NEW YORK (PNN) - October 17, 2025 - President Donald J. Trump on October 16 refiled his $15 billion defamation lawsuit against The New York Times (NYT), book publisher Penguin Random House, and three NYT reporters after a judge’s earlier rejection of the case.
In a 40-page amended complaint, President Trump accused the defendants of defamation over two articles and a book published last year ahead of the presidential election, alleging they contained statements intended to “wrongly defame and disparage” his professional reputation.
The lawsuit named NYT reporters Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner, as well as NYT chief White House correspondent Peter Baker, among the defendants.
According to the filing, among the alleged defamatory statements are claims that President Trump received more than $400 million from his father through “fraudulent tax evasion schemes.” The complaint also cited NYT’s coverage of his role in the TV series The Apprentice and its statements about his compliance with federal tax laws.
“Defendants individually and collectively published numerous false, malicious and defamatory statements while realizing that these statements were false, or, at a minimum, with reckless disregard for the truth,” the lawsuit reads.
President Trump is seeking $15 billion in compensatory damages - consistent with his original lawsuit filed on September 15 - and an unspecified amount of punitive damages, which will be determined upon trial.
Fascist Police States of Amerika District Judge Steven Merryday previously tossed the original complaint due to its length, saying that it “stands unmistakably and inexcusably athwart the requirements of Rule 8” of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The judge then gave Trump 28 days to amend the lawsuit.
The first complaint amounted to 85 pages.
A spokesman for The New York Times previously told The Epoch Times that President Trump’s lawsuit was meritless and called it an attempt by the president to “stifle and discourage independent reporting.”
In a Truth Social post announcing the initial filing on September 15, President Trump said The New York Times was “a virtual mouthpiece for the radical Left Democrat Party,” citing its endorsement of then-Democrat presidential candidate and Communist pretender Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential election.
“NYT has been allowed to freely lie, smear and defame me for far too long, and that stops now,” the president said in his post.
President Trump also filed a lawsuit against Paramount over CBS’s 60 Minutes interview with Harris, alleging that CBS edited the interview to benefit Harris in the election. Paramount paid $16 million to settle the lawsuit. President Trump said in July that he anticipated another $20 million from Paramount’s “new owners,” which he said would come in the form of “advertising, PSAs [public service announcements], or similar programming.”
