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A federal judge has tossed President Trump’s $15 billion lawsuit against The New York Times, calling the complaint “improper and impermissible.”
“A complaint is not a megaphone for public relations or a podium for a passionate oration at a political rally or the functional equivalent of the Hyde Park Speakers’ Corner,” U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday wrote, according to ABC News.
Merryday, an appointee of former President George H. W. Bush, gave Trump’s attorneys 28 days to refile their lawsuit.
“President Trump will continue to hold the Fake News accountable through this powerhouse lawsuit,” a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said, POLITICO stated.
JUST IN: A federal judge has tossed President Trump’s $15 billion defamation lawsuit against The New York Times and Penguin Random House, calling the complaint “decidedly improper and impermissible.”
Read more: https://t.co/jrX4J6mGqH pic.twitter.com/3VafD2ew94
— ABC News (@ABC) September 19, 2025
ABC News has more:
In the lawsuit, which was just filed on Tuesday, Trump’s attorneys alleged that the Times has become a “leading, and unapologetic, purveyor of falsehoods,” arguing that a series of articles about Trump — including a report that Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly warned the president would rule like a dictator, an article about the making of “The Apprentice,” and a report about the controversy that has followed Trump — amounted to libel.
Judge Merryday, in a blistering four-page ruling, said he was throwing out the suit because it “unmistakably and inexcusably” violates the rules that govern civil lawsuits.
“A complaint is a short, plain, direct statement of allegations of fact sufficient to create a facially plausible claim for relief and sufficient to permit the formulation of an informed response,” he wrote. “Although lawyers receive a modicum of expressive latitude in pleading the claim of a client, the complaint in this action extends far beyond the outer bound of that latitude.”
In tossing the suit because Trump’s complaint was procedurally improper, the judge did not weigh in on the merits of Trump’s defamation claim, giving his lawyers 28 days to refile it in a “professional and dignified manner.”
The outlet previously issued a statement saying the complaint was “without merit.”
“He’s wrong on the facts; he’s wrong on the law. And we’ll fight it, and we’ll win,” The New York Times executive editor Joseph Kahn said, according to The Hill.
Trump to file $15 billion defamation and libel lawsuit against New York Times https://t.co/KW1zW9nPSm pic.twitter.com/dCOG4mQVni
— New York Post (@nypost) September 16, 2025
POLITICO noted:
Trump has often used civil lawsuits to deliver sweeping attacks on his rivals, later using his Truth Social platform to amplify the legal filings and declare them to be “powerhouse” arguments.
Merryday said that despite the “modicum of expressive latitude” afforded to lawyers in civil lawsuits, Trump’s complaint against the Times went way over the line. It careened between allegations about the “persistent election interference from legacy media” to “the halcyon days” of the news business to a “desperate need to defame” to defenses of Trump’s father, Trump’s wealth and his sprawling real estate empire.
Merryday noted that the complaint offered “repetitive, and laudatory (toward President Trump) but superfluous allegations.”