Congratulations Donald Trump! ABC News has announced that they are settling a lawsuit filed against them by Trump that alleges that the network defamed him during an interview of ultra-MAGA Rep. Nancy Mace by “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos. However, this may not be the victory that Trump and his lesions of glassy-eyed cult followers think it is.
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Trump’s lawsuit took issue with remarks made by Stephanopoulos wherein he asked Mace, a rape victim herself, how she could justify supporting Trump after he was found liable for sexual abusing writer E. Jean Carroll. That finding resulted in Trump being ordered to pay Carrol more than $88 million dollars for defamation. Mace tried to spin Stephanopoulos’ question into some sort of attempt to shame her as a victim, which was patently absurd and grossly exploitative of her own victimhood. Stephanopoulos was only asking about her support for Trump, which she was unable to directly justify.
SEE THIS: Trump Sues ABC and Stephanopoulos for Accurately Reporting a Judicial Opinion that He’s a Rapist
Which brings us to the news of the settlement by ABC. According to reporting by CNN…
“ABC News will pay $15 million to a ‘presidential foundation and museum’ in a settlement reached with President-elect Donald Trump in his defamation suit against the network and anchor George Stephanopoulos. […]
“ABC News will issue the following statement as an editor’s note on the online article at the center of the suit: ‘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 decision by ABC to settle is both understandable and unfortunate. It’s unfortunate because Trump will use it to dishonestly to absolve himself of his sexual abuse that was, in fact, affirmed by the jury. However, it’s understandable because the case would have been difficult to defend given the language used by Stephanopoulos. In the interview he prefaced his question to Mace saying that…
“Judges and two separate juries have found him liable for rape and for defaming the victim of that rape. How do you square your endorsement of Donald Trump with the testimony we just saw?”
The problem is that the jury only found Trump liable for sexual abuse, not rape. The rape designation was made by the judge after the jury delivered their decision. CNN’s report elaborated that…
“A judge concluded in August 2023, when dismissing Trump’s countersuit against Carroll, that the claim Trump raped Carroll was ‘substantially true.’ The judge wrote that Trump ‘raped’ her in the broader sense of that word, as people generally understand it, though not as it is narrowly defined by New York state law.”
So what the Trump team is celebrating today is that he was only found civilly liable for sexual abuse. How proud he must be of that. He’s just a sexual abuser who defames his victims. Hooray! And he was still adjudicated to be a rapist, in the common usage of the term, by the judge who tried the case.
It’s also notable that none of the $15 million in the settlement will go directly to Trump, but to the funding for his eventual presidential library, if there ever is one. It would not be unreasonable to presume that Trump will never bother to build a library, given his aversion to reading and books. If he does build one it will likely contain only picture books, or books slavishly praising him, or books written – or more accurately, ghost written – by/for him. And if he can swing it, it will be housed at Mar-a-Lago so that he can pocket much of the donated funding.
The settlement by ABC News is a stain on the profession of journalism. It is a capitulation to a bully and aspiring dictator. It will produce a chilling effect on other reporters who will have to deal with future threats such as those coming from Trump’s nominee for FBI Director, Kash Patel, who has sworn to “come after the people in the media.”
However, this settlement is also a virtual concession that Trump is guilty of sexual abuse, and he’s happy that he has a legal affirmation of it. Now, along with his being the first president to have been impeached twice, the first to have been convicted of felonies, and the first to have staged a violent coupe to undermine democracy, he is also the first president to have been found to be a sexual abuser. Is that what he means when he says “make America great again”?
RELATED STORIES:
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- Trump Attorney Announces Laughable Lawsuit Against CNN for Accurately Calling Trump a Liar
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