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ABC News will give $15 million to the Donald Trump Future Presidential Foundation and Museum to settle a defamation lawsuit against the network over on-air comments made by George Stephanopoulos, one of its star anchors, in a rare legal victory for the president-elect against Trump. News media.
As part of the settlement, the network also agreed to add an editor's note to the bottom of an article published online in March expressing ABC and the anchor's “sorry” for what he said during an interview with U.S. House of Representatives member Nancy Mace. From South Carolina.
“ABC News and George Stephanopoulos regret the statements made regarding President Donald J. Trump during an interview George Stephanopoulos conducted with Rep. Nancy Mace on ABC's This Week on March 10, 2024,” the network agreed. ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company.
The network will also pay $1 million for Trump's legal fees.
Trump, who filed a lawsuit in federal court in Miami in March, claimed Stephanopoulos defamed him when his talk show host said on Sunday that the president-elect was found to be “responsible for rape” while interviewing Mace.
The congresswoman has spoken publicly about being raped as a teenager, and Stephanopoulos asked her during the interview how, given that history, she could support Trump.
A New York jury found Trump liable in civil cases for the sexual assault — but not rape — and subsequent defamation of writer E. Jane Carroll, and ordered him to pay her more than $88 million across two judgments. Trump appeals to them.
The settlement between ABC and the president-elect, which was dated December 13, was announced on Saturday.
“We are pleased that the parties have reached an agreement to dismiss the lawsuit according to the terms contained in the court filing,” an ABC News spokesperson said in a statement. Stephanopoulos did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Trump's lawyers and spokesmen for his transition team did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Trump has long denigrated the “mainstream media,” which he has described as “fake news.”
The president-elect also faces pending civil lawsuits against CBS News, journalist Bob Woodward, and publisher Simon & Schuster, and is appealing the dismissal of his lawsuit against CNN. He previously lost a libel suit against The New York Times.
