A federal judge has given Donald Trump until 27 August 2026 to file a fresh amended complaint in his defamation lawsuit against The New York Times, after the newspaper sought to have the case dismissed. The ruling keeps alive litigation that centres on claims Trump's celebrity status was manufactured largely through NBC's The Apprentice, rather than being of his own making, and it matters because it tests the limits of "actual malice" standards for public-figure defamation claims against major media organisations.

US District Judge Steven Merryday had previously thrown out Trump's original September lawsuit but allowed him to refile, resulting in an October amended complaint targeting specific passages from a Times article by Susanne Craig and Ross Buettner, their book Lucky Loser, and a piece by Peter Baker, with Penguin Random House also named as a defendant. The Times argued the case was filed in the wrong venue, Florida rather than New York, and that Trump had failed to plausibly allege actual malice, saying many disputed statements were subjective interpretations of undisputed facts. Following a hearing last week, the judge granted Trump's team time to address these deficiencies; Trump claimed vindication on Truth Social, while a Times spokesperson said the ruling offered no support for the "frivolous accusations" in his earlier complaint.