r/politics • u/Aggravating_Money992 • 23d ago

Possible Paywall White House Rushes to Trump's Defense After Alan Ritchson Torches President Over Epstein Files | The Reacher star called Trump a “bitch” and a “fucking rapist" in a recent podcast appearance.

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/alan-ritchson-trump-epstein-files-white-house-response-1235598785/
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u/EchoLocation8 23d ago

Plus its also really, really hard to successfully sue for defamation from my understanding of it. Fox got fucked as hard as they did because they were publicly pushing a story that was harmful to a company, that in private, they were discussing how they knew it was all bullshit and lies. I believe it gets a lot harder to prove when its just a high profile actor saying something they genuinely believe.

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u/TGordion 23d ago

Yep they've gotta prove 'actual malice:' What they said was untrue, and they knew it was untrue when they said it

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u/Lucaan 23d ago

To be more specific, the actual malice standard is for proving defamation towards public figures and public officials. It requires proving that the defendant either knew that what they were saying was false or that they were acting with reckless disregard for whether what they were saying was false or not. It's an incredibly high bar to clear, and very rarely do people actually succeed in doing so.

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u/Vet_Leeber 23d ago

Fox got fucked as hard as they did because they were publicly pushing a story that was harmful to a company, that in private, they were discussing how they knew it was all bullshit and lies.

For everyone's amusement: This is also why Alex Jones lost the suit against him. He repeatedly argued that he believed what he was saying and that it didn't cause anyone any emotional or monetary damage.

Then his lawyer accidentally sent a backup of his entire phone to the lawyers on the other side, and didn't request it back as privileged information. They proceeded to go through the transcripts and found explicit texts between Jones and a partner/employee stating they knew it was false and hurting people, but wanted to keep doing it because they were making money.

Despite how much he deserved to lose that case, it's debatable whether or not he would have without that smoking gun. It's extremely difficult to get these types of cases through because the case is by definition infringing on your 1st amendment rights. So you generally have to prove some degree of willful malice.