Is there any recourse(and should there be) to Trump’s badmouthing of businesses and/or people through tweets? First, there was his tweeting about Boeing’s AF1 contract, which lowered their stock prices, then recently he tweeted about Lockheed Martin’s F-35 program, which caused a not insignificant drop in their stock prices. If this continues during his presidency he can intimidate/manipulate corporations who refuse to play nicey-nicey. I don’t know if this is legal, but it doesn’t seem right to me.
I don’t like it either, but it is perfectly legal.
It might not be criminal, but it probably is something those companies or individuals could sue over. The President is protected from lawsuits arising from his executions of his duties, but it’s hard to argue that tweets are part of the President’s duties. And of course, there’s no particular legal protection at all for the president-elect (which he presumably will be in a week), nor for the presumptive president-elect (which he is now).
Isn’t Melanoma planning on “taking on” cyber-bullying? Maybe she could have a word with the minority-president-elect.
Aside from the fact that it’s coming from Trump, how is “The contract for X is too pricey, so we’re going to have to cancel it” inappropriate for a President or President-elect?
It may be a bad decision. It may be short-sighted. But if that’s the direction he’s headed, how is it inappropriate to publicize?
It’s not anything necessarily new, and whether it’s defamatory does not depend on the office.
President Obama said in a speech that some of the Koch Brothers business practices were “not the American Way.” Also, his campaign website identified several rich individual Romney donors as “less than reputable” and said that “quite a few” have also been “on the wrong side of the law.” Some right-wing outlets raised a certain amount of outrage, but nothing more came of it.
His Boeing commentary went a little beyond that. After the initial tweet, he told reporters:
"The plane is totally out of control. It’s going to be over $4 billion for Air Force One program and I think it’s ridiculous. I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number. We want Boeing to make a lot of money, but not that much money.”
Emphasis added. It sounds to me like he’s accusing Boeing of overcharging. Probably not legally actionable, but I think safely inappropriate.
Of course, him being inappropriate is what his voters loved about him.
Right now, Boeing only has a contract for 170 million for development.
The highest estimate is 3.2B at this point. No one really knows what the cost will be. His claim was pulled from the usual place.
It’s amusing/terrifying that he wants to control how much a company makes.
From October in GQ:
Hey, it ain’t his company. Fuck 'em.
Do you mean “could sue over,” in the sense that anyone can file a lawsuit?
Or do you mean you have identified something that you believe is tortious in Trump’s Boeing commentary?
Acknowledging the first interpretation as true, I’m a bit confused if I assume you meant the second. There is no general tort that forbids offering up opinion that causes a stock price to tank, for example, where the opinion is not protected by the First Amendment. Can you explain what specific cause of action you feel might animate such a lawsuit?
It amazes me how people who are committed to the idea of free speech want to parse Trump’s words to find something to sue him over.
All of these things are opinions. You can “think” that I “might” be doing all sorts of things. If you say that I am doing act X, then that could be actionable unless an exception applies.
You might claim that this is simply a weasley way around the law, but unless we want to outlaw thought or provoking questions, I don’t see an alternative.
It sounds like you’re suggestion that “we should open up our libel laws.”. I hear we can win lots of money.
Stranger
If the President Elect says something that is untrue and damaging about a company, isn’t that pretty much the definition of libel?
If it were just me saying things, then I might get sued, but most likely, they couldn’t show damages, because, well, who listens to me? If it is the presumptive to the most powerful position in the country, he has a bit more soapbox power, and has caused measurable damage to these companies.
No.
Before you can begin to discuss damages, you need to understand what makes a statement actionably defamatory in the first place.
You’re in good company, though. Last year, after Spanish TV network Univision compared Trump to Dylan Roof, Trump sued them for $500 million, alleging he was defamed. This was a baseless, meritless claim, because Trump had no understanding of defamation either.
A statement that is clearly an opinion, even if capable of being proved false, is protected by the First Amendment. In other words, defamation arises when a reasonable reader reaches a false conclusion based on false facts published by the tortfeasor. But an opinion based on disclosed facts is immune from this danger, even if it’s false.
For example, if I were to say that I know Phil is an adulterer, that’s potentially defamatory. But if I were to say that Phil must be an adulterer because his wife is so damn ugly, it’s not actionable – it’s a statement of opinion based on disclosed facts, even though it’s capable of being proved false.
So, here’s what Trump tweeted about Boeing:
And when asked about it by reporters, he said:
These statements are classic opinion, based on disclosed facts. They’re not sober analysis, to be sure, and in typical Trump fashion they bear only a modest relationship to analysis. But they fall under the rubric of opinion based on disclosed facts.
Here is what Trump tweeted about the F-35:
I hope this explanation was helpful.
Melania’s already shrugged off Trump’s tweets and said her husband will do whatever he wants. Also I doubt think she imagined she’d ever actually become First Lady when she said that, and now that she is she doesn’t plan to be doing much beyond showing up at the occasional official event at the White House.
FDR was admired for his “Fireside chats.” Truman and JFK were especially admired for their frank comments. JFK famously targeted U.S. Steel (and other steel companies) for its “irresponsible defiance [and] utter contempt … [and] ruthless disregard for the public interest.” This “power of the bully pulpit” is an admired and important part of the great power of the American President. You may not approve of a President who delivers comments based not on the public interest, but his own petty malice or greed, but 63 million American voters thought differently. Why do you hate the American way? 
Using tweets instead of press conferences may remind you of a kindergartner with crayons pretending to be Picasso but, again, this is what America wants. TL;DR: Paint lipstick on a pig, but don’t be surprised if it continues to Oink.
Yep. Sadly, this.
An elegy for John Glenn I just heard listed his various accomplishments, among them “…and he even ran for President.”
And I thought back to the time when that meant something very different than what Trump’s transformed it into. I know, I know – there have always been crank candidates.
But until Trump, they never won. I voted against candidates that went on to win in the past because I disagreed with their policies but never before because they were so far outside the circle of political norms that I had no idea what the hell they were going to do.
I forget exactly how I did it, but my iPad now autocorrects the minority-president elect’s wife’s name to Melanoma.
Childish, yet fun.
Why are you dragging Sarah Palin into this?