What Free Speech? Trump Ramps Up Threats To Sue Publishers Over Their Speech

We just warned folks that Donald Trump would be one of the most anti-free speech Presidents in history, and he seems to have no qualms living down to that reputation.

Donald Trump’s history of frivolous lawsuits against media outlets shows his disdain for free speech, and he shows no signs of stopping. The Columbia Journalism Review has an article exploring a bunch of other legal threats Trump and those around him have been flinging at news and book publishers over their speech.

These threats are part of a disturbing pattern of Trump trying to silence and intimidate his critics:

The letter, addressed to lawyers at the New York Times and Penguin Random House, arrived a week before the election. Attached was a discursive ten-page legal threat from an attorney for Donald Trump that demanded $10 billion in damages over “false and defamatory statements” contained in articles by Peter Baker, Michael S. Schmidt, Susanne Craig, and Russ Buettner. 

It singles out two stories coauthored by Buettner and Craig that related to their book on Trump and his financial dealings, Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success, released on September 17. It also highlighted an October 20 story headlined “For Trump, a Lifetime of Scandals Heads Toward a Moment of Judgment” by Baker and an October 22 piece by Schmidt, “As Election Nears, Kelly Warns Trump Would Rule Like a Dictator.”

“There was a time, long ago, when the New York Times was considered the ‘newspaper of record,’” the letter, a copy of which was reviewed by CJR, reads. “Those halcyon days have passed.” It accuses the Times of being “a full-throated mouthpiece of the Democratic Party” that employs “industrial-scale libel against political opponents.” 

Of course, none of this is new. Donald Trump has a long history of threatening and suing news organizations for their factual reporting. The point is not that many of these lawsuits eventually get tossed out of court. The real goal is to harass and punish media outlets for daring to criticize or investigate him.

Even when these lawsuits are eventually dismissed, the process is the punishment. The punishment is the process. News organizations are forced to divert time and money defending against frivolous claims, while journalists may think twice about pursuing tough stories out of fear of ending up in court. It’s an insidious form of soft censorship that undermines the media’s vital watchdog role.

This is especially galling given how frequently I saw people say that in the election they supported Donald Trump because “he stood for free speech” while simultaneously claiming that Kamala Harris “wanted censorship.” This was a key line that JD Vance used, without ever backing it up, because it wasn’t ever true.

Harris hasn’t sued the media for critical reporting. Trump has, over and over and over again and continues to threaten more such lawsuits.

Free speech actually means something, and the idea that Trump supports it is laughable. But, of course, his fans won’t care because they don’t actually care about free speech. That was just a convenient excuse. They’re happy to support speech suppression lawfare when they see it aimed at their perceived “enemies” in the media.

And all of this is why we need a federal anti-SLAPP law, but it seems quite unlikely Donald Trump will sign one while he’s the President.