X posts of prominent crypto influencers.
Can Trump win this legal battle?
The legal battle with the NYT and Penguin isn’t the first time the 47th President has sued “biased media.” Some of the sued companies had to pay Trump millions in damages. The lawsuit mentions the battles with ABC, CBS, and The Wall Street Journal.
Trump and his influential supporters successfully ostracized a few of his critics from the media. One of the most recent examples is the indefinite suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s show by ABC on Sep. 18, 2025. It happened hours after Trump condemned Kimmel’s remarks on the assassination of Charles Kirk, who was a public speaker and high-profile Trump supporter. Earlier, Trump expressed pleasure over the closing of Stephan Colbert’s late-night show. In the message posted on Truth Social, he added that he hopes Kimmel will be next. Both Colbert and Kimmel have been critical of the President.
Given all that, it is safe to say that the Times and Penguin will have a tough fight. As of the press time, the NYT continues to publish opinion articles criticizing Trump frequently.
