ABC News and anchor George Stephanopoulos have reached a significant settlement with Donald Trump over a defamation lawsuit. Filed publicly on December 15, 2024, the agreement stipulates that ABC will pay $15 million, which will be donated to a charitable foundation and museum connected to Trump. The network will also cover $1 million in Trump’s legal fees.
The lawsuit was sparked by comments made by Stephanopoulos during an interview with South Carolina GOP Rep. Nancy Mace in March. Stephanopoulos stated multiple times that a jury had found Trump guilty of “raping” E. Jean Carroll, which Trump strongly denied. Carroll accused Trump of raping her in a department store in the mid-1990s, but while a jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse in 2023, it did not support the rape accusation. Carroll was awarded $5 million in damages for battery and defamation, and in January 2024, she was granted an additional $83.3 million for further defamation related to Trump’s public denials.
Trump argued that Stephanopoulos’ statements were not only false but deliberately harmful. The case gained more traction after a judge dismissed Trump’s countersuit against Carroll, ruling that the claim of rape, while not legally defined as such in New York law, was “substantially true” in the broader sense.
As part of the settlement, ABC News has also agreed to issue a public apology to Trump. This agreement ends a lengthy legal dispute that raised questions about how media coverage can impact someone’s reputation and whether statements made during public interviews can mislead audiences about the outcomes of high-profile legal cases.
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