President Donald Trump has requested the Supreme Courtroom to weigh in on his defamation case towards cable information large CNN. In a filing submitted on Aug. 14 however docketed on Thursday, Trump informed the justices that “CNN falsely and maliciously portrayed” him “as a figuring out liar who fabricated objections to the 2020 election, lacked supporting proof, and intentionally deceived the American folks.”
The dispute has its roots in CNN’s protection of the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election. Trump contended that when CNN used the phrase “the Massive Lie” to explain his insistence that the election had been stolen, and that he was the precise winner, it did so to hyperlink him with Adolf Hitler and Nazi propaganda – which, Trump stated, was defamation.
A federal choose in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, dismissed Trump’s case. In an eight-page, unsigned opinion, the U.S. Courtroom of Appeals for the eleventh Circuit upheld that ruling.
The court docket of appeals defined that whether or not a plaintiff has a defamation declare hinges on whether or not the defendant made a false assertion of truth. However CNN had not “explicitly claimed that Trump’s ‘actions and statements have been designed to be, and truly have been, variations of these [that] Hitler used to suppress and destroy populations,’” the court docket wrote. The court docket rejected Trump’s rivalry that CNN’s “use of the phrase ‘Massive Lie’” “might moderately be interpreted’” as equating Trump’s actions with Hitler’s. As an alternative, the court docket stated, the phrase “Massive Lie” “is not less than … ambiguous” – simply as, the court docket instructed, Trump’s rivalry that he was merely “exercising a constitutional proper to establish his issues with the integrity of elections” was “inclined to a number of subjective interpretations.”
Trump then got here to the Supreme Courtroom, asking the justices to take up his case. He pointed to the court docket’s 1990 resolution in Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., holding that the First Modification didn’t defend an article that was “categorized as ‘opinion’ versus ‘truth’” from a defamation declare.
The courts of appeals, Trump contended, have divided – an necessary issue that the Supreme Courtroom considers in deciding whether or not to grant evaluation – on easy methods to apply Milkovich. 4 courts of appeals, he stated, use “contextual, multi-factor assessments to think about whether or not a press release of opinion conveys objectively verifiable details to an affordable observer.” However the eleventh Circuit on this case successfully made “a ‘subjective evaluation’” as a substitute, he argued. Having decided that the phrase “Massive Lie” was ambiguous, he contended, the decrease court docket “ignored the false factual claims for which CNN used the ‘Massive Lie’ as a shorthand, together with its use of images evaluating President Trump to Hitler.”
CNN’s response to Trump’s petition for evaluation is due on Sept. 21.
Really helpful Quotation: Amy Howe, Trump asks Supreme Courtroom to listen to his defamation case towards CNN, SCOTUSblog (Aug. 20, 2026, 8:05 PM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/08/trump-asks-supreme-court-to-hear-his-defamation-case-against-cnn/