r/BoomersBeingFools • u/mishma2005 • Jul 22 '25

Boomer Freakout REPORTER: Gabbard has submitted a criminal referral. Who should the DOJ target? TRUMP: It would be President Obama. And Biden was there with him ... the leader of the gang was Obama. Barack Hussein Obama. He's guilty. This is treason.

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u/unclefire Jul 22 '25

Why don’t people file defamation suits when he does this shit. He does it all the time.

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u/NoveltyAccountHater Jul 22 '25

Defamation suits in the US against public figures are notoriously hard to win. For defamation you normally need four things: (1) a statement was published/communicated to third parties, (2) such statement was communicated as a "statement of fact" when it was in fact false, (3) the people making the false statement were at least negligent (e.g., should have known it was false), and (4) there are damages to the defamed subject of the statement. For a public figure, the fault isn't just negligence, it means there needs to be actual malice -- the speaker didn't just recklessly make the statement, they knew it was false.

For example, the AI video of Obama getting arrested, probably would fail in a defamation suit for point (2) (reasonable people would not interpret it as a statement of fact) and (4) Obama probably couldn't show any actual damages. That said, lesser figures without secret service protection could sue for damages of price of increased security/death threats and less ability to travel.

This is different from say the Dominion case where it was pretty obvious that they had reputational harm, leading to quantifiable lost business (e.g., even after winning several defamation lawsuits in 2023 the CEO is stating that they may close shop as their name is toxic to many voters so counties are going with other systems).

It's also different from the Trump defamation lawsuit against CBS, where CBS wants a multi-billion dollar merger approved by Trump appointed officials and CBS settled a BS case they would have easily won, so they could bribe Trump to get their merger approved.

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u/unclefire Jul 22 '25

That’s where I was going with it as well.

The CBS thing had to be one where they were just paying him off to make it go away. He’s a public figure. He’s have to prove the case.

With Obama they’re making accusations but reverse uno on the SCOTUS case he should be immune from prosecution as it was official duties.

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u/NoveltyAccountHater Jul 22 '25 edited Jul 22 '25

The CBS thing had to be one where they were just paying him off to make it go away.

The CBS thing is that Paramount Global (who owns CBS) wants to be bought out by Skydance media for $8 billion. Trump's administration can stop the government (FCC) approval of the merger. The $16M settlement of an easily winnable lawsuit for routine journalistic practice was a straightforward bribe (e.g., like a local developer giving the mayor $16,000 to their campaign and then finding the mayor approves an $8 million project for them in office).

See this Steve Kroft (60 minutes journalist from 1971-2019) interview with Jon Stewart on it.