Washington: U.S. President Donald Trump has filed a $15 billion defamation and libel lawsuit against The New York Times, four of its journalists, and publisher Penguin Random House. The lawsuit was submitted on September 15, 2025, in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, claiming that the defendants published false and damaging content about Trump, causing significant reputational and financial harm.
The legal action targets a series of New York Times articles, including a pre-2024 election editorial criticizing Trump as unfit for office, as well as the 2024 book "Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success", published by Penguin Random House. Trump's legal team argues that these publications contained distortions and fabrications, asserting that the defendants acted with knowledge of the falsity of the statements or with reckless disregard for their truthfulness.
The lawsuit claims that the alleged defamatory content caused substantial economic damage, particularly affecting the stock value of Trump Media and Technology Group. It also asserts that Trump’s personal and business reputation suffered, resulting in massive economic losses and harm to his brand and future financial prospects.
Trump announced the lawsuit on his social media platform, Truth Social, accusing The New York Times of being a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party. He stated that the newspaper has engaged in a decades-long pattern of false reporting about him, his family, and his business, and emphasized that the lawsuit seeks to hold the media accountable for intentional defamation.
This lawsuit is part of a broader pattern of Trump filing defamation cases against media organizations. Earlier in 2025, he filed a \$10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and its owner Rupert Murdoch over allegations linking him to financier Jeffrey Epstein, which Trump denied as false and malicious.
Legal experts note that defamation cases involving public figures require proving actual malice, meaning that the defendants knew the statements were false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth. The outcome of this case could have significant implications for media practices and the legal standards for defamation involving public figures.
The New York Times and Penguin Random House have not yet issued a response to the lawsuit.