Will Trump's Defamation Lawsuit Against CNN Succeed?

Former President Donald Trump’s legal team filed a lawsuit on Monday in a Florida court against CNN (Lean Left Bias). The lawsuit is seeking $475 million in punitive damages from the cable network over alleged defamation. The 29-page lawsuit accuses CNN of scheming to destroy his political career with slanderous statements and comparisons to Adolf Hitler.

This is the latest in a series of Trump lawsuits against outlets and opponents, with similar results expected. A judge threw out a lawsuit Trump filed against Hillary Clinton in September, stating that the court filing read like a “political manifesto.” Last year, Trump filed a suit against the New York Times (Lean Left Bias) for a story about the former President’s finances.

As for the CNN suit, perspectives from both sides of the spectrum have concluded the claim from the Trump team has no legal standing and is more preformative than anything. One writer for MSNBC (Left Bias) mused a potential backfiring of the case on the Trump team, stating that “in asking the court to say definitively that it is unfair to compare Trump to Hitler, he has opened the door for the courts to reach the opposite conclusion.” A writer for the Washington Examiner (Lean Right Bias) cited a contradiction at the heart of the suit, stating that “the former president has spent years lambasting CNN as an outlet that deprioritized reporting in favor of commentary. Does he now contend its arguments are to be taken as statements of fact?”