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Slander and libel are NOT protected by the 1st amendment, there are civil actions that can and are adjudicated ALL of the time.

And they are notoriously unsuccessful almost all the time, in the context of public figures, because you have to prove "actual malice," and that is tough to do.

And that is precisely as it should be. Political free speech is precisely that speech the founders were most interested in protecting, because it is critical to the functioning of a free society, and because it is highly vulnerable to suppression by agents of political power. The risk of being misrepresented when you enter the political arena is a risk we as free people deem worthy of the benefit returned, namely, that we all have the right to speak our mind, even when what we say is extremely unpopular.

And the impulse to suppression is alive and well, even here at FR. Just the other day some pro-Trump person was suggesting a "common sense" litmus test as a prerequisite to our freedom to vote. Here on FR! And based on what? My negative appraisal of Trump. The individual is dead, long live the collective? Is that our new mantra?

So we have to stand as watchmen for our freedom. Ad you said, the current law already allows suit for defamation against public figures, but it protects media from retaliatory lawsuits by requiring solid proof the defamatory statement was a fact, not an opinion, that it is demonstrably false, that it is limited to the specific victim and not some large group, and that it was done with "actual malice," i.e., the media outlet knew it was false while presenting it as true, a deliberate, intentional lie. Proving all that is a pain in the behind, very hard to do. The only way I could see Trump getting around it is to either lower the standard of proof (bad), or to remove the "actual malice" standard (also very bad).

But how would he do this? He is not the legislature. He is not the judiciary. And libel laws are under the police powers of the states. This is one of those areas NOT enumerated to Congress. It's not a federal issue. Does he not understand the role of the federal executive? I don't think he does. This puts him much closer to Obama than Reagan.

Peace,

SR

was suggesting a "common sense" litmus test as a prerequisite to our freedom to vote.

The Founding Fathers did...you had to be a property owner.

Getting to the rest of your post, I realize political free speech is the purpose of the 1st Amendment, and I back it as fiercely as I do the rest of the BOR.

I'm running out of time as I have some chores to get to but in this case I'll say this is Trump sloganeering just like Cruz does with saying he is going to abolish the IRS.....congress will vote that in right after term limits and I win the Powerball lottery.

My entire point with posters who claimed Libel and slander are protected 1st amendment rights, that is simply not true.