A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit Donald Trump filed against CNN.
The former US 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.
Mr Trump had been seeking punitive damages of 475 million US dollars in the federal lawsuit filed last October in South Florida, claiming the references hurt his reputation and political career.
Mr Trump is a candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination in what is his third run for the presidency.
US district judge Raag Singhal, who was appointed by Mr Trump, said 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 Mr 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.
