President Donald Trump smiles at supporters after a campaign rally at Gerald R. Ford International Airport, early Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020, in Grand Rapids, Mich. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
A federal judge in Florida is allowing President Donald Trump to amend and refile his $15 billion defamation lawsuit against The New York Times after the publication moved to toss the case on First Amendment grounds.
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The amended complaint must be filed by Aug. 27, United States District Judge Steven D. Merryday ruled Monday. Merryday, who was appointed by former President George H. W. Bush, postponed a ruling on the Times’ motion to dismiss the case.
Trump’s legal team sued the Times in September 2025, claiming that three articles and a book written by Times’ journalists contained “repugnant distortions and fabrications about President Trump.” The complaint argued that the book and articles, which were published ahead of the 2024 election, sought to maliciously harm Trump’s “worldwide reputation for success.”
Trump and Trump-backed organizations have continually sued — and lost — defamation cases against news publications. In April, a federal judge tossed Trump’s defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal after it reported that a sexually suggestive letter with the president’s signature had been gifted to disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
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And in July, a separate federal judge in Florida dismissed a $3.8 billion defamation lawsuit brought by Trump Media, the parent company of Truth Social, against The Washington Post over an article about a mysterious financial entity’s connection to the Trump-owned social media platform.
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The Times, which has been repeatedly sued by Trump, argued that Merryday should either dismiss the case or have it transferred to the Southern District of New York. After Merryday denied the newspaper’s motion to move the case, Trump celebrated on Truth Social.
Lawyers for both parties delivered oral arguments for more than two hours on July 22. Merryday’s ruling on Monday did not indicate what parts of Trump’s original complaint could be amended.
Trump’s legal team had proactively requested for Merryday to grant them an amended complaint that would “cure any … deficiencies” and show evidence of how “the Challenged Statements are not substantially true, along with additional facts and innuendo by Defendants to show why the Challenged Statements are defamatory, and additional evidence of actual malice for each Defendant.”
The Times will have 21 days to file a response after the amended complaint is submitted, Merryday said.
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