ABC Gets Blasted For Settling Lawsuit With Donald Trump

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Not long on Friday after a judge ordered Donald Trump to sit for a four hour deposition in his defamation lawsuit against ABC News, the two parties announced that they had reached a settlement agreement and that the case was over. ABC will be paying $1 million for Trump’s legal fees on top of making a $15 million donation to his presidential library. Legal experts and regular citizens are blasting the network for caving into Trump. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains what’s happening.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

On Friday, a, b, c decided to settle a defamation lawsuit that Donald Trump had filed against them over comments that host George Stephanopoulos made earlier this past spring. Now, this decision to settle this lawsuit that, by the way for a b, c, was easily winnable, has of course sent shockwaves across social media. Once it was reported, everybody out there had an opinion on it, and most of them, of course, were negative about A, B, C saying that they have decided to kiss the ring and suck up to Donald Trump like so many other media outlets have decided to do. And I don't disagree with that because again, this was not a lawsuit that should have been settled. This was an easily winnable lawsuit for A B, C. They just didn't wanna stay on Donald Trump's bad side, because of course, he has said or suggested, uh, that they should lose their broadcast license.

They're not gonna risk that by winning a defamation lawsuit. So they decided to settle. That's what I believe happened. And when you learn about the terms of the settlement, it becomes obvious that yeah, this wasn't because A, BC didn't think they could win, it's 'cause they wanted to kiss Donald Trump's. 'cause the settlement includes $1 million that a b, C news will pay for Trump's legal fees. Like, don't worry, we'll cover your lawyer costs. And the big part is a $15 million donation that a b, C news we'll be making to the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library, which of course, even though he's been out of office for four years, still doesn't exist. So we're gonna make a charitable contribution to your presidential library that you may or may not someday build. And, uh, by the way, that's also, since it's a charitable donation, a big tax write off for us.

So we don't have to worry about that. We're not technically losing any money on this other than the million for your lawyers, and we get to show you that we actually do like you and we're giving you $15 million. So please, please don't come after us. Now, when I say that this was an easily winnable lawsuit, here's what I meant. What George Stephanopoulos did say on the air about Donald Trump was wrong, okay? There's no question about that. George Stephanopoulos said something that was not true. But in this type of defamation case, because you're talking about a public official, you have to be able to prove actual malice. And I don't think for a second they would've been able to prove this. So Stephanopoulos, when talking with the Republican representative, Nancy Mace, you know, after these verdicts had come down, said that a jury found Trump civilly liable for rape. That's not true. The jury was not there because this was a

Rape, rape case. The jury was there because this was a defamation case. So the jury made no findings at all about sexual assault. Now, that's important because Stephanopoulos said the jury said he was civilly liable for this. No, no, no. The only question in front of the jury was, is Donald Trump civilly liable for defaming her? And they said yes. Now, reading more into that, the only way he could be liable for calling her a liar when she in fact, wasn't, was if they did believe that he committed the assault. So in their minds though, not in their ruling, they did say, yes, he did this. So yes, he's lying about her. So yes, she wins. The judge on the other hand, judge Lewis Kaplan did in his, you know, final summation of the case, say that, uh, you know, Trump, Trump was basically liable for that.