Almost certainly not, although it’s also not likely the point of the lawsuit in the first place. Donald Trump added to his legal issues yesterday by taking the offensive against CNN in a defamation claim, alleging that the network compared him to Adolf Hitler and specifically defamed him as an “insurrectionist.”

Presumably MSNBC and some print outlets will be next, depending on how this goes:

Former President Trump filed a defamation lawsuit against CNN and teased that more legal battles against other media outlets will follow.

“CNN has sought to use its massive influence— purportedly as a ‘trusted’ news source—to defame the Plaintiff in the minds of its viewers and readers for the purpose of defeating him politically, culminating in CNN claiming credit for ‘[getting] Trump out’ in the 2020 presidential election,” the lawsuit filed Monday alleged. “CNN’s campaign of dissuasion in the form of libel and slander against the Plaintiff has only escalated in recent months as CNN fears the Plaintiff will run for president in 2024. As a part of its concerted effort to tilt the political balance to the Left, CNN has tried to taint the Plaintiff with a series of ever-more scandalous, false, and defamatory labels of ‘racist,’ ‘Russian lackey,’ ‘insurrectionist,’ and ultimately ‘Hitler.’”

“These labels are neither hyperbolic nor opinion: these are repeatedly reported as true fact, with purported factual support, by allegedly ‘reputable’ newscasters, acting not merely with reckless disregard for the truth of their statements… but acting with real animosity for the Plaintiff and seeking to cause him true harm,” the suit continued. …

“The ‘Big Lie’ is a direct reference to a tactic employed by Adolf Hitler and appearing in Hitler’s Mein Kampf. As commonly understood: ‘If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.’ The ‘Big Lie’ was used by Hitler to incite hatred of the Jews and to convince people to ostracize Jewish people. It was an entire propaganda campaign to justify Jewish persecution and genocide. The phrase is not taken lightly and is not bandied about blithely. CNN anchors and commentators understand this. They have not used it against other political leaders and previously criticized political analogies to Nazi Germany and to Hitler,” the lawsuit claims.

Ironically, this came within the same week that Trump referred to New York Times reporter/author Maggie Haberman as “Maggot,” called Mitch McConnell’s wife Elaine Chao “China-loving” and “Coco Chow” on his Truth Social platform (Chao is from Taiwan), and also suggested McConnell had a “death wish” for not following his advice. For the last seven years or more, Trump has also referred to media outlets such as CNN as “the enemy of the people” and “fake news” too. There is a strong element of a dishing-out/taking-it imbalance in a sudden desire for remedies for defamation.

But those were opinions, Trump and his team will likely argue, and some might even agree with some of those. True — Trump is giving his opinions, but then again, so too is punditry and analysis opinion. Contra the claim in the lawsuit, almost all of these alleged offenses comes from CNN’s commentary or analysis, and even those from whatever “straight news” functions CNN has is almost certainly not actionable.

Why? For one thing, Trump is a “public person” in relation to Sullivan. In fact, he might be one of the most self-promoting “public persons” in recent American history. He has promoted himself in so many ventures that it’s almost laughable to suggest otherwise. That is the first thing that distinguishes him from Nick Sandmann, who did win a defamation case against CNN for their lies about the incident at the March for Life several years ago. Sandmann was not only not a public person before then, CNN made him a public figure of derision against his will over false allegations of racism.

More importantly, Trump is also a public figure — a politician and a former office holder, one who admittedly in the complaint itself is considering a return to office in the near future. Even if one doesn’t like Sullivan, that is a separate category that carries the same actual-malice standard and perhaps even a higher bar in proving it. That adds to the protection of reporting, commentary, and analysis, as Jonathan Turley explains this morning, although it does not constitute an absolute defense for respondents in such a suit:

The public figure standard was established in Curtis Publishing v. Butts (1967). The case involved a March 23, 1963 edition of The Saturday Evening Post alleging that former University of Georgia football coach Wallace Butts conspired with University of Alabama coach Paul “Bear” Bryant to fix a 1962 football game in Alabama’s favor. In a 5-4 decision, Chief Justice Warren wrote a concurrence that extended the ruling in New York Times v. Sullivan on public officials to public figures. He found the same reasons for applying the higher standard to public officials as present in cases involving public figures …

The Court ruled in favor of Butts, and The Saturday Evening Post was ordered to pay $3.06 million (later reduced to $460,000) to Butts in damages. That case, however, involved a specific allegation of a fixed game, not hyperbolic or partisan rhetoric.

Notably, Curtis was decided joined with Associated Press v. Walker, involving former Gen. Edwin Walker who opposed desegregation. In one article, the Associated Press claimed that Walker had “led a charge of students against federal marshals” and “commanded” those opposing the admission of James Meredith at the University of Mississippi. He prevailed at trial. However, the Court found that AP was not liable under the actual malice standard, even as a matter of reckless disregard. Justice John Marshall Harlan II wrote for himself and three other justices (and joined by concurring justices) in noting that Walker was a “public figure,” given the fact that “his personal activity amount[ed] to a thrusting of his personality into the ‘vortex’ of an important public controversy.” Harlan also noted that Walker “commanded sufficient access to the means of counterargument to be able to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies of the defamatory statements.” Liability, Harlan concluded, should only follow “a showing of highly unreasonable conduct constituting an extreme departure from the standards of investigation and reporting ordinarily adhered to by responsible publishers.”

Consider just how often Trump has “thrust[] his personality into the ‘vortex'” of various controversies, and you start to get the picture of how difficult a job his attorneys now have. It didn’t get any easier with Trump’s personal attacks on McConnell, Chao, and Haberman either, as Turley notes, because it leaves the impression of a public figure who baits the media into this kind of coverage and confrontation. Calling Chao “China-loving” while at the same time complaining about “Big Lie” accusations is not likely to impress a court when this gets a hearing, and you can bet that CNN’s attorneys will have binders full of Trump’s hyperbolic accusations when it comes time to argue this — if it gets that far at all.

This looks like a publicity stunt, not a serious legal argument. It looks like a way for Trump’s PR team to make it look like Trump’s going over to the offensive on the legal front and perhaps distracting a bit from his legal woes with the Department of Justice and Letitia James, who herself appears to be more on a PR campaign than a serious exercise of her job. Filing it now makes it also a distraction for the GOP and a possible division point just a few weeks before voters can punish Democrats for their incompetence and corruption in the midterm elections.

That’s something for Republican voters to consider after the midterms, when they will need to decide what kind of leadership they want in future elections — leadership focused on collective victory, or on personal grievances of their leader.