Comments made by ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos were at the center of a defamation lawsuit Trump brought against the network.SMG/ZUMA
ABC News will pay $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit that president-elect Donald Trump brought against the network, centered on incorrect comments that anchor George Stephanopoulos made about the civil lawsuit against Trump brought by writer E. Jean Carroll.
The details of the settlement are concerning for anyone who cares about press freedom in the next Trump administration. And, in particular, it shows again how New York state’s definition of “rape”—that has since been changed—has allowed Trump to wiggle out of criticism for sexual assault allegations.
The lawsuit focused on a March 10 interview that Stephanopoulos conducted on the network’s Sunday morning show, “This Week,” with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.). In that interview, Stephanopoulos confronted Mace—who has said she’s a rape survivor—about her endorsement of Trump, falsely noting that “judges and two separate juries have found him liable for rape, and for defaming the victim of that rape.”
Stephanopoulos was referring to the lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll, who alleged that Trump raped her in 1996 in the dressing room of a New York City department store; as my colleague Russ Choma reported, while the jury found that Carroll’s attorneys did not prove the rape allegation, they did agree that Trump forcibly sexually abused and defamed her, and ruled that Trump had to pay Carroll $5 million.
Still, it is even more complicated than that. As my former colleague Katie Herchenroeder reported, the judge in the Carroll case went to great lengths to clarify that while Trump was not found liable for “rape” under New York’s strict definition—vaginal penetration by a penis—his alleged actions of forcible penetration with his fingers meet the definition of what many people broadly understand as “rape.”
As Katie wrote:
That the jurors did not find that Carroll had proven rape, [Judge Lewis] Kaplan explained, “does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’” “Indeed,” he continued, “as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”
Federally, rape is defined as “penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.” This broader explanation, while still dependent on penetration, would include assaults using fingers.
Lawyers for ABC and Stephanopoulos referenced this context from the judge’s statements in their unsuccessful motion to dismiss the lawsuit they filed earlier this year, court records show.
As Katie wrote, New York wound up passing a law that expanded the law to include nonconsensual anal, oral, and vaginal sexual contact. When she signed the bill into law, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.) recognized Carroll “for her courageous efforts to make sure justice was done.”
As part of the settlement, ABC will pay the $15 million to the Trump presidential library—which currently only exists online—plus another $1 million in Trump’s attorney fees, court records show. The network also added a note to the online story about the interview, noting that both ABC and Stephanopoulos “regret” the comments.
Mace—who accused Stephanopoulos of “shaming” her during the original interview—celebrated the ruling on Saturday, writing in a post on X: “Let this be a warning to all haters: Defamation is real, and your free trial of badmouthing just expired.” In another post, she wrote: “2025 will be the year of [mainstream media] apologies.”
Media scholars and experts have been sounding the alarm about journalists’ and media companies’ capitulation to Trump—who just last month said he would be ok with someone shooting through a crowd of journalists—ahead of his second term.
And they have good reason to be worried: While Trump has claimed he now believes a free press is “vital,” there are fears that he and his acolytes could use baseless lawsuits to go after journalists whose coverage is unfavorable to him—particularly after Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) this week blocked a federal shield bill that, if passed, would protect journalists from being forced to reveal their confidential sources.