Donald Trump has sued Warner Bros Discovery Inc-owned (NASDAQ: WBD) CNN and is asking for punitive damages of $475 million and compensation of more than $75,000.
What Happened: The former president claimed in a lawsuit, seen by CBS News, that the cable news station damaged his reputation with "false, defamatory, and inflammatory mischaracterizations of him.”
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it,” said Trump’s lawyers, according to the report.
“CNN's campaign of dissuasion in the form of libel and slander against the [Trump] has only escalated in recent months as CNN fears [he] will run for president in 2024."
The case was filed in the Southern District of Florida and assigned to the Trump-appointed Judge Raaj Singhal, according to CBS News.
A CNN representative did not immediately respond to Benzinga's request for comment.
Why It Matters: Trump’s legal team said the intention behind CNN’s conduct is “to interfere with [his] political career,” reported CBS News.
Trump called CNN a “once-prestigious news channel that has devolved into a purveyor of disinformation, defamation, and Fake news” on Truth Social.
Screenshot From Donald Trump's Truth Social Profile
The former U.S. leader said in the coming weeks and months he will be filing lawsuits against a number of other “Fake News Media Companies” for their lies, defamation, and wrongdoing including as it pertains to “The Big Lie” — which Trump claimed is used as a reference to their “disinformation attack” on the 2020 Presidential Election.
Truth Social is Trump Media & Technology Group, a company set to go public through a merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ: DWAC).
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