Appeals Court Issues Devastating Ruling on Trump CNN Lawsuit

0:00In life, growth doesn't happen alone. Family keeps you secure. Coaches maximize your performance. But in business, who is there to help you grow? When Lumen Field wants to power gang day experiences for 69,000 fans who make sure every snap and tap, leave the home crowd cheering. Lumen, that's who. Helping leaders like you grow without growing pains. Welcome to the trusted network for AI. Learn more at Lumen.com. Donald Trump has a tremendous tell when he's losing one of his court cases. He starts bragging about winning in his social media posts. So when I saw the social media post about Donald Trump controlling and reshaping the media landscape, I was like, I wonder what's going on in those six lawsuits where he's brought cases for defamation again, CNN and New York Times and BBC and Wall Street Journal. What's going on there? Something must have gone horribly awry and it has in breaking news. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals City in Atlanta,

1:03not one judge out of the 12 voted to rehere Donald Trump's loss of his defamation case against CNN because he doesn't like the fact that they said he ran on a big lie that there was election fraud that helped Biden beat him and doesn't like the fact that at one point they called him Hitler like those are all opinions and under our defamation law, opinions are not actionable in defamation. A judge appointed by Donald Trump, Judge Sengal, back in 2023 made that ruling and a pellet panel of three judges, the 11th Circuit supported it and now Donald Trump, he needed seven votes of the 11th Circuit 12 in order to get that appeal reversed. He couldn't find one vote. I'm going to break it all down for you. Updates you on all the cases that Donald Trump is likely to lose around the country for defamation. And let's talk about his reshaping of corporate media. There's a reason we are independent media here on legal AF. Nobody tells us what to say.

2:04Nobody nobody knows what my opinion is going to be before I, this is a one take off of my notes and from my head commentary. All right, I don't run this by anybody. I don't run it by the mitis brothers, let alone anybody in any investor or corporate media. I think that's what you enjoy about being here on legal AF. Take a moment, hit the free subscribe button and keep us going and rolling. All right. How do we get here? Donald Trump about a day or so ago post on his social media. The following will put it up split screen with me that President Trump is reshaping the media, talking about PBS being defunded in NPR, being defunded a bunch of individual people leaving the networks and then talking about CNN, the most accessible podis ever, new ownership for CNN. That was a little bit of a tell. Now, they're in as true that their number of corporate media,

3:04Donald Trump knew how to squeeze them with their corporate parents because they're all, they're all looking for something. They're looking for transaction approval. They're looking for buying and selling to be approved by the federal government. You know, ABC settled for $16 million and took Jimmy Kimmel off the air. You know, all because George Stephanopoulos during an interview called Donald Trump a rapist instead of I guess a sexual abuser. I remember he was a judge to be a sex abuser by courts in New York and a slip of the tongue. They called him a rapist and he had a base $16 million. But what really was going on is that ABC has all of these TV station affiliates and the TV stations are owned by a lot of right-wing MAGA who just care about money. They're trying to make deals and one network that owns about their one ownership that group that owns about 200 channels, trying to acquire another need an FCC approval federal communications commission approval. And therefore they wanted ABC, the parent company to settle with Donald Trump to get that approval from the FCC and that money went where not into the US Treasury

4:08and the Donald Trump's pocket or into his library fund or somewhere that he controls some slush fund that he controls. So that was ABC CBS to the exact same thing. CBS now in the control of the Ellison family, which owns Oracle. They got control of CBS. They settled a case with CBS, which they paid another $16 million plus another $15 million in free ads for the Trump administration, public service announcements. And so that was and why was why did that happen because the Ellison family his friends with Donald Trump is in bed with him in different companies like TikTok. They wanted to curry favor with Donald Trump. So they stroked him a bribe of $16 million. That's why that one settled. And so Donald Trump got a taste for that continue to go after the New York time, which is owned by the Oxials burger family go after the Des Moines register go after the Wall Street Journal owned by Rupert Murdoch go after the BBC. Oh, and ultimately by the British government go after CNN. Now CNN is interesting because Donald Trump is trying to keep that defamation case

5:13alive, even though the 11th Circuit is just a soundly rejected him because it's about to be acquired by the Ellison family, the same family that owns CBS because Netflix dropped out after a lot of pressure, including from Donald Trump himself. So who cook step forward the Ellison family, they'll now own CBS and CNN. Those are going to be pro maggot channels pro Trump channels and CNN Trump wants to keep that case alive long enough so that they can stroke him a check for $20 million or whatever it's going to be. And that the owners, the new owners of CNN have some sort of cover for the public and for the and for their shareholders that they're not wasting shareholder money. That's what's going on there. I mean, that case was so weak. Again, CNN, that even a Trump judge, as I said, Judge Segal are single rule against him.

6:15But when you don't get one judge of the 11th Circuit, you need seven. You don't get one to want to rehere the case. You know, you're you're not doing well. And that's why when Donald Trump posts something, it's a tell. He knows he's losing. Let's look at the other cases. New York Times sue down in Florida for writing a series of articles criticizing Donald Trump and his father, accusing them of fraud and tax evasion. Donald Trump didn't want it filed suit. That suit was so poorly drafted that the judge initially dismissed the complaint without even having the New York Times respond. They have now filed a new suit. There's another motion to dismiss that's pending. I think that's a loser case again for a similar reason because opinion and what we call the actual malice standard that has to be proven against the media company to show that they knew or should have known that what they were writing was false or reckless disregard for the truth or falsity of what they wrote

7:17is going to is going to make that case go get dismissed. The Wall Street Journal published a number of scathing articles about Donald Trump. They are owned by Rupert Murdoch. And one of them was they published the birthday book the the Epstein leather bound 50th birthday book that Galein Maxwell put together a scrap book, if you will. And one of the submissions on page 250 of volume two was from Donald Trump. This body outline of a woman pornographic disgusting with his signature in the pubic air making some comments about Jeffrey Epstein. Donald Trump didn't like that even though that entire album has been produced by the House Democrats. It's up on legal AF substack for if you want to read it. So that one, uh, there's a motion to dismiss that's pending in the Southern District of Florida in Miami in my backyard in front of judge Gale since December. I think he loses that one. Then you've got the BBC, the BBC gets sued because they clipped a speech of his on the ellipse on Jan 6, 2020.

8:26They said he said it made him look bad. Even though we all know what happened on Jan 6, uh, there's no, there could be no defamation related to the comments he made to whip up and foment the violence that happened on Jan 6 for the attack of the Capitol. And now the BBC and the Trump lawyers want to get into what's called a court ordered mediation. That's where a neutral, a former judge usually helps facilitate a settlement discussion. That's been assigned to a judge that I know a former judge that I know well judge Thornton used to be of the, uh, the Miami date circuit court. He's now going to be the mediator. I'm sure some dollar amount is going to get paid by BBC to Donald Trump personally again, not to the Treasury, but to Donald Trump's pockets. And then you've got this case of the Des Moines Register. The Des Moines Register had a longtime polster, name and seltzer. She ran a poll right before the, uh, the election in 2020 and what she said that her last poll, she thought Kamala Harris was going to win Iowa.

9:29News flash, she was wrong. Kamala Harris didn't win by three or four points, uh, Donald Trump won by six or seven points at 10 or 12 points swing Donald Trump won the election. I don't know if you remember that in, uh, I said, I said 2020 in 2024. So the, he still sued the Des Moines Register and an seltzer for fraud and defamation, uh, the judges already decided that he's not going to allow discovery and depositions. He's going to consider whether that case should be dismissed. And I think it will be side note and Seltzer retired from the polster business. She had such a miss on that particular poll that had put her out of business in her seventies. She was like, I'm done. I'm done. But when I see Donald Trump saying, oh, I, I beat CNN, I'd be in all, look, look at all of these, a Jim Acosta and Stephen Colbert and joy read and all these people that are all renting space in his brain apparently. What he brags about that, I always go check the docket to see how he's doing in those cases that he where he sued, where he has to put up proof, not just social media postings.

10:34And I'm always, uh, pleasantly surprised to see he's not doing well, including the new CNN case. I'm glad you're here on legal AF, a Michael Popak, take a minute, hit that free subscribe button until my next report later today. This is Michael. Can't get your fill of legal AF mean either. That's why we formed the legal AF sub stack. Every time we mentioned something in a hot take, whether it's a court filing or a oral argument, come over to the sub stack. You'll find the court filing and the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do call, wait for it, morning AF. What else, all the other contributors from legal AF are there as well. We got some new reporting, we got interviews, we got ad free versions of the podcast and hot takes where legal AF on sub stack. Come over now to free subscribe.