President Trump is holding 23 rallies this October alone — more than triple Obama's 2014 midterm pace and a stark contrast to Biden's near-absence from the 2022 trail — even as a federal judge just permanently threw out his $10 billion defamation suit against the Wall Street Journal, exposing the gap between Trump's political muscle and his legal leverage over the press.
The split screen matters for every working American paying attention to who actually fights in public versus who hides. The establishment press insists Trump is a drag on Republican candidates. The rally count and the economic numbers tell a different story. But when Trump tries to use the courts to hit back at outlets he says lie about him, the same institutional barriers keep blocking the door.
HotAir laid out the comparison in stark terms. Obama, at 53 during his last midterm, held seven rallies — four in October — with an approval rating stuck at 40 percent. Democrats fled from him, and Salon later slammed the strategy, arguing that candidates who apologize for their party always lose. Biden, at 79 during his only midterm, largely avoided traditional rallies altogether. When ABC's Jonathan Karl pressed then-DCCC chair Sean Patrick Maloney on Biden's absence, Maloney dodged: "I don't know what you're talking about."
Trump takes the opposite approach. He tells voters to "Act like I'm on the ballot" and defends his record straight up: the economy, the border, crime, deportations. The consumer confidence index rose in October despite expert predictions of decline. Inflation-adjusted median household income hit an all-time high in 2025. Poverty sits at a record low. Gas prices remain below their Biden-era peak. Market Watch reports GDP growth tracking above 3 percent for the third quarter, with annual growth possibly hitting 2.5 percent for 2026 — numbers economists said weren't supposed to happen.
Meanwhile, the Daily Caller reported that U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles in Miami dismissed Trump's defamation case against the Wall Street Journal with prejudice on Saturday — meaning the president cannot refile the same claims. The suit stemmed from a July 2025 Journal article describing a sexually suggestive note bearing Trump's name inside a 2003 birthday album for Jeffrey Epstein assembled by Ghislaine Maxwell, now serving 20 years for sex trafficking. Trump told the Journal at the time: "This is not me. This is a fake thing."
Gayles wasn't buying the legal argument. "The Amended Complaint falls short of pleading actual malice," he wrote, calling Trump's effort to find fault with the Journal's reporting "grasping at straws." This was the second try — Gayles rejected the first version in April, finding Trump came "nowhere close" to proving malice. The amended complaint argued the Journal was reckless in not explaining how reporters obtained and verified the letter. House lawmakers later subpoenaed Epstein's estate and secured a redacted copy of the birthday book.
Trump's legal team shows no sign of backing off. "President Trump will continue to press forward in his powerhouse lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and all of the other defendants," a spokesperson told CBS News. Similar active cases are pending against the BBC and the New York Times.
Trump can pack arenas and move markets. But the actual malice standard — the Supreme Court-created shield that protects the press from accountability unless a public figure can prove knowing falsehood or reckless disregard for truth — remains the wall his lawyers cannot climb. The rallies end on Election Day. The precedent endures.
