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In Latest Attack on Media, Trump Sues Wall Street Journal Over Epstein Report
Citing the suit and other recent Republican attacks on the press, one critic said that "it sure looks like an open attempt at authoritarian control of the media."
Jul 18, 2025
U.S. President Donald on Friday made good on his pledge to sue The Wall Street Journal over its reporting that he wrote a "bawdy" letter for a leather-bound album that Ghislaine Maxwell prepared for the 50th birthday of Jeffrey Epstein, the financier and convicted sex offender who allegedly killed himself in jail while facing federal sex trafficking charges.
Maxwell, who is now serving a 20-year prison sentence "for conspiring with Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse minors," collected dozens of letters for the book, according to the Journal.
The one allegedly crafted by Trump, the newspaper reported, "contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arcs denotes the woman’s breasts, and the future president's signature is a squiggly 'Donald' below her waist, mimicking pubic hair."
As the paper—part of billionaire Richard Murdoch's media empire—detailed Thursday evening:
The letter concludes: "Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret."
In an interview with the Journal on Tuesday evening, Trump denied writing the letter or drawing the picture. "This is not me. This is a fake thing. It's a fake Wall Street Journal story," he said.
"I never wrote a picture in my life. I don't draw pictures of women," he said. "It's not my language. It's not my words."
He told the Journal he was preparing to file a lawsuit if it published an article. "I'm gonna sue The Wall Street Journal just like I sued everyone else," he said.
On Friday, the president—a well-documented liar—sued the Journal in a federal court in Miami, Florida for assault, libel, and slander, according to CNN. In addition to the newspaper and its parent company News Corp, Politico reported, "the suit names WSJ reporters Khadeeja Safdar and Joe Palazzolo. It also names Rupert Murdoch."
Trump sued Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal in Judge Aileen Cannon's district. www.cnbc.com/2025/07/18/t...
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— Alejandra Caraballo (@esqueer.net) July 18, 2025 at 5:43 PM
Trump had said on his Truth Social platform Friday morning: I look forward to getting Rupert Murdoch to testify in my lawsuit against him and his 'pile of garbage' newspaper, the WSJ. That will be an interesting experience!!!"
Later Friday, he addressed the filing in a post that noted his other recent lawsuits against media companies:
BREAKING NEWS: We have just filed a POWERHOUSE Lawsuit against everyone involved in publishing the false, malicious, defamatory, FAKE NEWS "article" in the useless "rag" that is, The Wall Street Journal. This historic legal action is being brought against the so-called authors of this defamation, the now fully disgraced WSJ, as well as its corporate owners and affiliates, with Rupert Murdoch and Robert Thomson (whatever his role is!) at the top of the list. We have proudly held to account ABC and George Slopadopoulos, CBS and 60 Minutes, The Fake Pulitzer Prizes, and many others who deal in, and push, disgusting LIES, and even FRAUD, to the American People. This lawsuit is filed not only on behalf of your favorite President, ME, but also in order to continue standing up for ALL Americans who will no longer tolerate the abusive wrongdoings of the Fake News Media. I hope Rupert and his "friends" are looking forward to the many hours of depositions and testimonies they will have to provide in this case. Thank you for your attention to this matter. We will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
The president's history with Epstein has received heightened scrutiny in recent days, amid demand for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to release its full files on the late sex offender. The two men were publicly associated with each other in the 1990s, up until a reported falling out over a business deal in 2004. Epstein was first arrested for sex crimes two years later.
Shortly after leaving the Trump administration earlier this year, Elon Musk, the richest man on Earth, claimed on his social media platform X that the president "is in the Epstein files" and "that is the real reason they have not been made public."
After congressional Republicans repeatedly blocked a measure that would force the DOJ to release all Epstein files while protecting victims early this week, Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) introduced the Epstein Files Transparency Act and warned that if it is not considered by the House of Representatives within seven legislative days, a discharge petition will be circulated.
Late Thursday, after the Journal report was published, Trump said in a Truth post: "Based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein, I have asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval. This SCAM, perpetuated by the Democrats, should end, right now!"
In a post on X, Bondi said, "President Trump—we are ready to move the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts."
Trump's suit against the Journal comes as CBS parent company Paramount is under fire for its $16 million settlement with the Republican, who filed suit over the media organization's handling of a "60 Minutes" interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris, last year's Democratic presidential candidate, before the November election.
Among the critics framing that deal as a "big fat bribe" intended to secure federal approval of Paramount's pending merger with Skydance is late-night host Stephen Colbert, who announced Thursday that CBS has canceled his show following his recent commentary. The network's claim that it was a financial, not political, decision has been met with widespread skepticism.
"It's pretty obvious why Paramount chose to surrender to Trump," U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a Friday statement. "The Redstone family, the major owners of the company, is in line to receive $2.4 billion from the sale of Paramount to Skydance, but they can only receive this money if the Trump administration approves this deal."
Tying the end of "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert" to congressional Republicans' attack on funding for NPR and PBS, the DOJ targeting Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and Trump's threats to oust Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, Sanders declared that "this is what the march toward authoritarianism looks like."
The Paramount settlement followed one in Trump's case against ABC—which last December agreed to pay $15 million and release a note of regret after anchor and political commentator George Stephanopoulos said Trump had been found "liable for rape" of writer E. Jean Carroll. A federal jury found him civilly liable for sexual abuse and defamation, but not rape.
Sanders and several other critics have warned that the media "succumbing to pressure" from Trump sets "an incredibly dangerous precedent."
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Critics Doubt CBS Claim That Finances—Not Politics—Are Behind 'Late Show' Cancellation
The network announced the cancellation three days after host Stephen Colbert lambasted its parent company for a $16 million legal settlement with President Donald Trump.
Jul 18, 2025
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren was among those calling into question the official story behind CBS' cancellation of "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" on Thursday—suggesting that the decision to end the show's 32-year run wasn't driven by finances but by "political reasons."
The announcement from CBS executives came just three days after Colbert spoke out on his show about a recent $16 million settlement reached by CBS parent company Paramount over an interview that "60 Minutes" aired with former Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of the 2024 election, in which Harris ran against President Donald Trump.
Colbert had told his audience that the settlement appeared to be a "big fat bribe" to end a "nuisance lawsuit."
"This all comes as Paramount's owners are trying to the get the Trump administration to approve the sale of our network to a new owner," said Colbert, referring to a pending $8.4 billion merger with the entertainment company Skydance—whose billionaire founder, David Ellison, has been spotted with Trump in recent months.
Warren (D-Mass.) said Thursday that the public "deserves to know if [Colbert's] show was canceled for political reasons."
Trump's lawsuit against Paramount claimed the Harris interview was deceptively edited and amounted to "partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference," allegations that legal experts and First Amendment scholars denounced as "ridiculous" and "dangerous."
After the settlement was announced earlier this month, with Paramount pledging to release transcripts of future "60 Minutes" interviews with presidential candidates, one press freedom group condemned the company for "capitulating" to the president's demands.
CBS executives appeared to preemptively respond to expected allegations that they were canceling Colbert's show due to his criticism of the settlement—and his frequent rebukes of the president—saying the decision, effective in May 2026, was "purely a financial" one.
"It is not related in any way to the show's performance, content, or other matters happening at Paramount," they said.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) expressed doubt that the end of Colbert's show, days after he spoke out against his parent company's legal decision, was "a coincidence."
Media critics joined lawmakers including Sanders and Warren in expressing skepticism.
"'The Late Show' isn't dying because people stopped watching late-night TV," wrote Parker Molloy at The New Republic. "It's being murdered because Stephen Colbert spent the last decade being one of Trump's most persistent critics on network television, and the billionaires about to take over CBS need Trump's approval for their merger."
Anonymous "Late Show" staffers also told The Independent they believed the cancellation of the show was "part and parcel of the Trump shakedown settlement."
Political scientist Norman Ornstein called the impending end of "The Late Show," considering the surrounding circumstances, "a terrible sign for democracy."
"There's only one reason to do this, and we know what it is," said Ornstein. "The same reason that this disgraceful excuse for a network succumbed to blackmail from Trump over the '60 Minutes' interview."
Trump, whose Federal Communications Commission is still deciding on approval of the merger, weighed in on Friday regarding the show's cancellation, saying in a social media post, "I absolutely love that Colbert got fired," and criticizing other late-night comedians who have taken aim at him.
As Status News reported after the Paramount settlement was announced, speculation has increased that comedian Jon Stewart, who co-hosts "The Daily Show"—where Colbert spent several years—could also "soon be silenced" after publicly criticizing the settlement. That show airs on Comedy Central, which is owned by the CBS parent company.
"Inside 'The Daily Show,' I'm told staffers have taken pride that Stewart showed once again he is willing to stand up to powerful interests, even if it potentially risks his future employment," wrote Oliver Darcy. "And while they may not yet know it, inside certain power circles, there is an open question: How much longer will Stewart have this platform?"
MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes said Friday that it is not "an overstatement to say that the test of a free society is whether or not comedians can make fun of the country's leader on TV without repurcussions."
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Trump Planning to Destroy Planet
When it comes to climate change, the fact that Donald Trump is distinctly a terrorist first-class should be a daily part of the headlines in our world.
Jul 15, 2025
Yes, he’s done quite a job so far and, in a way, it couldn’t be simpler to describe. Somehow he’s managed to take the greatest looming threat to humanity and put it (excuse the all-too-appropriate image) on the back burner. I’m thinking, of course, about climate change.
My guess is that you haven’t read much about it recently, despite the fact that a significant part of this country, including the city I live in, set new heat records for June. And Europe followed suit soon after with a heat hell all its own in which, at one point, the temperature in part of Spain hit an all-time record 114.8°F. And oh yes, part of Portugal hit 115.9°F as both countries recorded their hottest June ever. Facing that reality, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said (again all too appropriately), “Extreme heat is no longer a rare event—it has become the new normal.” The new normal, indeed! He couldn’t have been more on target!
And why am I not surprised by all this? Well, because whether you’re in the United States or Europe (or so many other places on this planet) these days, if you’ve been paying any attention at all, you’ve noticed that June is indeed the new July, and that, thanks to the ever increasing amounts of greenhouse gases that continue to flow into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels, heatwaves have grown more frequent and more intense. After all, we’re now on a planet where, without a doubt, heat is at an all-time-record high. After all, 2024, was the hottest year in history and the last 10 years, the hottest decade ever known. Worse yet, in the age of Donald Trump, this is clearly just the beginning, not the end (though somewhere down the line, of course, it could indeed prove to be exactly that).
An Ongoing Act of Global Terrorism
While this old man is online constantly reading publications ranging from The Washington Post to the British Guardian, he still reads the paper New York Times. And if that isn’t old-fashioned of me, what is? Can you even believe it? And its first section of news, normally 20-odd pages long, does regularly tell me something about how climate change is (and isn’t) covered in the age of Donald Trump. Let me give you one example: On June 21, that paper’s superb environmental reporter Somini Sengupta had a piece covering the droughts that, amid the rising heat, are now circling this planet in a major fashion from Brazil to China, the U.S. to Russia. And yes, she indicated clearly in her piece that such droughts, bad as they may always have been from time to time, are becoming significantly worse thanks to the overheating of this planet from fossil fuel use. (As she put it: “Droughts are part of the natural weather cycle but are exacerbated in many parts of the world by the burning of fossil fuels, which is warming the world and exacerbating extreme weather.”)
The next day that piece appeared in the paper newspaper I read—a day when, as always, the front page was filled with Donald Trump—and where was it placed? Yep, on page 24.
And on the very day I happened to be writing this sentence, Trump was the headline figure in, or key, to 3 of the 6 front-page Times stories, including ones headlined “The Supreme Court’s Term Yields Triumphs for Trump” and “Trump’s Deal with El Salvador Guts MS-13 Fight.” On the other hand, you had to turn to page eight to read “Heat Overcoming Europe Turns Dangerous, and There’s More to Come” in which the eighth and 24th paragraphs quote experts mentioning climate change. I don’t mean to indicate that the Times never puts a climate piece on the front page. It does, but not daily like Donald Trump. Not faintly. He is invariably the page-one story of our present American world, day after day after day. Whatever he may do (or not do), he remains the story of the moment (any moment). And for the man who eternally wants to be the center of attention, consider that, after a fashion, his greatest achievement. Yet, at 79 years old, he, like this almost 81-year-old, will, in due course, leave this country and this planet behind forever. But the climate mess he’s now helping intensify in such a significant way won’t leave with him. Not for a second. Not in any foreseeable future.
Consider it an irony that the administration that wants to deny atomic weaponry to Iran on the grounds that a nuclear war would be a planetary disaster seems perfectly willing to encourage a slow-motion version of the same in the form of climate change.
In short, despite everything else he’s doing in and to this world of ours, there’s nothing more devastating (not even his bombing of Iran) than his urge to ignore anything associated with climate change, while putting fossil fuels back at the very center of our all-American world. Yes, he can no longer simply stop solar and wind power from growing rapidly on this planet of ours, but he can certainly try. And simply refusing to do anything to help is—or at least should be—considered an ongoing act of global terrorism.
And don’t think it’s just that either. For example, Trump administration cuts to the National Weather Service have already ensured that, when truly bad weather hits (and hits and hits), as it’s been doing this year, whether you’re talking about stunning flash flooding or tornadoes, there will be, as the Guardian‘s Eric Holthaus reports, ever fewer staff members committed to informing and warning Americans about what’s coming or helping them once it’s hit. Meanwhile, cuts to the government’s greenhouse gas monitoring network will ensure that we’ll know less about the effects of climate change in this country.
To put it bluntly, when it comes to climate change, the fact that Donald Trump is distinctly a terrorist first-class should be a daily part of the headlines in our world (though, if he has his way, it may not be “our” world for long). We’re talking about the president who is already doing everything he can to cut back on clean energy and ensure that this country produces more “clean, beautiful” coal, not to speak of oil and natural gas, and so send ever more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Meanwhile, Republicans in the House and Senate, bowing to Trump, have only recently passed a “big, beautiful bill” that would “quickly remove $7,500 consumer tax credits for buying electric cars,” among so many other things, while negating much of what the Biden administration did do in relation to climate change (even as it, too, let the American production of oil rise to record levels).
A Drill, Baby, Drill Presidency
Of course, given a president who once labeled climate change a “Chinese hoax” and “one of the greatest scams of all time,” who could be faintly surprised that his administration seems remarkably intent on sending ever more heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere? And sadly, if that reality, which was all too clear from his first term in office, had been the focus of the news last year, perhaps he wouldn’t have been voted back into the White House by 1.6% more Americans than opted for former Vice President Kamala Harris who, to give her full (dis)credit, didn’t run a campaign taking out after him in any significant fashion on the issue of climate change and planetary suicide.
So here we are distinctly in Donald Trump’s world and what a world it’s already proving to be. We’re talking, of course, about the fellow who quite literally ran his 2024 presidential campaign on the phrase “drill, baby, drill.” In a sense, he couldn’t have been blunter or, in his own fashion, more honest than that. Still, it pains me even to imagine that, for the next three and a half years, he will indeed be in control of U.S. environmental policy. After all, we’re talking about the guy whose (now wildly ill-named) Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) “plans to repeal limits on greenhouse gas emissions and other airborne pollutants from the nation’s fossil fuel-fired power plants.” Brilliant, right? And the fellow now running the EPA, Lee Zeldin, couldn’t have been more blunt about it: “Rest assured President Trump is the biggest supporter of clean, beautiful coal. EPA is helping pave the way for American energy dominance because energy development underpins economic development, which in turn strengthens national security.”
Clean, beautiful coal. Doesn’t that take the air out of the room? Or perhaps I mean, shouldn’t it? Because, sadly enough, in this Trumpian world of ours, all too few people are paying all that much attention. And yet it’s the slow-motion way that we humans have discovered to destroy this planet and ourselves. Consider it an irony that the administration that wants to deny atomic weaponry to Iran on the grounds that a nuclear war would be a planetary disaster seems perfectly willing to encourage a slow-motion version of the same in the form of climate change. After all, to take but one example, only recently it opened up millions of acres of previously protected Alaskan wilderness to oil drilling.
While President Trump and his officials essentially try to devastate this planet, a kind of self-censorship on the subject remains in operation and not just in the media, but among all the rest of us, too.
It’s not that there are no strong articles in the mainstream world about what’s happening. Check out, for instance, this article by Simmone Shah of Time Magazine on the increasing number of heat domes on this planet of ours. Or if you look away from the mainstream and, for instance, check out the work of Mark Hertzgaard at The Nation magazine considering the climate-change costs of war or environmentalist Bill McKibben at his substack writing on how Trump and crew want to create an all too literal hell on Earth, you would certainly have a stronger sense of what’s truly happening on this planet right now.
For a moment, just imagine the reaction in this country and in the media if Donald Trump suddenly started openly talking about actually using atomic weaponry. And yet, in a slow-motion fashion, that’s exactly what his officials and the president himself are doing in relation to climate change and it all continues to be eerily normalized and largely ignored amid the continuing chaos of this Trumpian moment.
Who, for instance, could imagine this headline anywhere in the media: Trump Planning to Destroy Planet. Or perhaps: American President Attempting to Create a Literal Hell on Earth. Or even how about a milder: End of World as We’ve Known It Now Underway. Or… well, you’re undoubtedly just as capable as I am of imagining more such headlines.
Instead, we increasingly live in a world where, while President Trump and his officials essentially try to devastate this planet, a kind of self-censorship on the subject remains in operation and not just in the media, but among all the rest of us, too. We lead our lives largely not imagining that our world is slowly going down the drain—or do I mean up in flames?
And in some grim sense, that reality (or perhaps irreality would be the better term) may prove to be—I was about to write “in retrospect,” but perhaps there will be no “retrospect”—Donald Trump’s greatest “triumph.” He is indeed in the process of doing in, if not us, then our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and clearly couldn’t give less of a damn about it. (If anything, it leaves him feeling distinctly on top of the world.)
Of all the wars we shouldn’t be fighting on this planet of ours from Ukraine to Gaza, Iran to Sudan, there is indeed one that we all should be fighting, including the president of the United States, and that’s the war against our destruction of this planet (as humanity has known it all these endless thousands of years) in a planetary heat hell.
If only.
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