Tuesday, January 24, 2006
The arrogance of Donald Trump
The Donald is unhappy with TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald
, which he says contains defamatory statements. Rather than leave well-enough alone, though, Trump has sued both the publisher and the author for $5 billion.
I can't imagine a better way to lift a book from total obscurity (yesterday's Amazon sales rank: 151,889, which is pretty lame for a book published less than three months ago, notwithstanding a solid "5 stars" on the customer reviews) to instant prominence. I know that I wasn't even slightly interested in TrumpNation until I learned that it has apparently inflicted $5 billion worth of damage on Donald Trump. Now I'm actually interested in finding out what set him off.
Trump is a public figure, by the way, who has repeatedly sought the benefits of exposure in the press. That is going to make this a tough case for Trump to win. The governing standard is New York Times v. Sullivan. To win, he will have to show not only that they statements were false and damaging, but that the publisher and the author made them with "actual malice." That's state-of-mind mumbo jumbo that means that "the statement was made with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard of whether it was true or false."
The Donald is going to lose, but he's going to sell a lot of the defendants' book in the process.
, which he says contains defamatory statements. Rather than leave well-enough alone, though, Trump has sued both the publisher and the author for $5 billion.I can't imagine a better way to lift a book from total obscurity (yesterday's Amazon sales rank: 151,889, which is pretty lame for a book published less than three months ago, notwithstanding a solid "5 stars" on the customer reviews) to instant prominence. I know that I wasn't even slightly interested in TrumpNation
until I learned that it has apparently inflicted $5 billion worth of damage on Donald Trump. Now I'm actually interested in finding out what set him off.Trump is a public figure, by the way, who has repeatedly sought the benefits of exposure in the press. That is going to make this a tough case for Trump to win. The governing standard is New York Times v. Sullivan. To win, he will have to show not only that they statements were false and damaging, but that the publisher and the author made them with "actual malice." That's state-of-mind mumbo jumbo that means that "the statement was made with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard of whether it was true or false."
The Donald is going to lose, but he's going to sell a lot of the defendants' book in the process.
2 Comments:
By 
, at
Tue Jan 24, 11:57:00 AM:
...and gets his own name back in the news.
As long as they spell his name correctly he must be happy.
This&That
By , at
Tue Jan 24, 01:14:00 PM:
Knowing Trump, he's probably getting a piece of the action.
