Donald Trump is the definition of a one-trick pony. After Disney made the mistake of paying off the president’s bogus defamation lawsuit against ABC News, and CBS paid off Trump’s bogus lawsuit against 60 Minutes, the president clearly thought that he had found both a new cash cow and a way to intimidate and control the corporate media.
Trump probably thought this gimmick was unstoppable. He was two for two in suing broadcasters, so he accused the BBC of editing some 1/6 footage of him and filed a defamation suit for $10 billion.
There was one big difference between the BBC, CBS, and ABC. Trump has no power over the BBC, and no means of threatening them. It is difficult to execute a shakedown when the intended victim has nothing to fear.
In response to Trump’s lawsuit, the BBC did what lawyers for ABC and CBS advised those networks to do. The BBC didn’t settle. Instead, the case went to discovery, where the BBC served a subpoena related to Trump’s revocable trust, which is run by Donald Trump Jr., and contains information on the family’s assets and business relationships.
This is not a path that Donald Trump and his family want to take, so the tone of the lawsuit has shifted.