Exactly. That PR shill is being paid a lot of money, specifically because he can stand there and sound like half-billion-dollar lawsuits are something he deals with 3 or 4 times a day.
Agreed. And tell you what, I’ll bow out in recognition of the fact that I can’t be the most useful contributor on this subject. But I am genuinely interested in the question of whether extra-contractual considerations come into play in a case where a Spanish language network tries to cut ties with a public figure/presidential candidate whose platform includes hate speech against Mexicans, assuming the contract itself doesn’t provide for that.
Amusingly, the suit itself claims that the First Amendment does in fact operate to prevent Univision from terminating their contract with Trump:
That may be true on the legal stage, but I suspect that that is secondary in terms of Trumps goals in filing the lawsuit.
Primarily I suspect that Trump is suing because it bolsters the narrative he’s cultivating that he’s a guy always gets what he wants and that those who mess with him live to regret it. Even if the case is an open and shut case against him* he’d still probably file it just on those grounds that his making a big hullabaloo about filing it will hit the front page, while it being thrown out of court some months down the road will merit a short paragraph on page 10.
*not that I think it is necessarily open and shut against him, just that the fact he’s filing it shouldn’t be seen as an indication that its not.
Absent the need to support their use of an escape clause, Trump will almost certainly file a motion in limine to exclude the defendants’ justification for breaking the contracts. One party being a dick is not an excuse for another party to break a contract–unless not being a dick is part of the contract.
This is absolutely maddening, because any fool can see that Trump’s actions could reasonably be seen as harmful to Univision and NBC, but they don’t get to talk about that. However, rather than breach their contracts they ought to have brought a suit against Trump for damaging them. Which would be a hard case to support because it’d be entirely speculative, if reasonable. And Trump would assume the position of a sobbing, persecuted victim being bullied by huge corporate interests.
How is Trump’s first amendment rights being suppressed. Did Congress pass a law instructing Univision to fire him because of what he said? That would violate his first amendment rights.
After Martha Stewart and Tiger Woods, I’d suspect any such contract has a clause allowing removal of the merchandise if the brand is damaged, which the Trump brand it. Plus, keeping Trump merchandise on the shelves could be seen as endorsing him as a candidate, which is clearly against the interest of the store.
I have no idea what this means. Mexicans are citizens/residents of Mexico, or their descendants. I can move to Mexico and change my nationality. That does nothing to my ethnicity, unless you think nationality and ethnicity are synonymous, in which case I really don’t get your point.
Why did Macy’s have Trump merchandise in the first place? According to the article I read, it was menswear. Is anybody really taking style tips from that trumped-up buffoon?
This hyperbole makes sense with black people, they are a race. Mexicans are not.
Right. That made no sense either, except in the sense that ALL non-Americans are minorities in this country. Canadians are just as much minorities as Mexicans, but I never hear them referred to that way. Why do you think Mexicans are minorities?
Ah, but his last sentence was a legal principle! (It’s a really bad one, and would entail government censorship of contracts to prevent the humoring of “race war tactics” in speech, but it is a “legal principle.”)
(And, of course, so was your response!)
“Or their descendants.” To what degree? If a guy has a Mexican father, is he a Mexican? If so, a guy with a patrilneal G’G’G’G’G’Grandfather who was Mexican…is a Mexican.
In practice, it’s an ethnic group, and those are “fuzzy sets.” You can’t define them absolutely, but only point to instances close to the center of the set.
There are no “Mexican surnames” that are always, by definition, Mexican. Mr. Garcia might be Venezuelan; there’s no way to know. But if you meet a guy in Los Angeles named Garcia, the odds are pretty strong he’s ethnically of Mexican descent.
The words “Latino” and “Hispanic” serve similar purposes. They cannot be rigorously defined: there is no single test that will always correctly include members of the set and exclude non-members. But that doesn’t mean that the set doesn’t exist.
Latino and Hispanic have nothing to do with nationality. Mexican has everything to do with nationality, and nothing to do with race.
Which, by your own logic, would prevent you from saying they shouldn’t do anything, since according to you, we can’t discuss anything but the legal situation. You’re making a moral “should” that does not involve the law.
As long as he’s not pretending to give legal advice, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just you wanting to control the conversation–the thing a lot of people get pissed off at you about.
I doubt seriously that the suit will ever go anywhere near a courtroom, but supposing it does.
NBC/Univision will claim they fulfilled the contract by paying him the $13.5 million, and that nothing in the contract requires that they actually broadcast the pageants.
Trump will argue that voiding the contract damaged him in some material way.
NBC/U will point to any number of breach suits filed by producers, stars, studios, etc. that show that indirect damages caused by the cancellation of a program aren’t its problem as long as the network paid off the contract and didn’t actually defame Trump (which would be a separate lawsuit anyway.)
Trump’s polling very high at the moment. When he crashes and burns, I’m going to do my best Flounder impression (“Oh, boy! Is this great!”)
I do not understand either party’s actions here ( nor care greatly, to be honest ). Surely his ex-partners would be in a far better position if they had the President of the United States presenting their programs, including Miss Universe [ I didn’t realise these sort of things were still a thing ]; whereas Mr. Trump is jeopardising his bid for supreme power by engaging in petty bickering, and indicating, however falsely, that he cares for anything other than winning the race.
If unable to simply say, ‘I am above these mundane matters; do what you will’, he should at least come to an agreement with them to postpone litigation until he has either won or withdrawn. He should consider how much America needs him.
Palin — Trump 2016 !
This post is excellent.
According to the lawsuit, the contract did require that the show be broadcast “at least once”.
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaa.
Start your own Message Board and set the rules as you see fit.
Funny, that. It’s 2015. Broadcast at least once could easily mean that NBC/Universal ( just to be clear, when people refer to the parent company as “NBC/UNI”, they are not referring to it as “NBC/ Univision”. ) could easily stream it from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. once on a Sunday morning. Voila. It has been broadcast once.