ABC News has agreed to pay $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit filed by President-elect Donald Trump over an inaccurate claim made by the network’s anchor. The lawsuit stemmed from on-air comments by anchor George Stephanopoulos, who stated that Trump had been “found liable for raping” writer E. Jean Carroll.
The network and Stephanopoulos also agreed to offer public apologies for the comments during a live "This Week" interview with Representative Nancy Mace, according to documents filed on Saturday. The terms of the settlement require ABC News to make a $15 million donation to a fund dedicated to “a presidential foundation and museum” for Trump. Additionally, the broadcaster will pay $1 million in lawyer fees.
Trump sued ABC and Stephanopoulos in federal court in Miami days after the network aired the segment, in which Stephanopoulos repeatedly misstated the verdicts in Carroll’s two civil lawsuits against Trump. Trump had been found liable for sexual abuse—a different transgression from rape under New York law—in a 2023 case filed by Carroll.
In the first lawsuit to go to trial, Trump was found liable last year for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll, with a jury ordering him to pay her $5 million. In January, at a second trial in federal court in Manhattan, Trump was found liable on additional defamation claims and ordered to pay Carroll $83.3 million. Trump is appealing both verdicts.
Carroll, a former advice columnist, went public in a 2019 memoir with her allegation that Trump raped her in the mid-1990s at Bergdorf Goodman, a luxury Manhattan department store across the street from Trump Tower, after they crossed paths at an entrance.
The case was settled one day after Judge Lisette M. Reid requested depositions from both Trump and Stephanopoulos. The settlement is the latest addition to Trump’s string of legal successes since his victory in the November 5 presidential election.