U.S. Politics · Courts · 17 outlets (L 4 · C 9 · R 2 · 2 not rated)
Judge throws out Trump's $10 billion defamation suit against WSJ
A federal judge on Saturday threw out President Donald Trump's $10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch over the paper's article about a birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein.[3, 4, 6 +2] U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles in Miami dismissed the suit with prejudice in a 20-page ruling, according to CBS News.[8] The judge ruled Trump did not prove the defendants made defamatory statements with actual malice, CBS News reported.[8]
It was the president's second attempt to plead that the Journal acted with actual malice, according to Raw Story and The New York Times.[2, 4] Axios reported it was the second time this year courts have blocked Trump's efforts to sue the paper over stories about his ties to Epstein.[6]
Why it matters The dismissal was with prejudice, meaning the lawsuit cannot be filed again.[7, 8, 9]
Covered by The New York Times, NBC News, The Wall Street Journal and 14 more
Read first Judge dismisses with prejudice Trump lawsuit against Wall Street Journal
How balanced is this coverage?
Of the 15 rated outlets that covered it, 4 are left of center, 9 are center and 2 are right of center. 2 more are not rated.
- Left: none.
- Leans left: Raw Story (−0.94), MS NOW (−0.76), The New York Times (−0.70), The Daily Beast (−0.64).
- Center: NBC News (−0.49), PBS NewsHour (−0.48), ABC News (−0.19), CBS News (−0.14), Axios (−0.05), Mediaite (+0.04), Bloomberg (+0.08), UPI (+0.17), CNBC (+0.40).
- Leans right: The Wall Street Journal (+0.63), Reason (+0.94).
- Right: none.
Not rated Los Angeles Times, Al Jazeera. Not placed: they have no lean score.
Each dot is an outlet that covered it, placed by its audience-lean score (Eady et al. 2025), which measures who shares its links, not how accurate it is. The ticks under the line are all 113 rated outlets Tare reads.