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On Wednesday, a federal judge tossed far-right activist Laura Loomer's defamation lawsuit against comedian Bill Maher. The court held that Maher's joke about Loomer being in a relationship with President Trump was protected speech under the First Amendment.
In a September 2024 episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher,” Maher said, “I think maybe Laura Loomer’s in an arranged relationship to affect the election because she’s very close to Trump . . . We did an editorial here a few years ago . . . It was basically who’s Trump f***ing?”
Loomer sued Maher and HBO for defamation, alleging that the statement that she had a sexual relationship with the President was false. In his deposition, Maher testified: “I made a joke. I made a joke based on their sudden closeness in the news that week . . . this is just comedy.”
U.S. District Judge James S. Moody Jr., of the middle district of Florida, granted summary judgment for HBO and Maher, holding that “a reasonable Real Time viewer would have understood Maher was making a joke, and not a statement of fact about Plaintiff and President Trump.” The judge explained that the “delivery of the Episode, by a well-known comedian, in the context of a late-night comedy television series centered around jokes, signaled to viewers that this was not a factual statement about Loomer or concerning Loomer.”
The court went on to hold that even if Maher's statements could have been construed as statements of fact, Loomer's claim still fails because there was no evidence that Maher or HBO made the statements with actual malice.
Read the court's full decision here.
The delivery of the Episode, by a well-known comedian, in the context of a late-night comedy television series centered around jokes, signaled to viewers that this was not a factual statement.
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