ABC News has reached a $15 million (£12 million) settlement with US President-elect Donald Trump in a defamation lawsuit. This follows an incident where their prominent anchor inaccurately claimed that Trump had been “liable for rape.”
During an interview on March 10 of this year, George Stephanopoulos repeatedly made these statements while questioning a congresswoman regarding her support for Trump. Last year, a jury in a civil case found Trump liable for “sexual abuse,” a term with a specific legal definition under New York law. As part of the settlement reported first by Fox News Digital on Saturday, ABC has agreed to issue a statement expressing its “regret” over Stephanopoulos’s remarks.
According to the settlement, ABC News will make a $15 million charitable contribution to establish a “Presidential foundation and museum” on behalf of the Plaintiff, in line with previous endeavors by Presidents of the United States. The network has also agreed to pay $1 million towards Trump’s legal fees.
As part of the settlement terms, ABC News will append an editor’s note to its March 10, 2024, online article about the incident. The note will state: “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 commented that the company is “pleased that the parties have reached an agreement to dismiss the lawsuit on the terms outlined in the court filing.”
In 2023, a New York civil court determined that Trump was guilty of sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll in a department store dressing room in 1996 and defaming the magazine columnist. Judge Lewis Kaplan clarified that the jury concluded Carroll had not proven rape under “the narrow, technical meaning of a particular section of the New York Penal Law.” He noted that the legal definition of rape is “far narrower” than how it is commonly understood today, in some dictionaries, and in criminal statutes elsewhere.
In a separate case overseen by the same judge, a jury ordered Trump to pay $83.3 million to Carroll for additional defamatory statements.
During the broadcast on March 10, George Stephanopoulos questioned South Carolina Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace about her endorsement of Trump. The anchor incorrectly claimed that “judges and two separate juries have found him liable for rape,” repeating this assertion ten times throughout the broadcast.
Prior to the settlement, a federal magistrate judge had directed Trump and Stephanopoulos to provide sworn testimony in depositions scheduled for the following week.
In addition to this case, Trump has filed a lawsuit against CBS, the BBC’s US broadcast partner, accusing them of “deceptive conduct” during an interview with Kamala Harris.
In 2023, a judge dismissed his defamation lawsuit against CNN, in which he alleged that the network had drawn comparisons between him and Adolf Hitler. Lawsuits he filed against the New York Times and the Washington Post have also been dismissed.
Read more trending news here
