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Donald Trump Sues CNN For Defamation, Inspiring Twitter Mockery

Donald Trump filed a lawsuit on Monday accusing CNN of defaming him, saying the network had referred to him as “racist,” a “Russian lackey,” an “insurrectionist” and had compared him to Adolf Hitler.

The $475 million lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, alleges the cable network carried out a campaign of “libel and slander” against the former president and used its influence as a news organization “for the purpose of defeating him politically.”

The suit also names on-air personalities on CNN and said they used the term “the Big Lie” — a term associated with Nazi Germany — to refer to Trump’s repeated, false insistence that the 2020 election was fraudulent.

Although Trump announced his intent to sue the network earlier this summer, past skeptics have noted that he might threaten lawsuits about other people’s words but rarely files them ― probably because the discovery process could force him to answer embarrassing questions under oath.

In addition, defamation suits can be hard to win, especially if a media outlet can prove that the allegedly defamatory statements are actually true.

Not surprisingly, news of the lawsuit attracted lots of Twitter mockery, including from notable Trump critics.

Read Trump’s full lawsuit against CNN here.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

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