A federal judge late Friday dismissed Donald Trump’s $475 million defamation lawsuit against CNN, in which the former president argued that the cable network’s statements about his false 2020 election fraud claims likened him to Adolf Hitler.
In the lawsuit, Trump’s team argued that CNN writers and television anchors’ use of the phrase the “Big Lie,” in five specific incidents, incited “readers and viewers to hate, contempt, distrust, ridicule, and even fear” him. But U.S. District Judge Raag Singhal, who Trump appointed in 2019, reasoned that because all of CNN’s statements were opinion, Trump could not legally sue the network for defamation.
“Being ‘Hitler-like’ is not a verifiable statement of fact that would support a defamation claim,” Singhal wrote in his dismissal. “CNN’s statements while repugnant, were not, as a matter of law, defamatory.”