From today’s decision by Judge James S. Moody, Jr. (M.D. Fla.) in Loomer v. Maher:
Plaintiff Laura Loomer is a well-known conservative investigative journalist. Loomer is also a “conservative, Republican, Jewish female activist.” She has twice mounted unsuccessful bids for a congressional seat…. Specifically, Loomer avers that on a September 13, 2024, episode of Maher’s “Real Time” show …, Maher made and published the following false, malicious, and defamatory statement of and concerning Loomer:
I think maybe Laura Loomer’s in an arranged relationship to affect the election because she’s very close to Trump. She’s 31, looks like his type. We did an editorial here a few years ago … it was basically, who’s Trump fucking? Because I said, you know, it’s not nobody. He’s been a dog for too long, and it’s not Melania. I think we may have our answer this week. I think it might be Laura Loomer.
According to the allegations: “In this statement, Defendant Maher makes the false statement that Ms. Loomer is in a sexual relationship with Donald Trump, who is a married man.” Thus, Defendant Maher “falsely and maliciously accused Ms. Loomer of having committed adultery with Donald Trump.” …
Long before the Episode, Loomer admitted that she had developed a reputation as one of the most controversial figures in American politics. She is “pro-white nationalism”; a “proud Islamophobe”; and a believer in “biological hierarchy” between men and women. Loomer acknowledged in her 2021 book Loomered: How I Became the Most Banned Woman in the World that her behavior has led her to be banned from numerous social media platforms ….
Plaintiff testified at her deposition that, as a result of her controversial opinions, and before the Episode, she was denied a job in the White House due to concerns on the part of President Trump’s inner circle. In March of 2023, she had a private meeting with President Trump and his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, at which President Trump purportedly instructed Wiles to offer Plaintiff a position on his campaign. The offer was withdrawn after it was reported in April 2023, that the President’s aides “feared that hiring Ms. Loomer, who has a long history of bigoted remarks, would set off a backlash.”
The record is undisputed that, prior to the Episode, Plaintiff believed she had a close relationship with President Trump. She testified that she visited Mar-a-Lago at least 20–30 times for political events and met with President Trump during 10–15 of those visits.
On August 13, 2023, she met President Trump at his private box at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster. At the golf club, Plaintiff publicly posted recordings showing President Trump with Plaintiff, telling his secretary “I love this girl,” and inviting Plaintiff and her friends to come to his “very private” suite. Plaintiff “gave him a hug”—and while “it’s taboo to grab the president of the United States,” President Trump told Secret Service, “It’s fine. It’s fine.”
After the meeting, Plaintiff shared on social media video of her and President Trump in his private box, in which she tells him “I love you”—and then captioned the post “Best president ever. I love him so much.” In a separate post, she wrote: “He wanted me to sit next to him all day, and it was the best day ever. I really love him with all of my heart.” In another tweet, she posted a picture of her standing beside President Trump, looking up at him, captioned simply with the “heart-eyes” emoji.
The record is undisputed that, when the presidential campaign entered full swing, Plaintiff was by President Trump’s side. She was with him in Miami, Minnesota, Nashville, and Iowa, where it was so cold that her hands were “freezing” and President Trump “grabbed [her] hand” to warm it up. At 2:53am on July 19, 2024, after the last day of the Republican Convention, Plaintiff tweeted a video of President Trump in which he sees her in the crowd, points to her and, in response to her yelling “I love you, I love you,” blows her a kiss. She goes on to yell, “You’re amazing, I love you, I love you.”
In the week leading up to the Episode, President Trump invited Plaintiff to accompany him on his private jet five to six times, including to the presidential debate and to a 9/11 memorial event the next day. Plaintiff’s appearances with President Trump attracted widespread attention. Plaintiff testified that there was a “media frenzy” surrounding her travel with him “which is probably why Bill Maher wanted to do a segment.”
Plaintiff’s frequent presence at President Trump’s side led to extensive chattering about the nature of their relationship in the days leading up to the Episode. Twitter was abuzz with speculation that Plaintiff and President Trump might be in a relationship. See Bolger Decl. Ex. 32 (September 12, 2024, Tweet from Mike Sington with 3.919 million views stating “[t]his is why Trump is hanging out with Laura Loomer. Watch them with their hands all over each other at Mar-a-Lago. Note: He’s married”); Bolger Decl. Ex. 33 (September 12, 2024, tweet saying “popular theory going around is Loomer is having an affair with Trump”). Plaintiff produced 39 tweets that were published by users before the Episode premiered, in which users were speculating and making jokes about her being in a sexual relationship with President Trump.
News outlets also reported on the rumors swirling around Plaintiff’s relationship with and influence over President Trump. The Miami New Times published an article on September 13, 2024, titled “Laura Loomer and Trump Sitting in a Tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” which noted the speculation that the two were “a romantic item.” Bolger Decl. Ex. 36. OK! Magazine published a similar article at 5:46 PM EST, titled “Donald Trump Accused of Having an Affair With MAGA Conspiracy Theorist Laura Loomer as Wife Melania Remains MIA” and reporting that “[s]everal images have been circulating on X … showing Trump, 78, getting handsy with the 31-year-old MAGA supporter” and that “several critics” have been “speculat[ing] about their relationship with one another, pointing out how the ex-president’s wife, Melania Trump, hasn’t been on the campaign trail since the Republican National Convention.”
The court concluded (correctly, I think) that a reasonable person would have understood that the statement was a joke, not a false statement of fact:
With respect to the September 13, 2024, Episode, it is undisputed that the Real Time team was influenced by the chatter about Plaintiff and President Trump. Several of the articles in that week’s “trending morning stories” emails reported on Plaintiff’s appearances and relationship with President Trump, including one that referred to their “admiration fest.” Some Real Time writers drafted jokes about Plaintiff (along with many other topics).
During the specific part of the Episode related to Plaintiff, Maher spoke with comedian and former Democratic Senator Al Franken and Republican commentator Kristen Soltis Anderson as part of the panel discussion. Portions of the panel discussion were serious and non-comedic. In response to Senator Franken’s observation that President Trump brought Plaintiff to a 9/11 remembrance that week, Maher quoted a tweet from Plaintiff stating that Taylor Swift “is in an arranged relationship with Travis Kelce to influence the 2024 election” and joked: “I think maybe Laura Loomer is in an arranged relationship to affect the election because she’s very close to Trump, she’s 31, looks like his type.” Mr. Maher continued: “We did an editorial here a few years ago…. It was basically ‘who’s Trump f***ing?’ Because I said, you know, it’s not nobody. He’s been a dog for too long. And it’s not Melania. I think we may have our answer this week. I think it might be Laura Loomer. I’m just saying.”
When asked about the Episode, Maher testified:
I made a joke. I made a joke based on their sudden closeness in the news that week. I could have shown a video of them together and all the places they were together and all the things that were going on, the ‘I love you’ the ‘I love you,’ the blowing of the kisses, you’re very special, all this stuff, and then just said, ‘Hey, get a room.’ It’s just—this is just comedy. This is—these are jokes.
Maher explained, in light of the media frenzy about their closeness, “[i]t was hard not to make that joke,” and he would have been “remiss” had he not commented on “Loomer being by his side every day for a week.”
Plaintiff’s closeness with President Trump remained in the news in the days after the Episode. Plaintiff testified, “Every single show on every news network [was] just like nonstop coverage about Laura Loomer, … Donald Trump, Laura Loomer, Donald Trump for three weeks straight.”
The following week, on September 20, 2024, Real Time did a segment titled “24 Things You Don’t Know About Laura Loomer”—alongside jokes about North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson, country music, and Israel’s pager attacks on Hezbollah. On this episode of “Real Time,” Maher, who was already on notice of this potential lawsuit pursuant to Fla. Stat. § 77.01, stated the following, in relevant part:
It’s because the person, like Trump, the nut at the center of it, starts surrounding himself with—I mean, he normally surrounds himself with pretty crazy people—but this Laura Loomer … she’s the new groupie in Trump’s circle … here are 24 things you don’t know about Laura Loomer.
Maher then said the following about and attributed to Loomer, including but not limited to: (1) “My biggest fear is immigrants taking my job as a right-wing hatemonger” and (2) “I don’t hate all brown people, just the brown ones.” …
As Defendants point out, courts have dismissed defamation claims based on statements by such well-known comedians as Jerry Seinfeld and Ellen DeGeneres because the context in which their statements were uttered reflected the statements were protected jokes. See Lapine v. Seinfeld (N.Y. trial ct. 2011) (statements made by “well-known comedian” on “a late-night entertainment program” that were “repeatedly punctuated by laughter from the audience”—for example, that plaintiff “was a mentally unhinged stalker of the Seinfelds”—were protected opinion); Pierce v. Warner Bros. Ent., Inc. (M.D. Ga. 2017) (dismissing defamation claim over Ellen DeGeneres’ mispronunciation of plaintiff’s name to sound like “titty” when showing a real yard sign with plaintiff’s name and company name, because DeGeneres is “a comedian” and “no person watching the Ellen DeGeneres show could reasonably have believed anything DeGeneres said to be stating actual facts”).
Here, based on the full context of the Episode and the series, as to which there is no dispute of material fact, a reasonable Real Time viewer would have understood Maher was making a joke, and not a statement of fact about Plaintiff and President Trump.
Maher himself repeatedly testified that, in his mind, he was making a joke. The record reflects that comedians on late-night shows “make jokes” about the headlines of the week and “don’t do investigations” or break news. Notably, the panel discussion in the September 13 Episode was punctuated with laughter and applause throughout. While Plaintiff focuses on the fact that some audience members “groan[ed]” rather than laughed at the remarks about Plaintiff and Trump, that too is evidence that they understood it to be a joke, just one that warranted a groan—a frequent audience reaction to stand-up comedy and late-night comedy jokes.
In sum, the Court concludes that the Episode was not a statement of fact. The delivery of the Episode, by a well-known comedian, in the context of a late-night comedy television series centered around jokes, signaled to viewers that this was not a factual statement about Loomer or concerning Loomer. So, Defendants are entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law on Plaintiff’s defamation claims.
The court also concluded that, even assuming, “arguendo, that the Episode concerned false facts about Loomer, the claims still fail as a matter of law because the record is bereft of any evidence of ‘[actual] malice'” in the sense of reckless or knowing falsehood:
“This is a subjective test, focusing on whether the defendant ‘actually entertained serious doubts as to the veracity of the published account, or was highly aware that the account was probably false.'”
Maher testified that, to the extent his statement that President Trump may be sleeping with Plaintiff can be construed as a statement of fact, he had no reason to doubt it considering President Trump’s reported prior alleged affairs, the reported closeness between President Trump and Plaintiff, and Plaintiff’s own commentary about President Trump. There is no evidence that the Episode was so “inherently improbable, or obviously worthy of doubt,” to support a finding of actual malice….
And the court added,
Finally, the defamation claims fail as a matter of law for the separate reason that Plaintiff does not establish a genuine issue of fact as to her alleged damages. Contrary to Plaintiff’s position, Florida law requires a defamation plaintiff in a case against a media entity to prove damages.
As Defendants contend, Plaintiff has not identified a single individual who believed that she was sleeping with President Trump because of the Episode or a single relationship that was damaged as a result of the Episode. She has not offered any expert testimony quantifying her reputational harm. She has not introduced income statements or tax records from the year of the Episode or after to prove a decline in her income. The record reflects that, to the contrary, Loomer testified that her income increased in 2024 compared to prior years and that she continues to speak to and meet with President Trump, he continues to solicit her opinions, and she continues to receive invitations to the White House. Plaintiff’s remaining evidence of alleged damages associated with lost job opportunities is entirely speculative. Indeed, the record reflects that, prior to the Episode, Plaintiff failed to obtain certain jobs because of her public remarks about controversial topics.
In sum, the Court concludes that the Episode was made by a comedian, Maher, about a public figure, Loomer, during a time when the environment was rife with jokes and speculation about Loomer’s relationship with President Trump. Because no reasonable person would take the Episode as Maher commenting on facts and because Plaintiff has not proved Defendants acted with actual malice, or that she suffered damages, Defendants are entitled to summary judgment in their favor….
Alexandra Perloff-Giles and Katherine M. Bolger (Davis Wright Tremaine LLP) and Rachel E. Fugate and Yelan Escalona (Shullman Fugate PLLC) represent defendants.
The post Laura Loomer Loses Defamation Suit Against Bill Maher Over "Who's Trump Fucking? … Might Be Laura Loomer" Lines appeared first on Reason.com.
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