ABC News settles defamation suit with Trump for $15 million

Trump filed the lawsuit in Florida federal court earlier this year, arguing that Stephanopoulos and ABC News defamed him when the anchor said 10 times during a contentious on-air interview with South Carolina GOP Rep. Nancy Mace in March that a jury found Trump had “raped” E. Jean Carroll.

Carroll alleged that Trump raped her in a department store in the mid-1990s and that he defamed her when he denied her claim. Trump has denied all wrongdoing toward Carroll.

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In 2023, a jury found that Trump sexually abused her, sufficient to hold him liable for battery, though it did not find that Carroll proved he raped her. The jury awarded Carroll $5 million for batter and defamation. In January, Carroll was awarded an additional $83.3 million in damages for his defamatory statements disparaging her and denying her allegations.

A judge concluded months later when dismissing Trump’s countersuit against Carroll that the claim Trump raped Carroll was “substantially true.”

The judge wrote in August 2023 that Trump “raped” her in the broader sense of that word, as people generally understand it, though not as it is narrowly defined by New York state law.

In the lawsuit filed against ABC News in March, Trump claimed that Stephanopoulos’ statements were “false, intentional, malicious and designed to cause harm.”

The case was allowed to move forward in July, with the judge refusing to dismiss the lawsuit, writing that these definitions were different enough. He added that the case would turn on “whether it is substantially true to say a jury (or juries) found (Trump) liable for rape by a jury despite the jury’s verdict expressly finding he was not liable for rape.”