Legal expert weighs in on whether Donald Trump can sue Grammys host Trevor Noah over Epstein joke
Donald Trump has once again made a major lawsuit threat, this time aiming it at Grammys host Trevor Noah.
The comedian made several digs at celebrities over the course of this year's Grammys, eliciting cheers when he joked that newfound Trump ally Nicki Minaj was not in attendance.
The most controversial joke of the night, however, was aimed at Trump and Bill Clinton about the Epstein files, leading Trump to threaten a lawsuit against the host.
Though the US House Democrats have clarified that being mentioned or pictured in the files is not itself a sign of wrongdoing, Epstein’s emails appear to feature him discussing the US president.
Advert
Noah said at the Grammys: “Song of the Year — that is a Grammy that every artist wants almost as much as Trump wants Greenland, which makes sense because Epstein’s island is gone, he needs a new one to hang out with Bill Clinton.”
Neither Trump nor Clinton have been accused of wrongdoing by Epstein's victims and they have both denied knowledge of his crimes.
Trump later took to Truth Social with a furious rant, saying: “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, nor anywhere close, and until tonight’s false and defamatory statement, have never been accused of being there, not even by the Fake News Media.”
He went on to say he would be ‘sending his lawyers to sue’ Noah, calling the host a ‘poor, pathetic, talentless, dope of an M.C’.
Trump should likely not bother though, according to legal defamation expert Bill Ogden, who says the president would not have much success if he were to sue Noah.
Speaking exclusively to LADbible, Ogden previously represented four parents of Sandy Hook students who were killed in the shooting and successfully sued Alex Jones for defamation, winning $49,300,000 in damages.
When asked about a possible case against Noah, he said: “From a legal standpoint, it’s highly unlikely that Trevor Noah faces any legitimate defamation liability over last night’s joke.
“At the Grammy Awards, comedians routinely engage in satire and hyperbole, and courts in the U.S. have long recognised that such statements are protected under the First Amendment and do not amount to provable assertions of fact.
“Because Donald Trump is indisputably a public figure, the bar he must satisfy for a defamation claim is extremely high.”
The legal expert went on to state that President Trump would need to ‘show that an allegedly false statement was made about him with "actual malice"’.
This means that Noah ‘knew it was false’, or he ‘recklessly disregarded the truth’.
Ogden went on to finally add: “Given the context of a live comedy monologue and the tradition of political humour at awards shows, the law generally treats these remarks as opinion or rhetorical exaggeration rather than defamatory statements.
“There’s also significant precedent confirming that parody or satire about public figures is protected, even if it’s pointed or uncomfortable.
“So while this may be rhetorically provocative, from a legal perspective a lawsuit would face very steep constitutional hurdles.”
LADbible has contacted the White House for comment.
Topics: Donald Trump, Grammys, TV and Film, Celebrity
Michael Slavin