‘Awful Precedent’: ABC Gets Whacking for Rolling Over and Settling Trump Suit
ABC faced a torrent of backlash after the network chose to settle President-elect Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit against it and George Stephanopoulos, with one commentator claiming the network “chose obedience.”
The network was accused of setting an “awful precedent” after it was announced Saturday it settled with Trump in exchange for an on-air apology and a $15 million donation to his presidential library.
“Knee bent. Ring kissed,” top Democratic lawyer Marc Elias wrote on X on Saturday. “Another legacy news outlet chooses obedience.”
“An awful precedent and a huge sellout,” former Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi wrote on X.
Trump sued ABC in March after an interview Stephanopoulos conducted with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), where he pressed her on how she could support a man found liable for “rape”—an amendment to a jury’s ruling that Trump sexually abused writer E. Jean Caroll, even if a judge agreed it met the common definition of rape.
The settlement came a day after a judge ruled that Trump and Stephanopoulos had to sit for depositions. The agreement got widespread condemnation from Democrats and media personalities, who chastised the network for not diligently fighting the lawsuit.
ABC News did not respond to an immediate request for comment.
MSNBC legal analyst Joyce Vance wrote on Bluesky she was “old enough to remember—and to have worked on—cases where newspapers vigorously defended themselves against defamation cases instead of folding before the defendant was even deposed.”
“That, by the way, includes defamation cases brought by candidates for the presidency,” she added.
Vance continued her analysis on MSNBC, explaining to a stunned Symone Sanders-Townsend on The Weekend that ABC had various options to defend itself against the lawsuit. Even the timing, she said, was unusual.
“I think everybody was surprised by this,” Vance said. “And precisely because the depositions had not taken place yet. It seemed like a really early point in this case for it to be settled.”
