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- [00:00]
A
Hey, everybody. Tim Miller from the Bulwark here with my colleague Andrew Egger, author of the Morning Shots newsletter, which you can get over@thebullork.com we're talking about one of those, you know, you gotta laugh so you don't cry stories from the Trump era. The President of these United States has filed a $15 billion defamation lawsuit against the New York Times for a grab bag of various grievances and complaints with varying degrees of merit, from very little merit to exceedingly little merit to insanely little merit. And, yeah, I mean, we kind of just want to go through it, but at the biggest picture. What do you think from the Free Speech President here?
- [00:46]
B
Yeah, this is kind of an amazing thing. You mentioned the, like, you laugh so you don't cry stories. There are a lot of those stories where you get to laugh a little, so you don't cry a lot. This is, like, actually very funny. Like, I highly recommend everybody don't say this very often go and read the legal filing, because it's great. And again, you never see this, even from Trump's lawyers, you never see this because usually, like, they're out there trying to win a suit. When you read through this lawsuit, is pretty clear that even the lawyers who have written it know this lawsuit is not going anywhere. And so really, the only end that they are pursuing with their writing of this legal filing is is audience of one stuff. It's to. It's to make Donald Trump like the filing a lot. And that comes through in every word because it is written, like, the most ridiculous, just blowing smoke up his butt stuff you have, like, if you were.
- [01:39]
A
Assigned in college, like, if you're a liberal college student, you know, that goes to one of these universities that they lament, they're attacking, like, Columbia, and, like, you're assigned a creative writing project. I was like, write an absurdist lawsuit in the voice of one of Donald Trump's stupidest lawyers. It would not look that different from this, I wouldn't think.
- [02:01]
B
Yeah, it is. Certainly every once in a while you come across a piece of writing that is so unique that it's like, okay, AI didn't do this. Human beings with their endless human ingenuity sat down and made this happen.
- [02:12]
A
I have a particular favorite just to give people a taste that we'll start with, and then I'll let you cook. My favorite was among the people that Trump is. So he's doing the New York Times, broadly. He's also suing particular reporters there, including my friend Nicole Wallace's husband. Mike Schmidt, and including former podcast Suzanne Craig, who wrote the book Lucky Losers. In the book, she credits Mark Burnett of the Apprentice for reinvigorating Trump's career and fame. And the lawsuit includes that claim as something that is libelous on the evidence that Trump was already extremely famous and well renowned based upon his appearance at WrestleMania. Hey, look at this. And in the movie Home Alone 2, where's the lobby? Down the hall and to the left.
- [03:04]
B
Thanks.
- [03:05]
A
Literally in the filing that you cannot say that Mark Burnett made him famous because he was already famous. Proof he was at WrestleMania.
- [03:14]
B
Yeah, yeah. No, there's actually several long lists in this lawsuit of sort of all of the media products Trump has ever touched, all the books he's ever written, all the cameos he's ever made. It's great stuff. And so just to back up like a little bit, basically the substance of this lawsuit, to the extent that there is substance, their basic claim is the New York Times doesn't like us and they didn't want us to win the election last time around. But when they get specific, it is plain that the things they are particularly mad about is the Times, that the New York Times has reported on sort of the myth making around Donald Trump. Right. There's some articles about, yeah, like how the Apprentice sort of branded Trump in this way where he was like, it was not actually about any of his particular business successes. It was about him as sort of an avatar for business success. And Trump has made a lot of money off of this brand, off of licensing his name to all these different companies over a long period of time. So it's very interesting to kind of like, look at the stuff they're mad about as, like the stuff that actually gets under Trump's skin. It's not, you know, their coverage of all of the horrible stuff that he has actually done or is doing or is about to do. They're really mad about, you know, the fact that he was not supposedly too famous before the Apprentice. Let me just start with one thing here. This is just to give you a sense. This is how they introduce Trump when it comes to, when they're just listing the parties in the lawsuit. President Trump is a citizen of the United States, a resident of the state of Florida, the 45th president of the United States of America, and having handily won the 2024 presidential election, despite defendants best efforts to the contrary, is the 47th president of the United States. In addition to his unprecedented political success, President Trump is universally known for his decades of remarkable business achievements, particularly at the helm of the world renowned Trump Organization, with its worldwide portfolio of luxury real estate holdings. Having long established himself as a global celebrity, he then revolutionized television as the star of the Apprentice. President Trump continues to redefine what is possible in business and media, including with his founding and powerful use of the immensely successful and unbelievably unprofitable. I will editorialize social media platform Truth Social. So that's just how they.
- [05:19]
A
Did they mention his micropenis? Do they mention his micropenis?
- [05:22]
B
No, they didn't get around to that. I don't know. Is that like a.
- [05:24]
A
Well, it just, I mean, it just sort of feels like anybody that would need to have that long of a list of accomplishments and that would be trying that hard to demonstrate that they're important even after they've won the presidency twice probably has a micro penis. But anyway.
- [05:36]
B
Yeah, yeah, I mean, and like, you can throw darts at this filing and just hit like the most unbelievable tongue bathing praise for the, for the plaintiff, I mean, for the guy on whose behalf this lawsuit is being filed. Just like one more random. This is very near the top. Just describing what happened in 2024. With the overwhelming victory, President Trump secured the greatest personal and political achievement in American history. Nobody, nobody has ever done anything more amazing in any, across any field, ever in U.S. history than Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 election last year. So there's, there's 85 pages of this.
- [06:14]
A
I say that it's funny, but also potentially useful. So maybe as a rhetorical device against the president, Sometimes braggadocia backfires to catch what they, what they said in the filing, his net worth was.
- [06:28]
B
I didn't see that.
- [06:29]
A
Okay, right, so. So when you are arguing what the damages are of this alleged libel that the New York Times issued against you, you know, part of the evidence you put forth for, like, why the damages need to be 15 billion or whatever is what your net worth is. What could have been lost or gained, you know, from their slander. They write 100 billion, $100 billion. 100 billion, he says, is his net worth. Which is kind of interesting because his net worth when he went into the White House was like, I mean, maybe at best, I think it was like 5 billion, I think, or 4 billion. And so he's essentially claiming that this second White House grift has improved his net worth like, 20 fold. So, anyway, I thought that was an interesting little note. What else caught your eye?
- [07:24]
B
While we're on the subject of sort of like, interestingly revelatory little nuggets here's another one for you. This is just. While it's sort of listing his business interests, currently President Trump and the Trump Organization own and operate the magnificent Trump Tower, Trump International Hotel and Tower, the Trump Building, 1290 Avenue of the Americas. Trump Park Avenue. Trump Park, Trump Park East, Trump World Tower, 610 Park Avenue. They go on and on and on and on in addition to numerous other iconic properties. That's kind of interesting, right? Currently President Trump and the Trump Organization own and operate all these properties. I mean like, we are so far past even like the, the suggestion that maybe there ought to be some sort of like siloing off of President Trump's business interests. I don't think he's like, you know, spending a ton of time actually doing, you know, going over investor reports for any of his companies or anything like that. But, but the, you know, the, the complete collapse of sort of like ethical boundaries between the President and all the President's many companies is, is a sort of long running theme of, of this second Trump term. And it's kind of funny to see it just sort of like baldly stated in, in his own lawyer's lawsuit, like this.
- [08:29]
A
Do you have any other funny phase before we get to the serious part with quasi.
- [08:33]
B
Oh, I don't know. I have so much. It's, it's like so much of it is just the way it's all told. Like, like, let me go back to the Mark Burnett thing real quick. This is talking about that Lucky Loser book that you mentioned a little bit ago, how they say that Mark Burnett kind of like helped Trump build this image up. This just kind of gives you us a flavor. In a shocking example of reckless disregard for the truth, Craig and Butner wrote the book and the first article greenlit for publication and published by Penguin and the Times respectively, without interviewing the famed Mark Burnett, who co created the Apprentice with President Trump and served as the show's executive producer. As the Times, Craig Bettner and Penguin admitted in the book and first article, Mr. Burnett did not respond to invitations to be interviewed. However, Burnett spoke very clearly in 2003 when knowing that nothing less than President Trump's celebrity and charisma would suffice to make the Apprentice a smash hit, he agreed extraordinarily to split the show's profits 5050 with President Trump. So what the. I mean, just to be clear, the argument here is because they tried to interview this guy and he did not respond to their requests to comment, it was libelous for them to publish. Publish the idea That, I mean, it's just amazing stuff. I mean, like, none of this. This is going to be laughed out of court, right? I mean, it is like.
- [09:46]
A
Well, though. This is the thing, though. Is this more ridiculous than the 60 Minutes lawsuit?
- [09:51]
B
It is. I strongly think it is. Let's talk about this. Can we talk about this?
- [09:55]
A
Sure. Because I will make my case in the negative, which is.
- [09:58]
B
Okay, you start.
- [09:59]
A
The 60 Minutes lawsuit was, like, premised on the notion that they edited an interview, which is what every episode of 60 Minutes is. Right. And so, like, I don't know why it would be more crazy to sue somebody for, like, not including an interview from an interviewee that refused to participate, like Mark Burnett, than to sue 60 Minutes where the name of the show is 60 Minutes and they have four commercial breaks. And they have to. They have to fit. They have to fit the interview into the time of the show. And so they cannot just run unedited clips. And everyone who's ever been interviewed by 60 Minutes has experienced them editing clips in ways that maybe they would like or dislike. So I don't know. I thought that was preposterous. And 6 and CBS settled, obviously, for other reasons because they wanted to get their merger through, and it was successful. And so the times, one would assume, would not settle. But it's a little concerning that these, that they. That these things have worked. These nearly as preposterous, maybe, if not equally so.
- [11:07]
B
What's the counterpoint? Yeah, and the merger thing is what I wanted to bring up here, because I think there's, like, a couple tracks you can look at this on. And the one is that you are right, this is not, like, on the merits, more preposterous than any number of these other suits that Trump has brought against CBS and abc, Seltzer and cnn. And Ann Seltzer being, like, the most, like, insane of all of them, where he sued this pollster for just getting a poll wrong. Like, having a poll that did not end up accurately predicting the results of the election in Iowa. Like, sorry, sorry, Donald Trump, that. That happened. So. So, yes, like, on. On their face, all of these are maybe equally preposterous. This filing is more preposterous than a lot of those filings were, just for all the reasons we've discussed. But I do think that Trump has been so emboldened by the success of some of these that he thinks he can just do this anywhere. Right. I mean, you see this a lot. He brings up those lawsuits all the time where he's like, he brought it up to John Carl of ABC Today, he's like, you gotta be careful or we're gonna come after you again for asking such mean, nasty, hateful questions. But I think one big difference here is that unlike many of those other networks which are owned by these big sort of media conglomerates that have a whole bunch of other really compelling business interests that, like, you know, CBS is a small. I always forget these parent structures. Is Paramount the one that owns cbs?
- [12:28]
A
Yeah, Paramount.
- [12:29]
B
Yeah, yeah. Paramount is like dance. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And like, CBS is like a very small part of their revenue picture, you know, and like that. That is the pressure point Trump has applied. The New York Times is just. The New York Times. Right. And the New York Times has a long history of really getting the bit in its teeth and fighting these things when it thinks that, you know, the alternative is to allow press freedom to. To slide away in this country. And I think that. That they're going to fight this and they are obviously going to win. And I feel very confident in making that proclamation or. Or it'll just get tossed, you know, because it's. I mean, it's. It's so silly on its face that you would almost need, like, this extralegal sort of pressure, like the, like, the fact that Donald Trump gets to, like, personally approve the Paramount merger, stuff like that, in order to get these previous companies to bend. And I just think it's nice that we can finally talk about one of these. And it's like, no, he's going to lose it. He's not. He's not going to win. This is just going to be stupid. We're just going to laugh at him and it will go away.
- [13:27]
A
I agree. It's very likely he's going to lose this, and it's ridiculous. And the New York Times has been very good, and we'll probably fight it. I do feel a little bit nervous to do the. There's a thing on college game day where they predict the games, and it's like, you know, like, I always show. It's like if there's a surprise, you know, upset, you know, they'll go back and they'll show the screen where all of the people had predicted that the obvious version would win. So I worry a little bit about that in this case. Okay. Final thing that's on the serious ish side of this. It is part of a broader attack on speech. And we've had a bunch of videos about how this is happening around Kirk stuff. And I did want to say Yesterday about the J.D. vance side of it. But you mentioned the John Carl interview today with Trump. And I think it is worth mentioning this comes in the context of, of this action from Trump today, where Carl asked him about Pam Bondi's comment yesterday on Stephen Miller's wife's podcast that they're gonna go after hate speech.
- [14:20]
B
We will absolutely target you.
- [14:24]
A
Go after you if you are targeting anyone with hate speech. And by hate speech, they don't mean, like, speech dehumanizing trans people or something. They mean speech being mean to Charlie Kirk. And Trump was asked about this and said, and you know, Carl's question is. Right. It's essentially that MAGA has been for a year. Like, the premise of a lot of MAGA was that, like, these hate speech laws were bad and they were used after conservatives. Wasn't fair. How could you use hate speech laws? And I want to play for you Trump's response to John Carl on that.
- [14:52]
C
And what do you think Pam Bondi thinks she's going to go after hate speech is that, I mean, a lot.
- [14:57]
B
Of people, a lot of your allies.
- [14:58]
C
Say hate speech is free speech, should probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly. It's hate. You have a lot of hate in your heart. Maybe they'll come after ABC. Well, ABC paid me $16 million recently for a form of hate speech. Right. Your company paid me $16 million for a form of hate speech. So maybe they'll have to go after you.
- [15:20]
A
So Trump says that John Carl is doing hate speech and maybe Pam Bondi should come after you. And to me, like, again, that is also preposterous and you have to laugh about it. But it's like, I mean, this is a coordinated campaign to go after the speech of media outlets that he doesn't like that has had some success in quarters with, you know, extenuating circumstances. And, like, he didn't, he didn't seem to be joking.
- [15:50]
B
Yeah, yeah. And you are right that that is the serious side of this. Because the flip side of all of these individual lawsuits being so preposterous is the sort of systemic issue where he has decided that the best way to bring the press to heel is to just sue everybody all the time, constantly on any pretext imaginable, and just have everybody constantly looking over their shoulder and constantly feeling the need to, like, you know, hedge and fight and, you know, like, like, you know, the lawsuit's coming. So, like, we need to absolutely make sure that we are constantly covered at all times. You know what I mean? And that is a real problem, like that's an actual foundational problem because he has, he does not fear any political blowback. He is, he is, I think, correctly assessed that his people do not give one shit about, you know, him, him chilling press freedom in the United States of America. So there's no political consequence, there's no economic consequence. He can just keep having his lawyers do all this. He's sitting on all these, all these free legal services from all these, all these law firms. He's already cowed into, into submission, although I have no idea if any of them are involved in this stuff. But you know, he's basically, he can file these things as fast as his lawyers can write them. Right. And so that is, we should not lose fact of the fact that it is a ridiculous, totally like untenable, totally un American place to be in terms of that being the President's preferred strategy for dealing with criticism across the board in the United States.
- [17:13]
A
I would assume and hope that the pro bono services that those weak, cowardly law firms were providing was not this particular filing.
- [17:23]
B
I think we know if it was. I think we would know if it was.
- [17:25]
A
Or maybe it's a troll. I don't know. Maybe it's a true troll. I don't think so. I would, I guess, too nice of Trump to be a troll. Yeah, well, I hear you. I guess I'm holding out hope that one of the anti cancel culture warriors out there, one of the free speech absolutists, you know, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Joe Rogan will be outraged by this. But, but hope springs eternal. We haven't seen it yet. Andrew Egger, I appreciate you and I guess I should actually end with something more like this. The great Andrew Egger, the author of the best newsletter in the morning that has ever been written. Somebody that has succeeded in YouTube despite the haters and the losers going after him. We appreciate you.