Main:President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the Oval Office at the White House, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo/Alex Brandon). Inset: Main: Matthew Kacsmaryk during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Dec. 13, 2017 (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File).
Attorneys for CBS are asking a federal judge in Texas to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Donald Trump accusing the network of engaging in “naked forum-shopping” as part of an effort to have the case heard by a judge that may be more amenable to the president’s claims
The now-$20 billion suit stems from the network’s October 2024, “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris. It claims the aired footage was deceptively “doctored” to “tip the scales” in favor of Democrats, which amounted to “unlawful election interference.”
The long-shot complaint was filed in November 2024 in the Northern District of Texas Amarillo Division, where U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk — a Trump appointee known to be particularly receptive to conservative lawsuits — is the lone federal judge. The problem, according attorneys for CBS and its parent company, Paramount Global, is that the court has no jurisdiction because none of the allegations in the complaint have any connection to the Lone Star State.
“Plaintiff Donald J. Trump, a citizen of Florida, brings this lawsuit against three media companies, all of which are based in New York, over an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris that took place in Washington, D.C., was edited in New York, and was later broadcast across the United States from New York,” the opening line of the network’s 33-page motion states. “President Trump knows well that he cannot simply select his preferred jurisdiction when that jurisdiction bears little or no relationship to the events giving rise to his claim.”
Likely anticipating the defendants’ would challenge the suit on jurisdictional grounds, Trump last month added as a co-plaintiff to the action: Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson, a Republican from Amarillo who previously served as Trump’s White House doctor.
The amended complaint states that Jackson is “a consumer of broadcast and digital news media content,” including content from CBS, and “he has thus been injured.”
The network calls out the president’s alleged ploy, claiming Jackson was only added to the suit “in a vain effort to manufacture a connection to the District” to keep the case before Kacsmaryk.
“While Rep. Jackson is a citizen of Texas, the Amended Complaint is devoid of any factual allegations that he watched the Face the Nation or 60 Minutes broadcasts from Texas (or indeed, from anywhere) or suffered any injury in Texas (or indeed, anywhere else),” the motion states. “The Court should reject Plaintiffs’ naked forum-shopping and either dismiss or transfer the case.”
Kacsmaryk is best known for blocking the Biden administration from ending Trump’s “remain in Mexico” program and ordering the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to revoke approval of mifepristone, a drug commonly used in abortions. The latter order launched a nationwide debate over the consequences of allowing a federal judge to second-guess the FDA’s scientific judgment regarding a medical regulations. It was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court in an unanimous decision, though on narrow procedural grounds.
Other Republicans, such as Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, have similarly been accused of filing cases in Kacsmaryk’s district, knowing he is the only federal judge in Amarillo.
CBS also took aim at Trump’s claim that local nonparty stations in Amarillo “have employees whose knowledge will be relevant to this case within Texas,” but “tellingly” does so without identifying any of the employees or what relevant knowledge they could possibly have.
“That is because there are none,” the network wrote in reference to the supposed employees.
The president’s lawsuit has been disparaged by legal experts as being a meritless political stunt and assault on the First Amendment.
National security attorney Mark Zaid, who previously represented a whistleblower connected to Trump’s first impeachment, said the lawsuit was on par with the former president’s penchant for weaponizing the legal system against his perceived enemies.
“This is such an abuse of the litigation system, which is consistent for the former President & many of his lawyers,” Zaid wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “I have already sought to sanction some of them in other cases. Very possible the bar associations of jurisdiction ultimately weigh in.”
Robert Jensen, an emeritus professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, had a similar take.
“This is obviously a public relations stunt, an attempt to undermine the credibility of not only Harris and not only of CBS News, but of all traditional mainstream legacy media,” Jensen told The Washington Post. “Traditional mainstream legacy media reports critically about Trump’s deceptions, his coarse language, his lies, his abusive language, and so Trump is always trying to undermine the credibility of those journalists.”
Rebecca Tushnet, the Frank Stanton professor of First Amendment law at Harvard Law School, was even more direct, telling CNN the filing was laughable.
“It’s ridiculous junk and should be mocked,” she told the cable news network.
Noah Feldman, a constitutional law professor at Harvard Law, told CBS News that the allegations amount to an “outrageous violation of First Amendment principles, adding that the complaint is “so ill grounded that it comes close to being sanctionable as frivolous.”