U.S President Donald Trump

US President Donald Trump has announced plans to sue The New York Times for $15 billion (£11 billion), accusing the newspaper of defamation and libel.

In a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, on Monday, Trump claimed the Times had “lied, smeared and defamed” him for years, declaring, “The New York Times has been allowed to freely lie, smear, and defame me for far too long, and that stops, NOW!”

Trump took particular issue with the newspaper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential election, calling the publication a “mouthpiece for the Radical Left Democrat Party.” He said the lawsuit would be filed in Florida, a Republican stronghold.

The New York Times has not yet commented on the announcement.

The president further accused the Times of unprecedented bias, noting that Harris’s endorsement had been displayed “dead centre on the front page… something heretofore UNHEARD OF!” He also alleged that several media outlets and television networks had used “a highly sophisticated system of document and visual alteration” to smear him.

Trump’s threat against the Times comes amid a string of legal battles with major media companies. ABC News and Paramount-owned CBS News recently reached multimillion-dollar settlements with the president in unrelated defamation cases, while Trump is also pursuing legal action against The Wall Street Journal over its coverage of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

This is not Trump’s first clash with The New York Times. In 2021, he filed a $100 million lawsuit accusing the paper and his niece, Mary Trump, of conspiring to obtain his tax records for a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into his finances. That case was dismissed in 2023, with a judge ruling the claims failed “as a matter of constitutional law”.

Trump also lost a separate $475 million defamation suit against CNN in 2023, after arguing the network had compared him to Adolf Hitler. A federal judge threw out the case.

The latest $15 billion claim signals Trump’s escalating offensive against news organisations he accuses of hostility toward his presidency.