Former President Donald Trump is suing journalist Bob Woodward and his publisher for nearly $50 million over the inclusion of audio recordings of an interview the ex commander-in-chief did with the veteran reporter in an audiobook released last 12 months.
Trump, 76, alleges in the lawsuit filed on Monday that he never agreed for 19 taped interviews conducted for Woodward’s 2020 book “Rage” to be included within the audiobook “The Trump Tapes,” published by Simon & Schuster Inc. last 12 months.
“This case centers on Mr. Woodward’s systematic usurpation, manipulation, and exploitation of audio of President Trump gathered in reference to a series of interviews conducted by Mr. Woodward,” Trump’s lawyers argue within the 31-page filing.
The lawsuit claims that Woodward’s “Rage” book flopped in comparison with his previous Trump book, “Fear,” released in 2018, and in an effort “to take advantage of, usurp, and capitalize” off of the taped Trump interviews, Woodward decided after the discharge of “Rage” to package them right into a recent audiobook.
“In publishing Rage, Woodward clearly hoped to copy the success of Fear, but he did not accomplish that. Faced with the fact that Rage was an entire and total failure, Woodward decided to take advantage of, usurp, and capitalize upon President Trump’s voice by releasing the Interview Sound Recordings of their interviews with President Trump in the shape of an audiobook,” the suit claims.
“The Defendants’ ongoing concerted efforts to profit off the protected audio recordings and the works they’ve distributed derived from the protected audio recordings have caused President Trump to sustain substantial damage,” the lawsuit alleges.
The suit, filed within the US District Court for the Northern District of Florida, seeks greater than $49 million in damages and names Simon & Schuster and its parent company Paramount Global as defendants together with Woodward.
“The Trump Tapes,” sold greater than two million copies at $24.99 apiece, in line with CNBC.
In October, Trump sued CNN for $475 million in punitive damages, alleging defamation and claiming that the network had carried out a “campaign of libel and slander” against him.
Earlier this month, a Florida judge ordered Trump and his lawyer to pay nearly $1 million in sanctions to cover the legal costs for Hillary Clinton and dozens of other defendants involved in one in all the ex-commander in chief’s failed lawsuits alleging a conspiracy to focus on him for criminal prosecution.