President Donald Trump updated his defamation lawsuit Thursday against The New York Times and book publisher Penguin Random House, expanding on his argument that several reporters had disparaged his record as a businessperson in articles and a book about him.

The new filing adds specific claims of inaccuracies to a lawsuit Trump first filed last year over the articles and the book, which was written by two Times journalists. Lawyers for Trump said then the reporting was “specifically designed to try and damage Mr. Trump’s business, personal and political reputation” before the 2024 U.S. presidential election. They asked for $15 billion in damages.

Judge Steven D. Merryday of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida dismissed the initial complaint four days after it was filed, saying it was unnecessarily lengthy and digressive. The president refiled it in October.

The Times has defended the accuracy of the reporting and moved to dismiss the refiled lawsuit, arguing that the president failed to identify false or defamatory statements or to explain “what President Trump contends the truth to be.” The Times also said the complaint did not show the reporters had acted with “actual malice,” a legal standard requiring that they had published something knowing it was false, or with reckless disregard to its truth.

Merryday gave Trump time to amend his complaint last month, deferring his decision on the Times’ request to dismiss the lawsuit.

The second amended complaint expands on Trump’s allegations about the veracity of some of the statements in the book and articles, adding context to parts of the articles and book that he claims are not true. It also seeks to show with more detail that the reporters had acted with actual malice.

Trump named the Times and its reporters Susanne Craig, Russ Buettner and Peter Baker, as well as Penguin Random House, as defendants. Craig and Buettner wrote the book about Trump for the publisher.

A Times spokesperson, Charlie Stadtlander, said in a statement that the suit should be dismissed.

“The president has been given three opportunities to amend his claims, and the lawsuit remains obviously meritless,” he said.

A spokesperson for Penguin Random House pointed to its past comments, in which the publisher called the lawsuit “meritless” and said it “stands by the book and its authors.”

Trump previously sued the Times in 2021 over an investigation into his finances. That case was dismissed. His reelection campaign sued the Times in 2020 over a 2019 Opinion essay, which was also dismissed.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Katie Robertson/Lucia Vazquez
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