ABC News and anchor George Stephanopoulos agreed to pay $15 million to a foundation and museum to be established by Donald Trump as part of a settlement in the defamation lawsuit Trump filed against the network. ABC and Stephanopoulos agreed to issue statements of regret surrounding a March interview Stephanopoulos had with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) in which he repeatedly claimed that Trump had been found “liable for rape.” Stephanopoulos said numerous times that a jury had found Trump “liable for rape” in a lawsuit filed by columnist E Jean Carroll, who accused Trump of sexually assaulting and raping her at Bergdorf Goodman, a New York City department store, in the 1990s, The Guardian reports.
A jury found that Trump had “sexually abused” Carroll under New York law, but did not rape her. Trump was subsequently ordered to pay Carroll $5 million. He was also ordered to pay Carroll He was ordered to pay Carroll $83.3 million after being found liable on defamation claims. Stephanopoulos was defiant after the suit was filed, telling talk show host Stephen Colbert that he would not be “cowed out of doing my job because of a threat”. Te settlement says that ABC and Stephanopoulos “shall publicly publish the following statement by adding it as an editor’s note at the bottom of a March 10, 2024 online article [about Stephanopoulos’s interview]: ‘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 network and Stephanopoulos will also pay $1 million in Trump’s attorney fees.
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