A federal court has tossed out a defamation suit filed by one of Donald Trump’s former mistresses against Tucker Carlson because the judge bought the Fox “News” lawyers’ argument: that “any reasonable viewer” tuning into Carlson’s program wouldn’t believe what he’s saying.
According to NBC News, U.S. District Court Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil said the lawyers for the network “persuasively” argued that Carlson’s claims about Karen McDougal should not be taken seriously because Carlson is inherently an unserious person.
“[A]ny reasonable viewer ‘arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism’ about the statements” Carlson makes on his television show, U.S. District Court Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil wrote in dismissing the case.
Vyskocil, a Trump appointee, determined Carlson’s show to be “rhetorical hyperbole and opinion commentary intended to frame a political debate, and as such, are not actionable as defamation.”
McDougal sued Carlson for stating on his program that the Trump scheme to payoff McDougal was “a classic case of extortion,” without acknowledging that it was Trump, Trump attorney Michael Cohen and Trump supporter David Pecker, the publisher of the National Enquirer, who devised the “catch and kill” plan to keep McDougal quiet about her affair with Trump so as to not damage Trump’s 2016 campaign.