George Stephanopoulos signs new deal with ABC News after Trump trial

“Good Morning America” ​​co-host George Stephanopoulos, who is taking fire over Walt Disney Co.’s decision to settle President-elect Trump’s libel suit against ABC News, is going nowhere.

Stephanopoulos, 63, recently agreed to a new multi-year contract to remain at the ABC News morning show, according to several people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to comment publicly.

A representative for ABC News declined comment.

The deal is likely to quell rumblings about any long-term fallout over ABC News’ agreement to pay $15 million to Trump’s presidential library and $1 million in legal fees to settle a lawsuit over Stephanopoulos’ inaccurate on-air broadcast that the president-elect had been found civilly liable for raping author E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s.

Trump’s suit said Stephanopoulos defamed him when the jury in the Carroll case found him liable for sexual abuse — not rape. Trump sued after Stephanopoulos made the comment on a March 10 broadcast of “This Week.”

The judge in the case said that “the finding that Ms. Carroll could not prove that she was ‘raped’ under New York Penal Code does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her so many people commonly understands the word ‘rape’ ”.

Reporters at ABC were disappointed that the news department and Stephanopoulos agreed to apologize to Trump and that the company was unwilling to fight the case in court.

The decision — a preview of the challenges of covering a new Trump administration — added to fears already felt among rank-and-file members already preparing for cost-cutting in the new year, according to an insider not authorized to comment publicly.

But any concerns at Disney about the negative reaction to the settlement took a backseat to the fragile state of “Good Morning America,” which has fallen behind NBC’s “Today” in the Nielsen ratings.

Stephanopoulos — who is said to earn in the range of $20 million annually — has long supplied nutritious news calories to the breezy morning show, which he co-hosts with Robin Roberts and Michael Strahan.

The network has no apparent successor to Stephanopoulos, who joined “Good Morning America” ​​in 2009. A change in the host chairs could be disruptive to the morning audience’s deeply entrenched habits.

Disney’s decision to back Trump has fueled fears the media industry will be tested by the embattled president, who has vowed to take legal action against businesses he believes have treated him unfairly.

“The next president will use libel laws as a mechanism to harass and intimidate the people they perceive as their opponents,” said veteran 1st Amendment attorney Lee Levine. “It’s now absolutely clear. … He wants to send a message out there: ‘Don’t cross me.’ ”

Trump has also filed a lawsuit against CBS, alleging the network deceptively edited a “60 Minutes” interview with Vice President Kamala Harris to make her look better to viewers. The network denied the accusation.

On Monday, he sued the Des Moines Register over a faulty pre-election poll that showed him losing the state.

Levine believed that ABC News would have prevailed on legal grounds had the case gone to trial. But the company was unwilling to take the risk of paying damages determined by a jury and the negative publicity that comes with any protracted legal battle, sources said.

“There was a real fear of an adverse judgment on a larger amount being paid in a settlement,” said Levine, who believes ABC News would have prevailed in court.

Levine added that Trump’s use of the courts to attack media organizations will frighten businesses that do not have the resources to mount a robust legal defense. He hopes that larger companies like Disney will “hold on and litigate these things when appropriate” going forward.

Disney likely wanted to avoid the risk of having the inner workings of its operations presented as evidence in the public setting of a courtroom.

Settlement negotiations began after the judge in the case ruled Friday that Stephanopoulos and Trump must sit for depositions and submit emails and text messages as evidence.

It is not uncommon for media companies to settle libel cases to avoid such exposure.

Fox News paid a record $787 million to settle a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems over false statements in the network’s 2020 election reporting.

The deal, which sources said was approved by Disney CEO Bob Iger, came just as the case was being heard, with its top executives and anchors expected to testify. Many libel lawyers were surprised that the case was not settled until a significant amount of emails and testimony were revealed in court records.

Trump’s previous attempts to sue news outlets critical of him have failed.

Trump sued the New York Times over their investigation into his finances, which led to the recent New York civil court ruling that has him on the hook for $454 million. The case was dismissed in March, and Trump had to reimburse the newspaper’s legal costs.

In 2022, Trump sued CNN for $475 million, claiming the news network ran a campaign against him by booking guests critical of his policies and speeches. The case was dismissed in 2023.