The president won’t prevail in court. But his cases against media companies have a potential chilling effect on criticism of the government

Donald Trump has sued the New York Times for, well, reporting on Trump.

Rather than charging the Times with any specific libelous act, Trump’s lawsuit is just another of his angry bloviations.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now