Rupert Murdoch looks on, at the White House, in Washington, U.S. February 3, 2025. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz/File Photo

President Donald Trump wants a federal judge to allow his defamation suit against The Wall Street Journal to go forward because he says the newspaper's 2003 letter linking him to the late convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was “deliberate and malicious," Newsweek reports.

Trump also says he should be allowed to continue the case because the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper said his denial of the letter's legitimacy was 'false."

Newsweek reports that in a filing submitted October 20 in the Southern District of Florida, Trump’s lawyers said the Journal and its parent company, News Corp., along with Murdoch and senior editors, “prioritize gossip, clicks and profit over truth.”

Donald Trump filed a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and its owner Rupert Murdoch in July over a story regarding a birthday letter Trump allegedly sent to Jeffrey Epstein in 2003. That article was titled “Jeffrey Epstein’s Friends Sent Him Bawdy Letters for a 50th Birthday Album. One Was From Donald Trump.”

In September, The Wall Street Journal filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, asserting that its reporting was accurate.

The October filing responds to Trump's motion to dismiss the suit, and asserts the newspaper’s reporting was substantially true and protected by the First Amendment.

The president accuses the Journal of framing its coverage to make his denial appear untrue, Newsweek explains.

“Although defendants included plaintiff’s denial, they did so in a way that made it seem as if plaintiff’s denial was false,” the filing states. “This kind of reckless disregard for the truth by defendants provides a sufficient basis for an inference of actual malice.”

Trump’s legal team also argues "the article was defamatory both per se — because it allegedly subjected him to 'hatred, disgust, ridicule, contempt or disgrace' — and per quod, requiring additional context to show harm to his reputation," Newsweek says.

The filing says the piece “wrongly and inextricably link[ed] President Trump to the disgraced Epstein,” and that the Journal’s use of phrases such as “one of them was Donald Trump” left readers with the impression that he was a willing participant in the birthday project.

Trump's attorneys also accuse the Journal of not being nice to the president.

"They claim the story’s 'mean-spirited tone' and the Journal’s alleged hostility toward Trump support an inference of malice," Newsweek says.

The Journal's lawyers have laughed off Trump's requests, saying, “This meritless lawsuit threatens to chill the speech of those who dare to publish content that the president does not like.”

Legal experts agree that the Journal has the upper hand here.

“In the case of The Wall Street Journal, it would literally have to be the case that they knew the letter was false or knew it didn’t exist or they had a really good reason to suspect it was forged but ignored it," Shawn Trier, a constitutional-law expert told ABC News