Trump’s Latest Lawsuit Against CBS Proves He’s No Free Speech Champion

As we head into the election tomorrow, there has been some general talk about how many people think that Donald Trump is somehow better on things like free speech and the economy. It’s pretty clear that that is wrong. On the economy, it’s evident he has no clue what he’s talking about and his plan on both tariffs and deportations would tank the US economy massively.

But the free speech claims are even more bizarre. During his first presidential campaign, he threatened to “open up” our libel laws to make it easier to sue. And while he was unable to do that, it hasn’t stopped him from regularly suing the media for its free speech in a series of SLAPP suits designed to silence and suppress their speech, while frightening others away from speaking up against him in any way.

Late last week, Donald Trump filed another one of his anti-free speech lawsuits, and this one is way crazier than the others. First of all, this one is directly with him as the plaintiff (some of the ones in the past have been on behalf of his campaign). But this one isn’t even about what a media property said about Donald Trump. No, he’s suing CBS claiming that the way it edited a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris violates that Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA).

This action concerns CBS’s partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference through malicious, deceptive, and substantial news distortion calculated to (a) confuse, deceive, and mislead the public, and (b) attempt to tip the scales in favor of the Democratic Party as the heated 2024 Presidential Election—which President Trump is leading— approaches its conclusion, in violation of Tex. Bus. & Comm. Code § 17.46(a), which subjects “[f]alse, misleading, or deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any trade or commerce” to suit under Tex. Bus. & Comm. Code §17.50(a)(1). See Texas Deceptive Trade Practices-Consumer Protection Act (the “DTPA”), Tex. Bus. & Comm. Code § 17.41 et seq.

This is one of the most blatant attacks on free speech rights and the First Amendment I’ve seen in a while. It’s literally saying that he can sue a news organization if he doesn’t like how they edit a story. Editorial discretion is among the very clearly protected rights of a news organization under the First Amendment.

Trump’s entire argument is that when she appeared on 60 Minutes (which also invited Trump, though he skipped out on it after initially agreeing) they edited one of her answers to make it shorter. But, um, that’s what they always do? In an edited “magazine style” TV show, as Trump well knows having done a bunch of these, they talk to you for a much longer time than they have to air, and then they air only portions of both the questions and the answers.

Indeed, it’s easy to show that if anyone has benefited from the media’s willingness to take rambling, incoherent answers and make them sound normal, it’s Donald Trump. The media does this to him nearly every single day.

Anyway, if we’re talking about word salad, here’s Donald Trump last night appearing to practically fall asleep mid-sentence talking about how “a whistleblower released the information on the 18 on the 800,000 [pause] cobs plus [longer pause]. The whistleblower said, you know, there were not 800,000 and 18,000, you add ’em upissst, and then you add 100 and think of it. 112,000 jobs.”

In the case of CBS, it aired the shorter, more concise version of Harris’s answer on 60 Minutes, leaving out some of the explanatory rambling before getting to the details. Earlier, on Face the Nation, they played a longer clip that included some explanatory language that wasn’t a “word salad” as the complaint argues (yes, the complaint directly calls it a “word salad”) but is perhaps not particularly eloquent.

In both versions of the Interview (the “October 5 Version” and the “October 6 Version”), Whitaker asks Kamala about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Whitaker says to Kamala: “But it seems that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not listening.”

In the October 5 Version, aired on the CBS Sunday morning news show Face the Nation, Kamala replies to Whitaker with her typical word salad: “Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in several movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region.”

In the October 6 Version, aired on CBS’s 60 Minutes, Kamala appears to reply to Whitaker with a completely different, more succinct answer: “We are not gonna [sic] stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.”

Incredibly, the complaint itself includes Trump ranting about all of this, kinda highlighting how he is way more prone to “word salad” than his opponent.

As President Trump stated, and as made crystal clear in the video he referenced and attached, “A giant Fake News Scam by CBS & 60 Minutes. Her REAL ANSWER WAS CRAZY, OR DUMB, so they actually REPLACED it with another answer in order to save her or, at least, make her look better. A FAKE NEWS SCAM, which is totally illegal. TAKE AWAY THE CBS LICENSE. Election Interference. She is a Moron, and the Fake News Media wants to hide that fact. An UNPRECEDENTED SCANDAL!!! The Dems got them to do this and should be forced to concede the Election? WOW!”). See President Donald J. Trump, TRUTH SOCIAL (Oct. 10, 2024)

Yes, somehow Trump’s lawyers think this makes him look good. They also seem to think that referring to Trump as “President Trump” but referring to Vice President Harris as “Kamala” makes this look like a serious case.

It is not. It is clearly an attack on basic First Amendment rights and free speech law. It is an attack on the editorial discretion of CBS, the very same editorial discretion that Trump regularly benefits from.

He is attacking the First Amendment and free speech by using bogus lawsuits to challenge those in the media who don’t portray things the way he wants them portrayed. That is a fundamental attack on free speech.

And, as Eugene Volokh explains, these issues have been covered before in court, in the context of “false” statements. This case isn’t even about false statements, just Trump not liking how an interview was edited.

That said, Trump filed this case in the Northern District of Texas, Amarillo Division, guaranteeing that Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk will hear it. Kacsmaryk is considered one of a small group of “the worst judges in America” as someone in a single judge division who is known as the go-to judge for Trumpists looking to “rubber-stamp their looniest ideas.”

There is no reason for this case to be in Texas, as Trump is a Florida resident, and the two CBS organizations he is suing are based in New York and Delaware. By any sane measure, the case would be tossed on jurisdiction alone.

I’ve also seen some people argue that RFK Jr.’s embrace by Trump is again about “free speech,” but that is similarly nonsense.

RFK Jr. has been filing a ton of bogus lawsuits over private entities’ editorial discretion and is now backing up Trump in arguing that CBS should “lose its license.”

This is a pretty incredible thing for RFK Jr. to be saying, considering at this very moment he is suing the Biden administration, falsely claiming that they made Facebook block his anti-vax nonsense.

So, if you’re following RFK Jr.’s logic, it’s an obvious First Amendment violation that Facebook blocked his anti-vax statements which violated their own policies, because the White House also agreed that RFK’s anti-vax claims were dangerous. But it’s not a First Amendment violation for Donald Trump to “pull CBS’s license” for how it edited an interview?

The only “principle” here is “it’s not okay if it happens to me, but it’s totally okay if we do it when we’re in power.”

That’s not about principled free speech.

And that’s not even getting into how little either Trump or RFK Jr. understand how this works. CBS doesn’t have “a license” to pull. Affiliate stations have broadcast spectrum licenses, and the government isn’t supposed to punish them based on what they cover or how. Yes, CBS has a small number (15 across the country) of affiliates that are “owned and operated” by the company, but the vast majority (236) are owned by other entities. So even the idea of “pulling CBS’s license” makes no logical sense.

But, either way, as we head into election day, the idea that Donald Trump is a free speech supporter is literally backwards. He’s spent years suing people for their speech, and now he’s even doing it in response to editorial discretion he dislikes. Donald Trump has no conception of free speech. He only supports speech he likes, and he is eager to punish any speech he dislikes.