In a recent New York Times article, Adam Liptak responds to President Donald Trump’s recent tweet towards them.

Trump tweeted, “The failing @nytimes has disgraced the media world. Gotten me wrong for two solid years. Change libel laws?”

The article says that Trump cannot change libel laws because it is a state-law tort after New York Times v. Sullivan. But nonetheless, Trump wants to try to change them anyways.

Trump expanded on the idea of changing libel laws in person. Trump said, “I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.”

I found Trump’s statement quite ironic. As many people may know, Trump recently made accusations about former President Barack Obama wire-tapped Trump Tower. The FBI have investigated and found no evidence that Obama wire-tapped Trump Tower. However, Trump was very vocal about these assertions on twitter, comparing the situation to Nixon/ Watergate, and calling Obama a “Bad (or sick) guy!”

What Trump said about Obama can be considered as libel in a way because he made false, defamatory remarks. It was also published on a huge social media outlet.

Therefore, the fact that President Trump wants to change libel laws because he believes that the New York Times writes negative and false things about him is ironic, because he did something similar.

He also has a monetary motive, noting that he can “win lots of money,” (not that he is lacking in money anyways).