President-elect Donald Trump’s allies have urged him to take billionaire Illinois Governor JB Prtitzker to court over words he said about the incoming president in a speech earlier this year.
Calls from Trump’s supporters come after he received a huge payout last week in a defamation case against ABC and George Stephanopoulos.
Trump’s allies have eyed their next target to sue after JB Prtitzker called Trump an ‘adjudicated rapist’ and a ‘cogenital liar’ in a June speech.
‘He’s a racist, sexist, misogynistic narcissist who wants to use the levers of power to enrich himself and punish anyone who dares speak a word against him’, he went on to say.
Bringing up Prtizker’s comments, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Monday tweeted: ‘Now that Trump successfully won his defamation case against ABC for calling him a ‘rapist,’ when will he sue Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker for repeatedly lying & calling him the same thing?’.
Blagojevich’s tweet was quickly picked up by MAGA fanatics and was shared hundreds of times, with several supporters pleading the president-elect to take legal action.
Earlier this week ABC agreed to pay $15 million to Trump to settle a lawsuit over assertions made by top anchor Stephanopoulos that he was civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll in a March 10 segment on ‘This Week’.
Neither verdict – both of which Trump is appealing – involved a finding of rape as defined under New York Law.
Trump’s lawyers accused Stephanopoulos of making the statements with ‘malice’ and a reckless disregard for the truth.
The segment involved him interviewing Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, with Stephanopoulos pressing her on why she endorsed Trump after he was found liable of sexual abuse.
Stephanopoulos said: ‘I’m asking you a question about why you endorse someone who’s been found liable for rape.’
The congresswoman went on: ‘As a rape victim, who’s been shamed for years now because of her rape. You’re trying to shame me again.’
Mace was raped when she was 16 years old and says it is what drives her to be an advocate for women’s issues.
‘I have endorsed a man that I believe is best for our country. It’s not Joe Biden. You looked at the dueling rallies yesterday, in Georgia.
Laken Riley’s family was with Donald Trump. They weren’t with Joe Biden the same guy yesterday, that apologized for calling her killer an illegal who was an illegal.
And here you are trying to shame a rape victim. I find it disgusting.’
‘You keep saying I’m shaming you. How is a question about a presidential candidate—’ Stephanopoulos said. ‘You’re asking a rape victim,’ Mace cut in.
A New York jury in May 2023 ordered Trump to pay $5 million in damages for sexually abusing Carroll in the 1990s.
He was then ordered to pay another $83.3 million for defamation after he publicly denied sexually abusing Carroll in a department store dressing room in 1996.
Stephanopoulos was initially defiant of the lawsuit, saying that: ‘Trump sued me because I used the word ‘rape’.’
Trump is also suing CBS News for $10 billion in damages under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices-Consumer Protection Act alleging the network practiced ‘deceptive conduct’ when they interviewed Vice President Kamala Harris in October.
Lawyers for the president claimed numerous violations by the broadcaster including lying in a thoughtful and malevolent way, according to a lawsuit.
They wrote the complaint is because of ‘CBS’ partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference through malicious, deceptive, and substantial news distortion calculated to confuse, deceive, and mislead the public.’
Trump and his team also allege that CBS News was trying to run cover for Democrats by making Kamala Harris’ performance look better than it was.