Stemming from a comment ABC News host (and former Clinton Administration Communications Director) George Stephanopoulos made about Donald Trump during a March 10, 2024 interview with Congresswoman Nancy Mace (R-SC), ABC News and Stephanopoulos have agreed to pay a $16 million dollar settlement with Donald Trump over Trump’s claim of defamation.
Matthew Sedacca reports for The New York Post that the sudden turn from ABC News comes just days before Trump’s lawyers likely would have discovered much more during depositions for the case.
“ABC News and star anchor George Stephanopoulos have agreed to pay President-elect Trump $16 million to settle a defamation lawsuit.
The settlement was publicly filed Saturday, just days before the two sides were set to sit for depositions in the case.
ABC News agreed to pay a $15 million donation to a ‘Presidential foundation and museum to be established by or for [Trump], as Presidents of the United States of America have established in the past,’ along with $1 million for Trump’s attorney fees, according to the settlement.”
And the settlement doesn’t end with merely citing on-air defamation, it touches on what some might call libel, which is intentionally publishing a damaging falsehood about someone.
“ABC News and Stephanopoulos also would issue statements expressing their “regret” to the online article version of the anchor’s March interview that prompted Trump to file the federal lawsuit earlier this year, the settlement noted.”
So, yeah… Stephanopoulos, the video production team and news direction staff, and the online editors… they have admitted to making multiple errors and not correcting the record.
Now, they will, and they’ll have to cough up $16 mil for their previous, obvious, presentation of false info.
“’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,’ the apology would read, according to the settlement agreement.”
Notice that in their mea culpa they use the passive voice, not even citing Stephanopoulos as the person who stated the falsehood. With their “admission” and statement of “regret,” they even leave open the possibility that someone can imagine Mace might have said it, or an unearthly voice floated in from beyond the camera frame to supply the lie.
But we all know it was George, which might seem odd to people who are aware that he not only ran Bill Clinton’s Communications team when the “Philanderer-in-Chief” was President, but that Stephanopoulos also was in charge of what he and other writers have said the first Clinton presidential campaign termed “the Bimbo Eruption Squad.”
In other words, Mr. Stephanopoulos has been cited, and even cited HIMSELF, as trying to manage then-candidate Clinton’s numerous accusations of dark, possibly aggressive, interactions with victimized women.
Thus, given George’s background, one might think that he would have a better handle on the legalities of claiming someone did something terrible to a victim. One might think that he might try to avoid smugly inserting a falsehood into an interview with a member of Congress who, herself, is a survivor of rape.
For many observers of pop media bias, it might come as no surprise that ABC News should settle this lawsuit prior to depositions, and settle in a case where its politically-trained and left-connected host should find it impossible to stop himself from promoting a subterfuge that helps what has been his “side” in politics.
After all, he has worked with that network since leaving the Clinton Gang in 1997, and he has had plenty of time to pile up cheap barbs and insinuations that help his “side.”
All while garnering millions of dollars per year.
But this is a problem endemic to many pop media outlets – even to the so-called “alternative” Fox News, which grew in popularity when audiences recognized that its content was not the typically leftist blather offered in near uniformity on ABC, NBC, CBS, and PBS.
When networks such as MSNBC hire former spy-man, former drone-meister John Brennan and lets him spread utter drivel, when that same net can bring back Jen Psaki after she did her utmost to hide reality when working as Biden White House Press Secretary, when CNN can hire former NSA spook and deceiver James Clapper and disgraced FBI parasite Andrew McCabe, and when even Fox News can hire former Trump spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany and former W. Bush Press Sec. Dana Perino, then, all these hires can be incorporated into the fold not as representational of a certain political angle in a roundtable discussion, but as presenters or “experts,” the possibility for journalistic fairness is crushed like a bug beneath Orwell’s proverbial Big Brother boot.
The list of Donald Trump’s personal conflicts with former spouses is something anyone can explore. One does not need ABC News to make things up.
Likewise, it would be nice if, rather than engaging in slanted, slanderous insertions and incorrect assertions, the old dinosaur network took a look at solid, powerful examples of political disregard for the Constitution, including such activity by Trump or the politicians the ABC brass adore.
Instead, they focus on pushing false narratives, and turn away from the concrete.
Which allows government to expand, steal our freedom, and insulate from reality the viewers that ABC still retains.