Former U.S. President Donald Trump made one of the biggest policy proposals anyone has made this cycle on Monday. He has filed a $15 billion lawsuit against The New York Times for defamation and libel. This announcement follows the newspaper’s recent reporting on a sexually aggressive note purportedly signed by Trump and given to the late financier Jeffrey Epstein. That threat of future legal action was issued last week, a further indication of Trump’s extreme sensitivity to the article.
In the very same statement where Trump did that, he accused The New York Times of being a Democratic Party “mouthpiece.” He asserted that the publication has been allowed to “freely lie, smear, and defame me for far too long, and that stops, NOW!” This is further illustrative of his habits of large-scale complaint with media coverage while in and out of the presidency.
The lawsuit would be filed in Florida, where, since his presidency, Trump has made his new home. His legal team is already preparing to make the case that the newspaper’s slanted reporting has irrevocably tarnished his reputation. They say this damage reaches his business enterprises as well.
The note has generated much interest because the content was so controversial. It’s tied to Epstein, a man entrenched in numerous scandals. The consequences of such a document being made public and connected to Trump could be devastating to his future public persona.
When the announcement became public, Trump was spending a day in Washington, D.C. Only hours before he had signed a new White House memo directing federal resources toward cutting down local crime right in Memphis, Tennessee. Snap of the U.S. Department of Transportation announcement in the Oval Office at the White House, September 15, 2025. Amid discussions about crime reduction and federal resource allocation, Trump’s focus shifted to his legal battle against The New York Times.