By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON, Sept 23 (Reuters) – An Iowa judge, citing First Amendment protections, dismissed President Donald Trump’s lawsuit filed in late 2024 against the Des Moines Register newspaper and pollster J. Ann Selzer over a poll that showed the Republican leader trailing before the 2024 elections.
“At its core, the Plaintiffs’ Petition seeks to stretch both Iowa statutory and common law beyond their current bounds, turning speech that enjoys the highest category of First Amendment protection into a liability,” Iowa District Judge Scott Beattie said in the ruling on Wednesday.
Trump, who has repeatedly clashed with the media in and outside of court, won the 2024 election.
The ruling in the Register case came as another judge told a hearing that Trump’s decision to ban CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House did not appear to comply with prior rulings by a federal appellate court.
Trump had criticized a poll published on November 2, 2024, that showed Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris leading him by three percentage points in Iowa.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Wednesday ruling.
Free speech group FIRE, which represented Selzer, welcomed the ruling.
“We’re pleased that the court recognized what we’ve said all along: This lawsuit was laughable from the beginning and never should have been brought,” FIRE chief counsel Bob Corn-Revere said in a statement.
Trump has repeatedly urged broadcasters to drop news programs he dislikes, called on the Federal Communications Commission to strip disfavored broadcast stations of their licenses, filed several lawsuits against media outlets and banned some media outlets from the White House.
The US Constitution’s First Amendment grants protections for free speech and a free press.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; editing by Donna Bryson and Chris Reese)