A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit Donald Trump filed against CNN in which the former U.S. president claimed that references in news articles or by the network’s hosts to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election as “the Big Lie” was tantamount to comparing him to Adolf Hitler.
Trump had been seeking punitive damages of $475 million in the federal lawsuit filed last October in South Florida, claiming the references hurt his reputation and political career.
Trump is a candidate for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination in what is his third run for the presidency.
U.S. District Judge Raag Singhal, who was appointed by Trump, said Friday in his ruling that the former president’s defamation claims failed because the references were opinions and not factual statements.
Moreover, it was a stretch to believe that, in viewers’ minds, that phrase would connect Trump’s efforts challenging the 2020 election results to Nazi propaganda or Hitler’s genocidal and authoritarian regime, the judge said.
“CNN’s use of the phrase ‘the Big Lie’ in connection with Trump’s election challenges does not give rise to a plausible inference that Trump advocates the persecution and genocide of Jews or any other group of people,” the judge wrote in his decision.
Email messages seeking comment were sent to Trump’s attorneys in South Florida and Washington. CNN declined to comment on Sunday.
Trump’s legal troubles continue to mount as he overshadows Republican presidential field – CBS News
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Legal troubles continue to mount for former President Donald Trump even as he continues to overshadow the rest of the field for the 2024 Republican nomination, both in terms of polling and popularity within the party. CBS News senior investigative correspondent Catherine Herridge, CBS News chief campaign and election correspondent Robert Costa and CBS News legal analyst Rikki Klieman discussed the latest developments.
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WASHINGTON — Donald Trump may have put them in the most powerful and prestigious jobs many will ever hold, but few who worked in his Cabinet are rushing to endorse him in his bid to return to the White House.
NBC News reached out to 44 of the dozens of people who served in Trump’s Cabinet over his term in office. Most declined to comment or ignored the requests. A total of four have said publicly they support his run for re-election. Several have been coy about where they stand, stopping short of endorsing Trump with the GOP primary race underway. Then there are those who outright oppose his bid for the GOP nomination or are adamant that they don’t want him back in power.
“I have made clear that I strongly oppose Trump for the nomination and will not endorse Trump,” former Attorney General Bill Barr told NBC News. Asked how he would vote if the general election pits Trump against President Joe Biden, a Democrat, Barr said: “I’ll jump off that bridge when I get to it.”
The Trump campaign declined to comment beyond pointing to three former Cabinet members as people to contact — one of whom has endorsed Trump and two others who, when asked, didn’t commit to endorsing him at this time.
A president’s Cabinet gets a unique window into his priorities, temperament and managerial style. Tasked with running the administration day-to-day, Cabinet members see first-hand the impact of policies he touted on the campaign trail and put forward in office. They sit with him in regular meetings at the White House, listen to him vent and act as surrogates, crisscrossing the country to amplify his message.
“I’ll jump off that bridge when I get to it.”
Former Attorney General Bill Barr on a possible Trump v Biden election
As president, Trump for the most part didn’t seem to either prize or develop the reciprocal loyalty that might have turned his Cabinet into a campaign asset that would help validate his contention that his was a hugely successful presidency.
“They’re not friends; they’re not hanging on forever,” Barbara Perry, director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, said of Trump’s Cabinet members. “They’re going to skip out, or he’s going to push them out in some instances.”
Those backing Trump’s bid for another term include former acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker; Mark Meadows, his final chief of staff; former budget chief Russell Vought; and former acting director of national intelligence Richard Grenell, who in June tweeted “Trump 2024” above a tweet from Trump’s main GOP rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
A spokesman for Meadows said he “fully” supports Trump, while Vought tweeted in May that Trump “is the only person I trust to take a wrecking ball to the Deep State.”
“I’ve seen his willingness up close & behind closed doors,” Vought added. “My friend & former boss is going to finish what he started.”
Linda McMahon, the former head of the Small Business Administration, now chairs the board of the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank staffed by a number of Trump allies and former administration officials. McMahon, through an institute spokesman, did not respond to NBC News’s inquiry about whom she plans to endorse.
The upper reaches of Trump’s government were something of a revolving door during his four-year term. In some cases, he jettisoned Cabinet members he deemed disloyal or incompetent; in others, the Cabinet members left him over policy disputes. Tworesigned at the bitter end in disapproval of his actions during the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
A Brookings Institution analysis of Cabinet members directly in the presidential line of succession showed that turnover in Trump’s final year in office — when he was running for re-election — dwarfed that of every president since Ronald Reagan.
Those who’ve not endorsed Trump at this point include his former secretary of state and CIA director, Mike Pompeo; two of his former defense secretaries, Mark Esper and Pat Shanahan; one former chief of staff, John Kelly; and two of his directors of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire and Dan Coats.
Another former chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, is among those who wants Trump defeated in the GOP primaries.
“I am working hard to make sure that someone else is the nominee,” Mulvaney said. “I think he’s the Republican who is most likely to lose in a general election, of all our leading candidates. If anyone can lose to Joe Biden, it would be him.”
Mick Mulvaney in the Oval Office, in 2020.Kevin Dietsch / Bloomberg via Getty Images file
Two former Cabinet members are now running against Trump for the GOP presidential nomination: former Vice President Mike Pence, and Nikki Haley, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Coats said he is backing Pence.
“I think he has all the qualities to be a great president,” said Coats, a former Republican senator from Pence’s home state of Indiana. “I know it’s a steep climb for him, but I think the steps he has taken now show the integrity of who he is and his qualifications.”
A number of Cabinet members contacted by NBC News either declined comment or did not respond. That in itself is a source of frustration for some anti-Trump advocates, who would like to see more people who’ve worked closely with Trump speak candidly about the experience.
“Incredibly, this guy [Trump] and this movement are not just alive, they’re thriving,” said Miles Taylor, a former Trump administration official and fierce critic of the ex-president. “And that is really alarming to me. There’s an obligation for folks to paint a clear-eyed picture of what this means.”
In some cases, former officials publicly broke with Trump years ago, and there has been no sign that relations have thawed.
Elaine Chao, Trump’s former transportation secretary, resigned in the wake of the Jan. 6 riot. Trump has derisively referred to her as “Coco Chao” and she, in turn, has condemned his rhetoric.
“When I was young, some people deliberately misspelled or mispronounced my name,” Chao has said. “Asian Americans have worked hard to change that experience for the next generation. He doesn’t seem to understand that, which says a whole lot more about him than it will ever say about Asian Americans.”
Elaine Chao speaks in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House complex, on July 2, 2020.Andrew Harnik / AP file
Through a spokesman, Chao did not respond to requests for comment. She is married to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. When NBC News asked McConnell in the Capitol last week if his wife would weigh in on the 2024 presidential race, he listened to the question, smiled and then walked onto the Senate floor without answering.
Rex Tillerson, a former secretary of state, declined comment through a spokeswoman. He ran afoul of Trump early in the term. In a meeting in the summer of 2017, Tillerson privately referred to Trump as a “moron,” NBC News reported at the time. Trump ousted Tillerson the following year.
James Mattis, Trump’s first defense secretary, has been searing in his criticism of his former boss, though he declined to comment when asked if he supports Trump’s candidacy. In a statement to Politico after the Jan. 6 attack, Mattis said that the U.S. would overcome “this stain,” while Trump “will deservedly be left a man without a country.” (As for Trump, he’s described Mattis as “the world’s most overrated general.”)
A few ex-Cabinet members have publicly spoken of Trump in admiring terms, though they haven’t gone so far as to endorse his presidential bid.
“There are probably some uneasy with what they saw,” said Julian Zelizer, a history professor at Princeton University. “But for many others, especially given the DeSantis factor, they are hedging their bets,” he added, referring to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s struggling campaign. “They are waiting to see how the field unfolds before jumping behind one campaign. The lack of stability in this primary — especially with Trump’s legal problems — will result in caution.”
Ben Carson, Trump’s former housing director, said in a statement to NBC that “Donald Trump is my friend and would make a fantastic president, and if I have an announcement to make about 2024, I’ll look forward to doing so in an appropriate way.”
Ben Carson, at his confirmation hearing for housing secretary, on Jan. 12, 2017. Zach Gibson / AP file
Ryan Zinke, who served as Trump’s interior secretary and now is a Republican congressman from Montana, did not directly answer when asked by NBC News if he is endorsing Trump. He said his focus now is on Congress.
“I think the president is on glide slope right now, but he’s got some hurdles,” Zinke said of Trump. “From an individual who worked for him, I know he’s tough. They’re throwing everything at him, and he’s got some significant hurdles ahead. I take the indictment seriously, I think everyone should. So he’s got some tough hurdles before him, but I tell you what, there’s only one Donald J. Trump.”
Kelly Craft, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, could not be reached for comment. In her unsuccessful campaign for governor of Kentucky this year, Trump endorsed her rival for the Republican nomination, Daniel Cameron.
Craft highlighted her ties to Trump during the campaign. Yet she has made a campaign donation to at least one of Trump’s rivals — Pence, whose campaign said it had gotten a donation from Craft. Federal campaign finance records show the amount to be $6,600.
Peter Nicholas
Peter Nicholas is a senior national political reporter for NBC News.
Megan Lebowitz
Megan Lebowitz is based in the Washington bureau. She has written about breaking politics news and U.S.-China relations.
Diana Paulsen , Scott Wong and Jake Traylor contributed.
Donald Trump’s primary rivals have had a hard time convincing GOP voters that they’d be more electable than the indicted former president — but they may, at least in part, have themselves to blame for it.
Most of the 2024 candidate field has spent the past two and half years validating or turning a blind eye to Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 election, priming the Republican base to believe that Trump is a proven winner against President Joe Biden. Now they have only a few months to try to undo that perception but appear reluctant to press the case.
“A lot of these GOP primary contenders are paying the price of enabling Trump throughout the course of the last three years,” said former Florida Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a Trump critic. “The best way to beat him is by … showing that Trump and his movement have been rejected in general elections three times in a row. But you don’t hear [Florida Gov. Ron] DeSantis or the other candidates speaking to voters in this way. It’s impossible to defeat someone by following them.”
Trump, of course, has obsessively promoted conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was stolen from him — a falsity that crystalized into fact among many Republican voters after it went mostly unchallenged for years by most of the party’s leaders.
Numerous polls show a majority or large plurality of Republican voters believe Biden won in 2020 only through cheating. And if those voters believe that Trump effectively beat Biden once, they may be more likely to believe he’s the best candidate to do it again.
“If Trump didn’t really lose then why should GOP voters look for someone else who is a winner?” Tim Miller, a former Republican strategist who has since broken with the party over Trump, said. “Trump set this trap for his opponents and they all have walked right into it.”
A new Monmouth University poll released Tuesday found that 69% of GOP voters said Trump is either “definitely” (45%) or “probably” (24%) the strongest candidate against Biden in next November’s general election. Fewer than one third said another candidate would be stronger. And only 13% said another candidate would “definitely” be stronger.
Polls of key early voting states paint a similar picture.
In Iowa, 45% of GOP respondents to a Fox Business poll released this week said Trump would be the most likely candidate to defeat Biden, compared with 23% who picked DeSantis. In South Carolina, 51% picked Trump as the strongest candidate against Biden, while 17% chose DeSantis.
That sentiment is a major hurdle for candidates like DeSantis, who premised their campaigns on the expectation that even Republicans who like Trump would be looking for a fresher face with less baggage to have a better chance of winning in 2024.
“There is no substitute for victory,” DeSantis said during his first visit to New Hampshire in April, decrying a “culture of losing” that he said had taken hold of the GOP in recent years, referring — without mentioning Trump — to Republicans’ disappointing performances in the 2018, 2020 and 2022 elections.
Quietly, Trump’s rivals have hoped that the front-runner’s mounting legal challenges would help convince primary voters he’s a liability who should be replaced.
Few, though, have been willing to actually make that case directly, aside from lower-polling candidates like former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson.
DeSantis, for instance, has repeatedly refused to say if he believes the 2020 election was rigged against Trump. He bristles at reporters whenever he’s asked about it and typically dodges by saying he’s focused on issues he sees as more important.
“I’ve been asked that a hundred different times. Anyone have a question on the topic of the day?” the governor said at a June press conference in Florida.
And last year, DeSantis and other Republican candidates stumped for candidates who made Trump’s election denialism a centerpiece of their message, such as former Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano.
Most of the other GOP 2024 candidates have also dodged the question, or only glancingly acknowledged that Biden won, and even then have bolstered the idea that voter fraud cost Trump significant votes.
“I think we all know there were irregularities in there and there were some issues that happened,” former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley said this week during an Iowa forum moderated by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson when asked about 2020. “We know there was mail-out balloting that shouldn’t have happened. Do I think that changed the results of the election? No.”
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who is also a contender for the GOP 2024 nomination, has previously dismissed Trump’s claims about the 2020 election, but it took until this month for him to directly say that it wasn’t stolen from the former president.
“There was cheating, but was the election stolen? There’s a difference. I think [in] every election there’s cheating,” Scott said in Iowa on July 14.
Still, it’s impossible to know if calling out Trump’s loss would have changed the minds of many GOP voters.
And even some of Trump’s fiercest critics on the right say he may have a point about electability. He commands tremendously loyal support, turns out low-propensity voters (those who vote mainly in presidential elections only), and polls of hypothetical matchups against Biden show the former president performing about as well or better than his main rivals.
“It makes it harder to sell the ‘Trump is a loser’ argument — though, to be honest, that was always more of an argument for donors and elites than voters,” said Bill Kristol, the longtime conservative commentator who now runs Defending Democracy Together, an advocacy organization made up of conservatives who oppose rising authoritarian inclinations. “Republican voters know Trump is the one winner they’ve voted for since 2004. I also think if the polls consistently showed Trump losing to Biden while DeSantis was beating him, that might have had an effect on voters. But they don’t.”
Alex Seitz-Wald
Alex Seitz-Wald is a senior politics reporter for NBC News.
