ABC Paid Trump $15 Million to Settle a Defamation Lawsuit and Avoid a Court Battle

Before President Trump had even taken office, ABC News was already settling court cases with him, the first of several media companies that would eventually do so. The news of that settlement came in December of 2024 in the form of a $15 million donation to Trump's presidential library fund.

While the news that ABC settled with Trump isn't exactly new, many people are still wondering why they agreed to pay the money, and what's been said about the case in the months since. Here's what we know.

ABC agreed to pay Trump $15 million to settle a defamation case that his campaign had brought against the company after anchor George Stephanopoulos inaccurately said that Trump had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll.

As part of the settlement, ABC also appended a note to their website in which they expressed regret for the statements that Stephanopoulos had made, which came during a March 10 broadcast.

ABC also agreed to pay $1 million in legal fees to Trump's attorney, Alejandro Brito. “We are pleased that the parties have reached an agreement to dismiss the lawsuit on the terms in the court filing,” ABC News spokesperson Jeannie Kedas said, according to AP.

Trump first sued the network just days after the March broadcast, when the anchor repeatedly misstated the findings of a New York court in relation to the case.

Neither verdict in the case found that Trump had met the definition of rape under New York law. Instead, he was found liable in 2023 for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll.

To be clear, the jury did find that Trump was guilty of having penetrated Carroll's vagina, but the claim at issue was whether he had done it with his hand, which does not meet the standards for rape in New York state.

Under New York law, a finding of rape requires vaginal penetration by a penis. Forcible penetration without consent of the vagina or other bodily orifices by fingers or anything else is labeled “sexual abuse.”

Given that narrow distinction, many believed that ABC would have prevailed in court in the case if they had decided to go to trial, even though Stephanopoulous had been incorrect in stating that Trump was found guilty of rape.

"From a legal perspective, Trump's defamation claim was very weak," Erwin Chemerinsky, a professor of law at UC Berkeley, wrote at the time.

Instead, many believe that ABC decided to settle the case because Trump was about to come into power, and they did not want him to take retaliatory actions against the network.

The exact motivations for ABC's decision to settle will never be fully known, as they were deliberated on inside of the company. At the time, though, ABC's settlement seemed to set a precedent for other media companies that they should work to stay on the good side of the president, even if that meant giving him some money.