RE Melbert is MSNB CS chief legal correspondent, the host
of the Beat with RE Melbert, and he joins me
now.
Good to see you, man.
Good to see you.
I OK, what's your the the the seltzer?
The seltzer lawsuit feels like one of those sort of
like press release dressed up as a lawsuit at one
level.
At another level, there really has been a worrying trend
in the gates opening and judges letting more of these
forward.
Well, how do you take it the suing of a
pollster for a poll you didn't like in a field
where polls, when done right, have a variation, is completely
frivolous unless through discovery you find some new consumer fraud
plot.
They have not yet shown that evidence.
There has been.
It's not just Robinson.
It's not just Trump.
We've seen Elon Musk go after Media Matters with the
lawsuit.
And I want to be clear here like we're by
we're a little biased because we're reporters.
And I generally think the Free Press is important and
I think the standard for defamation should be high.
Also, there are legitimate instances of defamation and it's important
for people not to be defamed and for us to
get it right and do our best to get it
right.
In general, what do you make of this sort of
lawsuit fuselage coming from shop?
Well, one, you write about the disclosures so we can
be audit, you know, honest with the audience about that.
And we have an expertise about this as journalists.
But but we have a view that journalism is a
good thing that should flourish and not be stomped out.
And you can add to that.
I practiced First Amendment law when I used to litigate.
So you can say all of that.
I have defended journalists rights in this arena.
Having said all that, there is a way to look
at this hopefully for what's good for the country.
And it has been a nonpartisan long tradition dating back
to the fourth estate of the founders verbiage that this
was key to the facts and sunlight of a democracy
and common facts.
It's very clear that there's a deliberate orchestrated strategy here.
I thought your your report showed many of the key
aspects, which is excellent.
Rachel has, has tracked Peter Thiel, who funded anonymous lawsuits
against journalists years ago and even ended up bankrupting Gawker,
which whatever it's sins.
And the courts did find mistakes.
It was a corporate death penalty for a mistake in
journalism.
And so there's a big question here about A, what
they want to do, whether win or lose to chill,
as you've reported.
And then B, we should keep an eye on this.
There are a lot of right wing figures who want
to bring the key 1st Amendment case here that protects
journalists and and has a high standard for reporting on
public officials in the government.
They want to get to the Supreme Court, which means
they might like a Trump related loss that they can
appeal all the way to Trump Supreme Court.
This is really key.
So, so first of all, the context here is that
Charles been doing this forever.
This is what he does.
In the 1980s, he was a real estate developer.
He sued the Chicago Tribune when its architecture writer described
his proposed Manhattan size scraper as ugly monstrosity.
The suit was dismissed.
He lost affirmations against media groups, including CNN and MY
and the New York Times.
Now, you know, a critic saying something's an ugly monstrosity
is like core First Amendment speech.
Like it must be the case.
It's what protects Donald Trump's rights to insult so many
people in public.
Exactly, which again, core protected.
But your point about so you've got a bunch of
people, teal Musk and Trump.
This is the way they want to go after the
press.
The the worrying thing is what judges are doing with
it and the key case, if you get explained to
people, which is Sullivan, which sets the standard legendary case
we already have Clarence Thomas, I think on the record
in some dissents being like Sullivan's wrong, we should overrule
it.
Conservative judges may be looking at that, looking to get
sort of teed up a case to open the floodgates
to this kind of thing.
Yeah, this is the key case that gives reporters in
America and others talking about public figures such robust rights.
Other countries don't necessarily have this.
You might have narrower free speech.
And it's from a civil rights era ruling that basically
found that it's a higher standard to actually be sued
out of existence or end up paying big amounts.
When you are reporting on discussing public figures that you
have to basically prove that a statement was not only
false, but it was knowingly false, a lie, or made
so recklessly that you didn't even check it out.
Right.
And this is where you're expertise comes in, you the
team at all in MSNBC reporters, the ABC reporters, if
you want to take folks who are not us, do
a great deal of work all day to Fact Check
things to the best of their ability before it makes
air.
And if they make a mistake, then they try to
correct it.
And a little footnote, if I may, on the ABC
case that may interest people.
I thought you did a a very precise job of
referring to the underlying facts even after settling.
And we could debate whether ABC should have settled what
many lawyers thought was a winnable case.
But people settle for different reasons.
You'll notice the statement they agreed upon, along with paying
this money back, did not refer in ABC's agreed statement
to a falsehood.
It said we regret the statements and that's the deal
they struck.
And so that's another big difference is most reputable outlets,
if we find out something's false, we correct it.
They didn't do that then and again, other people can
debate it.
We're all here to discuss, but their statements that we
regret the statements.
And if I'm not mistaken and man, I hope I'm
not as about to say this on live TV since
we just had this conversation.
The plaintiffs and Sullivan were folks that didn't like the
New York Times coverage of the civil rights in what
was going on in terms of civil rights.
And there was a sub publishing of and get you
get into real deep first own issues like are you
publishing information or reporting when you're publishing names of people
involved in in the struggle or in the donations, right.
So you've you've got you know, you've got this protection
there.
The court.
We don't know what's happened.
You've got these civil lawsuits, which I think we're going
to see.
Then there's the the thing he says, which is I
wish the justice to prosperous department should have done it.
Yeah, but that's left to me.
So that's the other big question.
Well, they, they ought to do something really melts into
we, right?
And that would be pretty unprecedented.
I mean, I don't think we've seen a Justice Department
go after the Free Press either civilly or criminally, certainly
not in my lifetime, not for a long time.
Ari Melbourne, of course, host of The Beat, weekdays at
6:00 PM right here on MSNBC.
It's great to have, great to see you.