It’s almost impossible to win a defamation lawsuit as a public person. This is just being used as a flimsy shield before the election to try to give his denials some credibility. The standard is so high that unless someone at CNN was recorded as admitting to making this up then this case won’t make it very far.

Eh. I’m a lawyer. I wouldn’t be afraid of the civil risk unless I was accepting donations. Suing regular people isn’t really a profitable endeavor. I’m more concerned about paying for the hosting and being subscribed to enough of the fediverse to have a representative instance.