Judge Dismisses Trump’s $15 Billion Lawsuit Against NYT, Demands Professional Rewrite

A federal judge swiftly dismissed Donald Trump's $15 billion defamation lawsuit against The New York Times, criticizing the filing as an 85-page political manifesto rather than a legal complaint. U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday, a George H.W. Bush appointee, gave Trump's legal team four weeks to submit a radically condensed version, warning that the court "is not a stage for venting frustrations."

The original complaint contained only a handful of substantive legal claims buried beneath pages of self-aggrandizement and attacks on Trump's critics. Judge Merryday's scathing order compared the document to "a passionate oration at a political rally" rather than a serious pleading, noting that proper complaints don't serve as "megaphones for public relations."

While the case remains technically alive pending revision, the judge's unambiguous directive leaves little room for interpretation: either present concise, legally actionable claims or don't return to court at all. The ruling marks another setback for Trump's pattern of using litigation as both weapon and microphone.