By Trump’s incredible winning streak continued on Saturday. After defeating Republican challengers in the primary, winning in court against liberal lawfare, and defeating Kamala Harris to reclaim the presidency, the president-elect has defeated quite possibly his biggest opponent: the mainstream media.
ABC News has agreed to a settlement with Trump’s foundation and museum to resolve a defamation lawsuit stemming from comments made during a March 2024 broadcast of “This Week.” The lawsuit, which also named anchor George Stephanopoulos, was based on statements suggesting that a jury had found Trump guilty of raping writer E. Jean Carroll.
The New York Times writes that under the terms of a settlement revealed on Saturday, ABC News will donate the $15 million to Mr. Trump’s future presidential foundation and museum. The network and its star anchor, George Stephanopoulos, also published a statement saying they “regret” remarks made about Mr. Trump during a televised interview in March.
ABC News, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, will pay Mr. Trump an additional $1 million for his legal fees.
The outcome is an unusual win for Mr. Trump, who has frequently sued news organizations for defamation and frequently lost, including in litigation against CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Mr. Trump sued ABC and Mr. Stephanopoulos in March, after the anchor asked Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, who has spoken publicly about being raped as a teenager, why she had continued to support Mr. Trump after he was found “liable for rape” in a 2023 civil case in Manhattan.
In that case, a federal jury found Mr. Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll, but it did not find him liable for rape. Still, the judge who oversaw the proceeding later clarified that because of New York’s narrow legal definition of rape, the jury’s verdict did not mean that Ms. Carroll had “failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’”
The money will be used to build Trump’s presidential library.
Stephanopoulos and ABC News were also required to issue a statement of “regret” as an editor’s note added to the bottom of a March 10, 2024, online article. The statement addressed comments made earlier in the year that led Trump to file the defamation lawsuit. It reads: “ABC News and George Stephanopoulos regret statements regarding President Donald J. Trump made during an interview by George Stephanopoulos with Rep. Nancy Mace on ABC’s This Week on March 10, 2024.”
Fox News reported that “initially, Stephanopoulos was defiant in the face of Trump’s lawsuit, telling CBS late-night host Stephen Colbert that he wouldn’t be “cowed out of doing my job because of a threat.”
“Trump sued me because I used the word ‘rape,’ even though a judge said that’s in fact what did happen. We filed a motion to dismiss,” Stephanopoulos said.
The settlement came after U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisette M. Reid ordered Trump and Stephanopoulos on Friday to sit for depositions next week ahead of the Dec. 24 deadline for the defendants to file a motion for summary judgment, in order to avoid a trial.”
This settlement is part of Trump’s ongoing legal battles with the media. In October, he filed a $10 billion lawsuit against CBS, claiming voter interference in a 60 Minutes interview with Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump’s legal team described the ABC lawsuit as a stand against “malicious reporting,” while critics suggest these cases reflect a broader strategy to intimidate news organizations.
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