Trump says CNN should ‘prove the big lie’ in defamation case
Former President Trump on Wednesday said CNN should “prove the big lie” about the 2020 election in the defamation case he filed against the media company this week.
Trump told Real America’s Voice network show “Just The News No Noise” hosts John Solomon and Amanda Head that CNN “will never be able to prove” in court that his claim the 2020 election was rife with fraud is false.
“Prove the big lie. The big lie is not a big lie at all. The big lie is the opposite,” the former president said. “All the stats — we have everything. Unfortunately, we haven’t had judges that want to look at it. They don’t want to change elections.”
Trump filed his $475 million lawsuit against CNN on Monday, accusing the news network of using its “massive influence” to defame him with a “barrage of negative associations and innuendos.”
Among the former president’s claims is that anchors and pundits have coined the term the “big lie” to smear him and associate him with “one of the most repugnant figures in modern history,” by which he meant Adolf Hitler.
Trump faces a high legal bar, as the media is protected by the First Amendment. Plaintiffs must prove journalists or a news organization acted with actual malice or reckless disregard for the truth.
The former president has continued to claim the 2020 election was stolen, even after every claim was thrown out of court and no valid, substantial evidence of widespread fraud has been presented.
In December, The Associated Press published a detailed report investigating the 2020 election and Trump’s claims of voter fraud, finding only 475 cases of fraud in six battleground states, far less than he has claimed and not enough to prove rampant fraud.
His attempt to overturn certification of the 2020 election spawned investigations, including the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
On Wednesday, Trump said the committee, whose members he called “political thugs and thieves,” has failed to investigate “election fraud” in its probe.
“The election is the No. 1 thing they will not talk about it,” he said. “They know they can’t talk about it. They know the numbers are fakes. And there’s tremendous evidence.”
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