(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Trump’s New York Times lawsuit gets thrown out for its ridiculousness [1]
['Daily Kos Staff']
Date: 2025-09-19
President Donald Trump started out the week suing The New York Times for defamation via the most hilariously overwrought complaint imaginable.
Now, in a neat bit of symmetry, Trump’s week has ended with the judge throwing out that complaint entirely because, basically, it sucked. No, really.
You may recall that Trump’s complaint was not really a legal filing but instead more of a meandering trip through all of Trump’s grievances, including not getting enough credit for his role in “The Apprentice” and yelling that his 2024 election win was “the greatest personal and political achievement in American history.”
There were also illustrations! The 2024 electoral map, a screenshot of the Times’ endorsement of former Vice President Kamala Harris, and what looks to be the DVD cover for “The Apprentice.” You know, legal stuff!
What did all of this nonsense have to do with a claim that the Times had defamed Trump? Who can say, really?
It turns out that the judge in the case, George H.W. Bush appointee Steven Merryday, also thought this was nonsense, so he threw the complaint out for violating Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. That rule requires complaints filed in federal court to contain “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.”
Judges are allowed to dismiss complaints sua sponte—Latin for “of one’s own accord”—if they don’t meet that standard. This does happen with pro se litigants, as sometimes people who are not represented by lawyers end up filing a complaint that is a confused mishmash of irrelevant facts or things that aren’t legally actionable.
So, when someone files an 85-page complaint alleging that the municipal meter reader is coming in while they are asleep and stealing their teeth from inside their skull, the judge can throw out the complaint rather than requiring some sort of response from the other side.
However, for people who have legal representation in federal court, it’s vanishingly rare to have the judge throw the complaint out entirely. For this to happen here, to the president of the United States and his handpicked legal representation, is mindblowing.
Just to head off at the pass any whining from conservatives that Merryday ruled this way because he is a Soros plant or something, just know that he is the judge who, during the pandemic, blocked the Navy from reassigning an anti-vaxx commander, resulting in the Navy being unable to deploy a warship, because of religious freedom.
But you can tell that Merryday is already exhausted by the stupidity of this case and Trump’s pleadings. Here’s Merryday on what it was like to slog through Trump’s absolutely irrelevant discussion of his feelings about the history of The New York Times:
The reader of the complaint must labor through allegations, such as “a new journalistic low for the hopelessly compromised and tarnished 'Gray Lady.'" The reader must endure an allegation of "the desperate need to defame with a partisan spear rather than report with an authentic looking glass" and an allegation that "the false narrative about 'The Apprentice' was just the tip of Defendants' melting iceberg of falsehoods.”
Melting … iceberg of falsehoods? What does that even mean?
Merryday was as confused as the rest of us as to why we all had to hear about “The Apprentice”:
Similarly, in one of many, often repetitive, and laudatory (toward President Trump) but superfluous allegations, the pleader states, “‘The Apprentice’ represented the cultural magnitude of President Trump’s singular brilliance, which captured the [Z]eitgeist of our time.”
Such brilliance, such zeitgeist, such irrelevance to a lawsuit against The New York Times for defamation.
Merryday ended this by reminding Trump’s attorney that this is honestly basic stuff he should know:
As every lawyer knows (or is presumed to know), a complaint is not a public forum for vituperation and invective - not a protected platform to rage against an adversary. A complaint is not a megaphone for public relations or a podium for a passionate oration at a political rally or the functional equivalent of the Hyde Park Speakers' Corner.
Yowch.
Trump gets 28 days to refile, but this time with a 40-page limit, or slightly less than half of the original complaint. Expect Trump’s pet attorney on this, Alejandro Brito, to try to just stuff the 85 pages into a 40-page bag and call it good, rather than taking the judge’s point that a recitation of Trump’s singular achievements and infinite grievances does not actually belong in court.
So, in just under a month, we’ll have a new complaint to laugh at. Gotta take our joy where we can find it these days.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/9/19/2344452/-Trump-s-New-York-Times-lawsuit-gets-thrown-out-for-its-ridiculousness?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_9&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
