President Donald Trump touted a legal victory Monday after a federal judge deferred the New York Times’ motion to dismiss the president’s $15 billion defamation lawsuit and ruled he could file an amended complaint before the court considers the motion.
According to a filing in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, obtained by TheWrap, Trump’s attorneys have until Aug. 27 to amend the lawsuit. Judge Steven D. Merryday deferred ruling on The New York Times’ motion to dismiss. He did not explain why revisions were needed but said the Times will have three weeks to respond to the updated filing.
Trump celebrated the order as a victory on Monday, insisting in a post on Truth Social the newspaper “failed again in their desperate attempt to have our powerful Defamation Lawsuit against them dropped.”
“The Failing New York Times, after 10 years of harassment, slander, and libel, just failed again in their desperate attempt to have our powerful Defamation Lawsuit against them dropped,” the president wrote Monday on Truth Social as he celebrated the motion’s deferment. “As we requested, the Highly Respected Judge has called for an updated complaint, which will lay out, in extreme detail, all the ways in which The Times has repeatedly and consistently acted, with actual malice in defaming me, my family, our Great MAGA Movement, and America, itself.”
He continued: “We will continue to hold The Times and their ‘comrades; in the Mainstream Media accountable for publishing, promoting, and dealing in Fake News. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”
Neither the New York Times nor the White House immediately responded to TheWrap’s request for comment.
Trump filed the $15 billion libel lawsuit against the New York Times in September of 2025 over unfavorable coverage of him ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
The 85-page lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Tampa, Florida. It named Times reporters Peter Baker, Susanne Craig, Michael Schmidt and Russ Buettner as defendants along with the Times and publishing hosue Penguin Random House, which published a book by Craig and Buettner.
The lawsuit accused the Times and its reporters of publishing articles “filled with repugnant distortions and fabrications about President Trump.”
“Defendants made numerous other malicious, defamatory, and disparaging claims about President Trump in the Book and the Articles, including about his family, his overwhelming success, his businesses, his acumen, his brand, his wealth, and much more,” the initial lawsuit states. “This is all consistent with the modus operandi of the New York Times and its so-called journalists—a pattern of falsehoods and defamation.”
Trump’s complaint notably relied heavily on NYT articles that preceded his return to the White House. He focused on stories that primarily occurred during his first term or the 2024 campaign, with the sole series of stories cited from his second term centering on his administration’s claims that former President Barack Obama’s administration constructed a false narrative surrounding Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
That same month, Judge Merryday, a George H.W. Bush appointee, struck down the lawsuit saying the nearly 90-page lawsuit was “not a protected platform to rage against an adversary.”
“A complaint is not a megaphone for public relations or a podium for a
passionate oration at a political rally or the functional equivalent of the Hyde Park
Speakers’ Corner,” wrote Judge Merryday at the time. The judge gave the Trump’s attorney’s 28 days to file an amended lawsuit which was refiled in October of 2025.
The New York Times issued a scathing statement in response to Trump refiling against them.
“As we said when this was first filed and again after the judge’s ruling to strike it: this lawsuit has no merit,” a spokesperson for The New York Times said at the time. “Nothing has changed today. This is merely an attempt to stifle independent reporting and generate PR attention, but The New York Times will not be deterred by intimidation tactics.”
On the decision to refile, a spokesperson from Trump’s legal team at the time shared: “President Trump is continuing to hold the Fake News responsible through this powerhouse lawsuit against the New York Times, its reporters and Penguin Random House.”
The president is seeking $15 billion, as well as punitive damages, in his lawsuit.
