Donald J. Trump, the first U.S. president to become a felon, excoriated prosecutors and the judge in his criminal case and ran through a litany of false statements as he spoke to reporters and a small crowd of vetted supporters at Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan.
To call something a lie, the media outlet has to know, 100%, that the speaker knows it’s a lie. It’s difficult to impossible to meet that threshold in pretty much all cases.
A false statement is an untruth — a lie that could have resulted from a honest mistake, poor fact-checking, negligence, or just plain bad luck / stupidity.
If a media outlet directly calls something someone says a lie, they’re going to get sued. People may be say something that is known to them as the truth, but not necessarily the objective truth as known by others. In that case, they would be making unwitting false claims.
Basically it comes down to liability. And Cheeto is a walking SLAAP lawsuit.
He won’t sue. If he sues they can subpoena and reveal that in private communications he admits the truth.
I mean, a smart person wouldn’t sue in that scenario. But this is Trump we’re talking about, lol, so I’m less convinced.
Yes, but that would sink him if he did.
I would throw a few bucks in for their defense fund.