Trump’s threat to sue Noah over a joke would face a tough crowd in court

President Donald Trump has threatened to sue comedian Trevor Noah over jokes Noah made while hosting the Grammys. During the broadcast, Noah made a quip about Trump being in the Epstein files.

Noah’s joke came after the award for Song of the Year went to Billie Eilish.

“That is a Grammy that every artist wants almost as much as Trump wants Greenland which makes sense, I mean, because Epstein’s Island is gone, he needs a new one to hang out on with Bill Clinton,” Noah joked.

Trump potential lawsuit

The president didn’t take kindly to the barb, quickly taking to Truth Social to attack Noah and defend himself.

“The host, Trevor Noah, whoever he may be, is almost as bad as Jimmy Kimmel at the Low Ratings Academy Awards. Noah said, INCORRECTLY about me, that Donald Trump and Bill Clinton spent time on Epstein Island. WRONG!!! I can’t speak for Bill, but I have never been to Epstein Island,” Trump wrote.

He then said he’s planning to sue.

“It looks like I’ll be sending my lawyers to sue this poor, pathetic, talentless, dope of an M.C., and suing him for plenty$. Ask Little George Slopadopolus, and others, how that all worked out. Also ask CBS! Get ready Noah, I’m going to have some fun with you!” Trump wrote.

So, can the president file a defamation lawsuit?

Absolutely.

Can he win?

Well that depends on what you consider a win.

Comedian defamation suits

If Trump sues Noah for defamation and it ends up in a courtroom, the president would face an uphill climb.

“Would he win this if Noah and the network or whoever else is involved was willing to fight it? No, Trump would not win,” Nadine Strossen, senior fellow with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, told Straight Arrow News.

Trump’s biggest issue would be that Noah’s comments were clearly jokes.

“The First Amendment protects even allegedly false statements about an individual that would be seen as defamatory unless you can prove that they were made with reckless disregard for the truth,” Geoffrey Stone, distinguished professor of law at the University of Chicago, told SAN. “And in this case, they were clearly jokes, and they were intended as jokes. People understood them as jokes, not as factual statements. And therefore, I think it’s utterly implausible that there could be a libel judgment.”

Trump is also a public official which makes for a higher burden to prove in court for his lawyers.

“So not only would he have to show that what was said could be taken as true, he’d also have the New York Times heightened standard of proof that he would have to overcome,” Laura Little, law professor at Temple University, told SAN.

Little is referring to the Supreme Court decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan in 1964 which decided public officials must prove statements were made with actual malice to win a defamation suit.

In the history of the U.S., there are little to no examples of anyone successfully suing a comedian over defamation.

“Nothing comes to mind,” Little said.

There’s been some recent high-profile examples of that including the case of Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice and former Senate candidate Roy Moore who sued comedian/actor Sacha Baron Cohen a few years ago.

Moore appeared on Cohen’s show and said he was tricked into doing it. While on the show, Cohen played a character and criticized Moore over sexual misconduct allegations.

Cohen won the $95 million defamation suit with judges finding it was “clearly comedy,” something that would likely protect Noah as well.

In that case Cohen also benefitted from the Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell Supreme Court decision in 1987. The high court ruled public figures cannot recover damages for emotional distress over satire unless it makes a false statement of fact with actual malice.

“The fact that you have a professional comic delivering a comical satirical monologue means that any ambiguity in the words is going to be resolved in favor of this, no reasonable listener would take this as an assertion of fact,” Strossen said.

In 2010, comedian Sunda Croonquist won a defamation suit brought against her by her mother-in-law and other members of her family. The suit claimed jokes about the mother-in-law were defamatory.

However, judges ruled the jokes were statements of opinion protected by the First Amendment.

“What Trevor Noah said was so clearly a joke that it couldn’t get over that threshold,” Little said.

If Trump sues

Where Trump could win depends on whether Noah decides to fight back.

“Litigating a case can be time consuming and expensive and distracting, and people don’t want to do that if they can avoid it, and therefore, oftentimes they’re tempted to settle something, even if, in fact, they would not be held liable,” Stone said.

Trump has been involved in thousands of lawsuits, both as plaintiff and defendant, in his lifetime and is known to use them as a tactic in business dealings and more.

“He has been extremely successful in extorting and extracting penalties and submission regardless of the legal merits of his claims,” Strossen said.

In 2024, Trump sued ABC News over anchor George Stephanopoulos’ inaccurate depiction of a civil case in which a jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse. The same year, about a month before Election Day, Trump sued CBS News over what he claimed was deceptive editing of an interview with his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. Both networks paid millions to settle the lawsuits.

ABC paid Trump $15 million in a settlement, while CBS settled for $16 million as its parent corporation, Paramount, was seeking the Trump administration’s approval for a merger with Skydance Media.

Noah, however, doesn’t need anything from Trump or the federal government.

“He has much less to lose than the corporations you’re referring to who have ongoing relationships with the government that Trump could mess with,” Stone said. “So, to that extent, he has less incentive not to go forward with the litigation. But if he does go forward with it, I’m quite confident that he’d win.”

Noah hasn’t commented on the president’s post.

Comedians in trouble

While defamation suits against comedians don’t really get anywhere in America, comedians have gotten in trouble over obscenity. Lenny Bruce was convicted of obscenity in 1964 after a performance in a New York City Comedy Club, though he was posthumously pardoned in 2003.

“Back in Lenny Bruce’s day, there were laws against profanity and obscenity, depending on the audience, and you could be held potentially liable,” Stone said. “Today, that would not be the case, unless it was a child audience.”

Decades later, comedian Andrew Dice Clay canceled a 1990 show in Dallas over fears of arrest for violating the state’s obscenity laws.

“It is a court-created exception to free speech for so called obscenity,” Strossen said. “The last time the court reviewed it was 1973 it was a five-to-four decision. Since then, many justices, including very conservative ones, as well as many liberal ones, have said, this is an anomaly. We should revisit it and overturn it.”

George Carlin’s seven dirty words still can’t air on television or radio. But you’ll have no trouble finding them online or on social media.

“My students don’t get it because to them, you’re looking at a screen, and whether it’s broadcast or satellite or cable or internet, you’re seeing the same thing,” Strossen said. “But if the transmission mechanism happens to be over the air broadcast, you still can’t say the seven dirty words.”

Noah didn’t drop any of the seven dirty words during the Grammys, so he’s safe from any criminal prosecution. Whether he’s safe from a presidential lawsuit remains to be seen.

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story incorrectly reported the number of lawsuits filed by President Donald Trump and mischaracterized several recent cases. The article has been updated.

The post Trump’s threat to sue Noah over a joke would face a tough crowd in court appeared first on Straight Arrow News.

Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief