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WHY DID ABC CAVE IN TO TRUMP?  
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Robert Reich
December 17, 2024
Robert Reich Substack
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_ It didn’t need to. It shouldn’t have. But there’s a big
reason why it thought it must. _

ABC agreed to a $15 million settlement after Donald Trump sued them
for defamation after News Anchor George Stephanopoulos asserted that
Trump had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll,


 

ABC shouldn’t have agreed to settle the defamation case Trump
brought against it — handing him $15 million for his presidential
“library” (whatever monument that turns out to be) and another
million for his legal fees, along with an apology.

It shouldn’t have, first, because the standard for defamation of a
public figure requires that a plaintiff prove that the defendant acted
with “actual malice” — that is, knew their statement was false
or acted with reckless disregard for the truth.

But when on March 10, ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos asserted
that Trump had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean
Carroll, there’s zero evidence that Stephanopoulos knew it to be
false or was acting with reckless disregard for the truth.

At Trump’s civil trial for defaming Carroll, she testified that he
pushed her against a dressing room wall, forced his mouth onto hers,
yanked down her tights, and shoved his hand and then his penis inside
her while she struggled against him. She said she finally kneed him
off her and fled.

In upholding the civil judgment for Carroll and against Trump, U.S.
District Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote that the unanimous jury verdict was
almost entirely in favor of Carroll, except that the jury concluded
she had failed to prove that Trump raped her “within the narrow,
technical meaning of a particular section of the New York Penal
Law,” which requires vaginal penetration by a penis.

The judge said that jury verdict did _not _mean that Carroll
“failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people
commonly understand the word ‘rape.’ Indeed ... the jury found
that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”

AFTER A FEDERAL JUDGE SAYS THAT THE JURY UNDER HIS PURVIEW FOUND THAT
TRUMP “EXACTLY” RAPED HER, AS RAPE IS COMMONLY UNDERSTOOD, ISN’T
IT UNDERSTANDABLE THAT STEPHANOPOULOS CONCLUDED THAT TRUMP HAD BEEN
FOUND CIVILLY LIABLE FOR RAPING HER?

By caving into Trump with this $15 million settlement, ABC didn’t
just signal that Trump was correct and Stephanopoulos wrong about
whether Trump had in fact raped Carroll.

ABC also signaled that Trump might be correct about a lot of other
things he has accused ABC and the rest of the mainstream media of
reporting falsely about him — that he lied when he said the 2020
election was stolen from him, for example, or that he lied when he
claimed he did not provoke the rioters on January 6, 2021, or when he
characterized it as a “peaceful” protest, or said President Biden
was behind his prosecutions for trying to reverse the outcome of the
2020 election and making off with classified documents.

ABC’s cave to Trump has even larger implications.

Trump has already used legal threats to intimidate the media and
anyone brazen enough to criticize or question him — saying he’ll
prosecute journalists and their sources, eliminate funding for public
radio and television, subpoena news organizations, revoke networks’
broadcast licenses, and use libel lawsuits.

IN THE WAKE OF ABC’S SURRENDER, TRUMP IS ALREADY _EXPANDING_ HIS
THREATS OF LEGAL ACTION AGAINST THE NEWS MEDIA, STATING HE WANTS TO
“STRAIGHTEN OUT THE PRESS.”

On Monday, Trump said that “today or tomorrow” he would sue
the _Des-Moines Register _newspaper over its final poll of Iowa
voters that showed him losing the November election to Vice President
Kamala Harris, because he believed the poll “was fraud and it was
election interference.”

The _Register’s_ final poll before Election Day
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conducted by legendary pollster J. Ann Selzer, showed Harris leading
Trump 47-44 percent among likely voters in the state. The poll was a
bombshell that suggested Harris might pull an upset in a state Trump
won in 2016 and 2020.

Trump went on to win the state by a 13-point margin.

“She’s a very good pollster,” Trump said of Selzer. “She knows
what she was doing.”

Selzer said
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was “mystified” by allegations she was politically motivated or
had engaged in election interference. “To suggest without a single
shred of evidence that I was in cahoots with somebody, that I was
being paid by somebody, it’s hard to pay too much attention to it
except that they are accusing me of a crime.”

Trump’s comments about the _Register _were in response to a
reporter’s question about whether Trump planned to file more
lawsuits following the settlement with ABC, including against social
media influencers and other independent figures. Trump responded, “I
think you have to do it because they’re very dishonest. We need a
great media. We need a fair media.”

Some news organizations are already warning their reporters to
prepare: Axios_ _recently told its staff to expect an increased
number of lawsuits from the Trump administration, Semafor reported
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At one point, Trump suggested that the U.S. government should be
taking up these lawsuits against the news media. “I feel I have to
do this. I shouldn’t really be the one to do it. It should have been
the Justice Department or somebody else. But I have to do it. It costs
a lot of money to do it, but we have to straighten out the press.”

SO, WHY DIDN’T ABC STAND BY STEPHANOPOULOS AND STAND UP TO TRUMP?

Media lawyers say it’s rare
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see a settlement at this stage of a legal dispute.

After Trump filed the lawsuit accusing Stephanopoulos of “actual
malice,” ABC filed a motion to dismiss the case, claiming Trump
could not prove actual malice. In July, the judge assigned to the case
rejected ABC’s motion and allowed the case to move forward. This
subjected the network to the pretrial discovery process, meaning that
Stephanopoulos would have his emails and other work materials
scrutinized.

The curious thing here is that when media defendants are unsuccessful
at the dismissal stage of a trial, they typically move on to preparing
for summary judgment and challenge the legal sufficiency of a
plaintiff’s claim. Four media lawyers I checked with told me they
didn’t understand why ABC would settle _before_ trying for summary
judgment, especially when it had such a strong case.

Conservative radio host Erick Erickson, who used to practice
law, says
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and Stephanopoulos wanted to avoid discovery. The “$15 million
settlement is not the cost of doing business. It is avoiding
discovery.”

I don’t think it’s a cover-up. I know George Stephanopoulos well
(we worked together in the Clinton administration), and I have utter
confidence in his integrity.

But I don’t have nearly as much confidence in the Walt Disney
Company — which, along with its ownership of ABC, owns the Disney
Channel, ESPN Wide World of Sports, Freeform, FX, Hulu, Hotstar, and
National Geographic. It also owns the properties Disneyland Resort,
Walt Disney World Resort, and Disneyland Paris. It owns the studios
Pixar Animation, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, and 20th Century Studios.
It owns the brands Star Wars, The Muppets, Disney Princesses, Pirates
of the Caribbean, and Winnie the Pooh. It owns a publishing company, a
cruise line, a venture capital firm, and a host of international media
networks.

In other words: A very big corporation with its hands in all sorts of
places. A very big corporation that worries about all the ways the
upcoming Trump administration might hurt its bottom line.

NO LARGE AMERICAN CORPORATION WANTS TO BE ACTIVELY LITIGATING AGAINST
A SITTING PRESIDENT, ESPECIALLY ONE AS VINDICTIVE AS TRUMP. A $15
MILLION SETTLEMENT IS CHICKENFEED COMPARED TO THE MYRIAD WAYS TRUMP
COULD PENALIZE DISNEY, A $205.25 BILLION CORPORATION.

We are beginning to see this all over the American political-economic
system — giant corporations and hugely wealthy people going out of
their way to appease King Trump even in advance of his coronation.
They are paying him off to maintain or enlarge their profits.

Which is why Disney’s control over ABC — like Jeff Bezos’s
control over _The_ _Washington Post,_ Elon Musk’s control over
what we used to call Twitter, and Patrick Soon-Shiong’s control over
the _Los Angeles Times _— and every other wealthy individual’s
or big corporation’s control over the news we get, poses such a
challenge to American democracy in the age of Trump.

_Robert Reich is a professor, writer, and former Secretary of Labor._

* Libel lawsuit
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* Donald Trump
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* abc
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* Disney
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