Major media organizations that have faced litigation from President Trump and his top officials are now mounting aggressive legal defenses, marking a notable shift in strategy after a period of high-profile settlements. This new posture signals an intensifying standoff between the administration and a press corps it has long accused of bias.
In the past year, Trump has personally sued The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the BBC, while several Cabinet secretaries have either filed or threatened lawsuits against outlets including The Atlantic and MS NOW. These actions have drawn sharp rebukes from media advocates who view them as an attempt to intimidate journalists and suppress critical reporting.
Lisa Zycherman, vice president of legal programs at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said the shift is less about a change in attitude and more about media companies forcing the administration to meet the high legal bar of actual malice. "Watching them fight this is important," she said, noting that such lawsuits are "really against the norm" for a government.
One of the highest-profile cases is Trump's defamation suit against The Times, stemming from its coverage of his reelection bid. The administration has also targeted the paper through other means, including a recent Department of Justice subpoena of reporters over a story about a Qatari jet gifted to Trump. After The Times challenged the subpoena in court, the DOJ withdrew it.
Trump defended the administration's actions, insisting, "We're not after journalists. We're after leakers." He added that the way to find leakers is through journalists, a stance that press freedom advocates decry as a threat to confidential sources.
This week, a judge ruled that Trump must turn over financial documents from his trust in the BBC lawsuit, dealing him a legal setback. Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal, owned by conservative mogul Rupert Murdoch, asked a federal judge to dismiss Trump's defamation suit over its reporting on his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
The recent legal pushback contrasts with earlier settlements, including ABC's $15 million payment to Trump over a false on-air statement and CBS's $16 million settlement over an edited interview with former Vice President Harris. Critics at the time warned that such settlements would weaken press freedoms and embolden further legal attacks. Notably, CBS's parent company Paramount was awaiting regulatory approval for its merger with Skydance Media, whose owner is a Trump ally; the deal was cleared after the settlement.
Mark Feldstein, a broadcast journalism professor at the University of Maryland, argues that television networks are more prone to settle because they are licensed by the federal government and fear retaliation. Print and online outlets, he says, "can't afford to pay these large multimillion-dollar settlements" and thus have less to lose by fighting.
As Trump's second term enters its final stretch, some observers suggest media companies are increasingly willing to call his bluff. "Look, he has about two years left," one source said, hinting that the calculus may be changing. Whether this legal defiance marks a lasting shift or a temporary standoff remains to be seen, but the battle lines are clearly drawn.
