Last fall, Angelo Carusone started a petition asking Macy’s to drop Donald Trump as a spokesperson, citing the real estate mogul’s history of sexist and race-baiting behavior. The petition quickly gained over 600,000 signatures, but Macy’s refused to budge. Now, Trump and his legal team are threatening Carusone with a $25 million lawsuit for his protests.
“While you claim to be merely exercising your right to free speech, your egregious, pre-meditated, and illegal conduct far exceeds anything protected by the Constitution,” wrote Trump’s attorney in a strongly-worded letter to Carusone. “Rather than simply engage in lawful protest, you have apparently made it your mission to interfere with and intentionally disrupt Mr. Trump’s longstanding and well-established business relationship with Macy’s as well as his contractual dealings with other third parties through mob-like bullying and coercion.”
The letter goes on to to threaten legal action if the protest organizer doesn’t immediately end his “Dump Trump” campaign. Carusone, for his part, is unfazed. “Donald Trump’s attempt to silence me will not work. I’ve dealt with enough bullies and know better than to succumb to intimidation,” he said in a press release. “By threatening me, Trump is only reinforcing the point that we’ve been trying to get Macy’s to recognize: [T]hat Trump’s brand is consequence-free bullying and chicanery; it shouldn’t be rewarded.”
When ANIMAL spoke to Carusone at an anti-Trump rally in November, the petitioner made his issues with the Donald clear: “No matter how you slice it and dice it–whether it’s his sexism, whether it’s intimidation, whether it’s the racist implications of some of the things he says, it all down to bullying.”
