ABC News has agreed to pay $15 million to President-elect Donald Trump to settle a defamation lawsuit stemming from comments made by anchor George Stephanopoulos, who falsely stated that Trump had been found “liable for rape.”
During a March 10 interview with Congresswoman Nancy Mace, Stephanopoulos made the inaccurate claims repeatedly. While a jury ruled last year that Trump was liable for “sexual abuse” under New York law, the term has a specific legal definition that differs from common usage.
The settlement, first reported by Fox News Digital, will also include a statement from ABC expressing regret over Stephanopoulos’s remarks. Additionally, the network is required to make a $15 million charitable donation to a presidential foundation or museum established by or for Trump, along with covering $1 million in legal fees.
As part of the settlement, ABC News will append an editor’s note to its online article covering the March 10 story, stating: “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.”
An ABC News spokesperson expressed satisfaction with the agreement to dismiss the lawsuit in their statement.
Earlier in 2023, a New York civil court found Trump sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll in 1996, also ruling that he defamed her. Judge Lewis Kaplan clarified that although the jury concluded Trump was liable for sexual abuse, the narrow legal definition did not classify the incident as rape in the strictest sense.
In a separate case, Trump was ordered to pay Carroll $83.3 million for additional defamatory statements made against her. During the March broadcast, Stephanopoulos questioned Mace, alleging that “judges and two separate juries have found him liable for rape,” a claim he repeated several times during the segment.
Leading up to the ruling, a federal magistrate had ordered both Trump and Stephanopoulos to give sworn testimony at depositions scheduled for the following week.
In addition to the ABC case, Trump has also filed lawsuits against CBS over an interview with Kamala Harris and against CNN for what he termed “deceptive conduct,” although a judge dismissed his defamation suit against CNN, where he alleged the network had drawn parallels between him and Adolf Hitler. Other lawsuits against the New York Times and Washington Post have also been rejected.
Credit: BBC News
