The Daily Fuckup

A federal judge on April 13, 2026, dismissed Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch over reporting tied to Jeffrey Epstein, but did so without prejudice, leaving Trump a chance to try again. U.S. District Judge Darrin P. Gayles in Florida said the complaint did not adequately show the article was published with malicious intent. Trump later said on social media that the ruling was “not a termination” and that he would submit a revised version of the case by April 27.

That matters because the ruling was procedural, not final. A dismissal without prejudice means the court rejected the complaint as filed but did not bar Trump from coming back with an amended one. In other words, the suit did not die on Monday; it was sent back to the drafting table. The legal posture is important even if the optics are ugly for Trump, who launched a high-profile, high-dollar case and immediately got a reminder that federal court still cares about pleadings, not just posture.

The underlying dispute is politically combustible because it centers on Epstein-related reporting and a claim that an item in a birthday album bore Trump’s signature. Trump had already signaled he would sue after the article, and his response to the dismissal suggests he wants the fight to continue rather than fade. But the first filing now has a public record attached to it: a judge found it insufficient as written and gave the president a deadline to fix it.

The next checkpoint is April 27, when Trump said he plans to file an amended complaint. If he does, the case moves forward from there on a cleaner procedural footing. If he does not, the dismissal without prejudice will remain exactly what it is: a temporary setback, not a final judgment.