Why Trump is suing the New York Times, his white whale, without citing mistakes

Donald Trump grew up in Queens – a very nice neighborhood, to be sure, but still an outer borough.

Across the East River is the glittering skyline of what those who don’t live there call "the city." And in the midst of that island is the New York Times building.

When the Times found the real estate developer worthy of profiling, in 1976, it was puff piece at first sight:

"He is tall, lean and blond, with dazzling white teeth, and he looks ever so much like Robert Redford. He rides around town in a chauffeured silver Cadillac with his initials, DJT, on the plates. He dates slinky fashion models, belongs to the most elegant clubs and, at only 30 years of age, estimates that he is worth "more than $200 million."

TRUMP ANNOUNCES $15 BILLION LAWSUIT AGAINST THE NEW YORK TIMES FOR DEFAMATION, LIBEL

President Donald Trump is now suing the New York Times in a $15 billion defamation case. ( Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

The Redford reference is now sadly dated because of the actor’s passing in his sleep ("Good way to go, I guess," says Trump.) But in the piece, the "fast talker" acknowledged that his father, Fred Trump, who built middle-class housing in Queens and Brooklyn, only recently tried to crack the Manhattan market because of "psychology."

(My favorite sentence: "Mr. Trump, who says he is publicity shy, allowed a reporter to accompany him on what he described as a typical work day.")

I bring all this up, as a Brooklyn guy who has lived in Queens, to underscore how the president has always craved the paper’s approval.

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And he got it – though the tabloids loved his feuds even more – until he went into politics.

Now the president has filed a $15 billion lawsuit against the New York Times.

It’s a strange suit, and it has a snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding. 

A statement by the Times says the lawsuit "has no merit." (Alexandra Schuler/picture alliance via Getty Images)

A Times statement says: "This lawsuit has no merit. It lacks any legitimate legal claims and instead is an attempt to stifle and discourage independent reporting." What’s odd is that there was no triggering story, no specific inaccuracy alleged. That’s in sharp contrast to the president’s successful suits against CBS and ABC.

Of course, filing a suit – forcing even the biggest companies to spend a fortune on legal fees – is often the point.

Back in the 1980s, Trump sued the Pulitzer-winning Chicago Tribune architecture critic, Paul Gapp, for $500 million, for criticizing his plan to build America’s tallest building – a 150-story tower – in Manhattan. "One of the silliest things anyone could inflict on New York or any other city," Gapp wrote.

Trump said he had "virtually torpedoed" the project, subjecting him to "public ridicule and contempt." A judge later dismissed the suit as involving protected opinion.

The new suit names such reporters as chief White House correspondent Peter Baker and investigative journalist Michael Schmidt. It also names Susanne Craig and Ross Buettner, in part for their book "Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success."

Craig revealed some of Trump’s tax returns, and she and her team won a Pulitzer for reporting on his finances.

In the ABC case, the network settled for $16 million for George Stephanopoulos having said Trump was found liable for rape, not "sexual abuse," in the civil suit brought by E. Jean Carroll.

CBS also agreed to pay $16 million after the unethical editing of the Kamala Harris interview on "60 Minutes," to make her sound more coherent.

He has also sued the Wall Street Journal’s parent company for reporting on his birthday message to Jeffrey Epstein – which he continues to deny, although the message from the predator’s files has surfaced with many similarities. 

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In the lawsuit against the Times, filed in Florida, the president just trashes its campaign coverage. He says on Truth Social he is moving against "one of the worst and most degenerate newspapers in the History of our Country, becoming a virtual ‘mouthpiece’ for the Radical Left Democrat Party. I view it as the single largest illegal Campaign contribution, EVER. Their Endorsement of Kamala Harris was actually put dead center on the front page of The New York Times, something heretofore UNHEARD OF! The ‘Times’ has engaged in a decades long method of lying about your Favorite President (ME!), my family, business, the America First Movement, MAGA, and our Nation as a whole. I am PROUD to hold this once respected ‘rag’ responsible…" 

I’m going out on a limb to say that running an editorial on the front page falls under the category of free speech, and lots of papers have occasionally done it.

And remember, as the ultimate public figure, Trump would have to prove malice on the paper’s part, or reckless disregard for whether something is true or not.

ABC settled for $16 million in its Trump-involved lawsuit. (Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)

Given that the president’s coverage is overwhelmingly negative, let’s say for the sake of argument that the Times is leading the resistance.

The Trump suit blames "persistent election interference from the legacy media." 

But unless a plaintiff can point to a verifiable inaccuracy, it falls under the protective umbrella of First Amendment reporting and opinion.

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With Marine One in the background yesterday, ABC’s Jonathan Karl, whom Trump knows well, asked him about criticism of Pam Bondi’s investigations of left-wingers: "A lot of people, a lot of your allies, say hate speech is free speech."

"She’d probably go after people like you! Because you treat me so unfairly! It’s hate! You have a lot of hate in your heart!"

A moment later, Trump said: "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."

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For the president, a lawsuit is wielded as a weapon. That’s why he’s suing the New York Times, the paper across the river, with which he’s always had a love-hate relationship – and lately, mostly hate.