And by courting, we are talking about suing the major television broadcast networks for such things as defamation, libel, and slander. These days it is getting harder and harder to keep all of the filings straight as America seems to be devolving into people bearing false witness against other people so regularly.
“Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor” is the Ninth commandment in the Ten Commandments from God, which appears in Exodus 20:16.
Donald Trump Litigation with ABC
ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, a partisan Democrat who landed his ABC gig almost immediately after he worked in the Bill Clinton Administration as press secretary, recently tried to portray Donald Trump as a rapist in an interview with Rep. Nancy Mace. He seemed to grill rape victim and House Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC) as if he was trying to trick her into saying Donald Trump was a rapist or shame her for her support of Donald Trump to be president as an actual rape victim.
Trump sued ABC News and George Stephanopoulos soon thereafter the interview for his repeated use of the term “liable for rape”.
“Nancy Mace Fires Back at George Stephanopoulos Rape Shaming and Lies about Trump on ABC News”
ABC later agreed to settle the suit by giving $15 million to Trump’s future presidential library to settle the lawsuit. The anchor falsely repeated the claim “judges and two separate juries have found him liable for rape” 10 times throughout the interview with Mace.
Additionally the network had to issue a public apology and pay $1M in Trump’s attorney fees.
Donald Trump Litigation with CBS
CBS News invited presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump to a sit down interview with “60 Minutes” during the campaign. Harris agreed to do the pre-recorded interview while Trump backed out. The network went forward with the Harris interview, conducted by CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker, in the closing weeks of the presidential campaign to air on the news magazine show “60 Minutes”.
Thereafter a controversy over CBS edits surfaced after Trump supporters zeroed in on different answers Harris gave in response to a question about Israel. In a clip of the interview broadcast on Sunday morning show “Face the Nation,” Harris gave a different word salad response to Bill Whitaker.
Later that same Sunday night when the interview ran on “60 Minutes,” her answer was more intelligent and succinct.
“Watch the Key Moments CBS News Edited Out of Kamala Harris “60 Minutes” Interview, w/ Andrew Klavan” – Megyn Kelly
The original lawsuit brought by Trump was for $10 billion which has now doubled to $20 since the FCC has become involved and the entire one hour of unedited CBS video of Kamala Harris has been released. President Trump has alluded to CBS and other members of the media knowingly engaging in election interference.
CBS News has defended their edits amid the newly opened FCC inquiry.
Karoline Leavitt, Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, and Carrie Underwood Suing ABC’s “The View”
Despite all kinds of “news” stories and videos about the White House press secretary, western world billionaire, famous American podcaster, and beloved American country singer suing “The View” for millions of dollars for defamation, we can find no evidence that any of these stories are true.
Furthermore, any stories that cohosts Whoopi Goldberg and/or Joy Behar have been missing from episodes from the show for disciplinary reasons also appear to be untrue.
It appears many of these stories appear to be rumors generated by people who hope they would come to pass as true because they hate “The View” television show so much they want to see it off the air.
There was also a rumor last fall that Elon Mush was going to buy “The View” just to end it. We determined that, while a good idea, was also not true.
CONCLUSION:
I watched CNN humorously try to mount a defense to some of these lawsuits using the First Amendment to the Constitution of “Freedom of the press” as a defense. It is pretty disingenuous for any true journalist to imagine our forefathers meant for freedom of the press to protect the press both from defamation of character and Nazi-style propaganda. Freedom of speech does not permit you to speak or yell untruths to wrongfully influence the public. For example you cannot yell “FIRE!” in a crowded theater where there is no fire or “BOMB!” on a crowded commercial airliner where there is no bomb.
Likewise, making up crap about people you know to be untrue just to smear them is also not “protected free speech”.
But free speech is still alive and well even if it is so vile and disgusting it involves grown middle age and old women picking on a 4 year old child for his name given to him by his father.
“The View hosts reach new low mocking the name of Elon Musk’s young son” – Sky News Australia
Other rumors we have been able to dispel is ABC is not up for sale by Disney and a conservative parallel to “The View” called “The Truth” does not seem to be forthcoming either. We heard rumors cohosts for a conservative show could be Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, Roseanne Barr, Rob Schneider, and Jon Lovitz or some combination of same. Again, an awesome idea and response to “The View” but all apparently untrue.
President Trump is also suing a newspaper and the Pulitzer Prize committee which are unrelated to this story but also very interesting.
Donald Trump is suing Ann Selzer, her polling firm, The Des Moines Register newspaper and their parent company, Gannett, for “accountability for brazen election interference”. A poll had him up by a wide margin over Kamala Harris until just before the election day when they reported their polls had Kamala Harris up by 3 points over Trump all of a sudden.
© 2025 by Mark S. Schwendau
