News/Commentary

‘Humiliated’ Stephanopoulos is ‘apoplectic’ over $16M Trump defamation settlement

December 18, 2024 | | Print Article

ABC News host George Stephanopoulos isn’t pleased after his big mouth resulted in his employer shelling out big bucks to settle a defamation lawsuit filed against him by President-elect Donald J. Trump.

In a decision that sent shockwaves through the scandal-mongering anti-Trump media, the network agreed to pay a whopping $16 million in a settlement to Trump, who the Democrat propagandist repeatedly claimed was “found liable for rape” during a contentious “This Week” interview with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) earlier this year, a falsehood.

With the settlement making headlines, the highly compensated anchor and ABC News suffered the added indignity of having to also formally apologize to Trump, with the decision by the network to cut its losses reportedly leaving the former Clinton White House communications director “apoplectic” and “humiliated.”

Sources told the New York Post that Stephanopoulos is fuming and “was particularly upset about being forced to apologize,”  the outlet reported.

“George is defiant,” one source told the paper, with another adding the anchor “is a very guarded person. His circle of trust is so small, and a lot of them don’t work [at ABC anymore].“

According to the first source, the “This Week” host had “recently signed a contract extension with Disney-owned ABC News” but didn’t disclose the terms to the Post.

It had to be galling for Stephanopoulos to see ABC News run up the white flag of surrender to Trump, especially with $15 million of the money marked to fund 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 the newly elected president’s legal fees.

Adding insult to injury the network and Stephanopoulos also had to issue statements of “regret” in the form of an editor’s note added to a March online article that led to Trump filing the lawsuit.

“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 note states.

Stephanopoulos has publicly been mum, not mentioning the humiliation on Sunday’s edition of “This Week” and he had already deleted his X account. Some ABC staffers are grousing that the network also hasn’t addressed the payout to Trump for its anchor’s lies.

The settlement was “front page news everywhere yet ABC doesn’t report on itself,” said a source quoted by the New York Post, with three sources telling the paper that morale was already down after all departments were impacted by layoffs.

ABC’s caving in to Trump  “is another gut punch,” one said. “It’s sheer level embarrassment. People are furious.” The news that the lawsuit had been settled came the day after a judge ruled that both Trump and Stephanopoulos were to give depositions, scheduled for this week before they are preempted by the settlement.

“This wasn’t a news division decision, it was a company decision,” one source griped, adding that “They likely didn’t want to go through discovery, when you search all the documents and all the emails and find everything that’s said, and turn it over to the other side.”

In addition to Stephanopoulos’ rape claims, ABC News also demonstrated extreme bias against Trump during the presidential debate, with moderator David Muir repeatedly “fact-checking” him while allowing Kamala Harris to lie with impunity.

One source told the New York Post that the money for the settlement will be paid by the network’s insurance, a costly lesson.

Chris Donaldson
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