Eleventh Circuit upholds the dismissal of Donald Trump’s 2022 defamation suit against CNN, finding that calling his 2020 election claims the 'Big Lie' is rhetorical opinion, not a false factual assertion. The district court had dismissed the case with prejudice in 2023, and a three-judge appellate panel agreed the suit was "meritless." The court also said that the number of times CNN used the term does not change its legal character.
Appeals Court: Calling Trump's Election Claims the 'Big Lie' Is Opinion — CNN Defamation Suit Dismissed
Eleventh Circuit upholds the dismissal of Donald Trump’s 2022 defamation suit against CNN, finding that calling his 2020 election claims the 'Big Lie' is rhetorical opinion, not a false factual assertion. The district court had dismissed the case with prejudice in 2023, and a three-judge appellate panel agreed the suit was "meritless." The court also said that the number of times CNN used the term does not change its legal character.
07:58 PM, 11/19/2025Politics
A federal appeals court has affirmed the dismissal of former President Donald Trump’s 2022 defamation suit against CNN, ruling that the network’s characterization of his 2020 election claims as the 'Big Lie' was rhetorical opinion rather than a false statement of fact.
Trump had filed the suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida seeking $475 million in punitive damages. In 2023 the district court dismissed the case with prejudice. Judge Raag Singhal, who authored the district-court opinion, concluded that the disputed language amounted to non-actionable opinion and therefore could not support a defamation claim.
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals—sitting en banc as a three-judge panel composed of Judges Adalberto Jordan, Kevin Newsom and Elizabeth L. Branch—issued an eight-page per curiam opinion upholding the dismissal. The panel described Trump's legal arguments as "unpersuasive" and the complaint as "meritless," reiterating that calling his statements the 'Big Lie' does not amount to a verifiable falsehood.
'Trump has not adequately alleged the falsity of CNN’s statements. Therefore, he has failed to state a defamation claim.'
The appeals court also addressed Trump’s contention that the district court should have considered hundreds or thousands of additional instances in which CNN allegedly used the phrase. The panel explained that the number of times an opinion is expressed does not convert an opinion into a false statement of fact: if the phrase itself is non-actionable, repeated uses are irrelevant to the element of falsity.
CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter commented that the ruling reinforces the idea that news organizations often prevail when they defend their reporting instead of settling. A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team issued a statement calling CNN "Fake News" and reiterating the view that the network had defamed the former president and his supporters, and saying they would continue to press the case.
What this means
The decision underscores a key distinction in U.S. defamation law between statements of verifiable fact and rhetorical or editorial opinion. It also highlights the difficulty public figures face when trying to prove falsity for statements that courts view as interpretive or evaluative rather than factual assertions.