WATCH: Trump urges 'right to sue the press' for defamation, libel

During a sit-down interview with Daily Wire host Candace Owens, former President Donald Trump slammed the media over its ability to publish defamatory and libelous statements against political opponents without much legal pushback.

Owens interviewed Trump at the former president's historic Mar-a-Lago resort for an unscripted discussion touching upon Big Tech censorship and journalism today.

"We learned a couple of things over the last number of years. Number one: the press is among the most dishonest group of people ever, anywhere, no matter what. They're corrupt," Trump told Owens. "And number two: we have corrupt elections," he added. "We've gotta straighten out the elections."

Trump said that the establishment media can only be "straightened out" if plaintiffs are allowed to sue "with a meaningful law" cracking down on libel.

"New York Times vs. Sullivan should be reversed," Owens declared, referencing the landmark Supreme Court decision during the 1960s civil rights movement.

To sustain a claim of defamation or libel, the First Amendment requires that the plaintiff show that the defendant knew that a printed statement was false or was reckless in deciding to publish the information without investigating whether it was accurate, according to the Supreme Court multimedia archive Oyez Project.

The court ruled in favor of the New York Times. When a published statement concerns a public figure, the court decided it is not enough to show that it is false for the press to be held liable for libel. Instead, the statement must show that it was made with knowledge of or reckless disregard for its falsity.

In a unanimous opinion authored by Justice William J. Brennan Jr., he used the term "actual malice" to summarize the court's standard on the matter.

"It should be reversed..." Trump agreed with Owens."But if they write something totally malicious, libelous—whatever you want to call it—your lawyers will tell you, 'Don't bother suing, because you can't sue.' If you want to straighten out the press, give us the right to sue. Give people the right to sue the press where it's meaningful, where they have to pay a big penalty when they get caught, 'cause they're caught all the time. You have to be able to do something about it."

Episode 40 of the conservative commentator's eponymous show Candace premiered Tuesday, available now to stream for Daily Wire members.

After hurling hit pieces at Trump over four years of the previous administration, the media has now lobbed softballs at President Joe Biden since he took office, applauding the septuagenarian's love for ice cream and excusing numerous gaffes.

Private-turned-public figures on the right have endured the media's attacks while left-wing personalities enjoy the welcoming limelight provided by the press.

Covington Catholic graduate Nick Sandmann reached a confidential settlement Friday with NBC over its defamatory coverage of the March for Life spat in 2019.

Since the debunked incident at the Lincoln Memorial, the liberal media has opened its wallet wide for Sandmann after he launched a series of defamation lawsuits against multiple media giants, including CNN and the Washington Post.

After the Kyle Rittenhouse "not guilty" verdict, Sandmann announced mid-November that he "just got off the phone" with the acquitted teen who was "in great spirits" following the high-profile murder trial in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Sandmann has voiced that he thinks Rittenhouse should "hold the media accountable" after Democrat pundits rushed to judgment on the racialized case.

"The parallels between me and Kyle Rittenhouse are impossible not to draw," Sandmann wrote in a column for the Daily Mail amid jury deliberations, reaching out to the fellow youth to lend support. "The way the media has treated you is terrible, and you don't have to face it alone," Sandmann said to Rittenhouse.

Rittenhouse, who was on trial for the shooting deaths of two white Black Lives Matter rioters and the wounding of a third during last summer's violent Jacob Blake riots, was smeared as a "white supremacist" by liberal media personalities and Biden while he was on the 2020 presidential campaign trail.