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What specific statements by George Stephanopoulos led to the Trump ABC lawsuit?
Executive summary
George Stephanopoulos’s on-air comments during a March 10, 2024 This Week interview — in which he repeatedly said Donald Trump had been “found liable for rape” (or “liable for raping” E. Jean Carroll) — prompted Trump to file a defamation suit; ABC and Stephanopoulos later settled for $15 million and issued a statement of regret [1] [2]. Coverage and court filings show the core dispute was Stephanopoulos’s repeated use of the word “rape” when juries and judges had used other language, including findings of sexual abuse and defamation, and a judge’s later characterization in a filing that used the word “rape,” which Stephanopoulos cited [3] [4].
1. What Stephanopoulos actually said on air — the quotes at issue
During the March 10 interview with Rep. Nancy Mace, Stephanopoulos told viewers multiple times that Trump had been “found liable for rape” or “liable for raping” E. Jean Carroll; transcripts and reporting say he repeated that phrasing as many as 10 times and even flashed a headline during the broadcast that echoed the claim [1] [5]. When Mace pushed back that the jury had found Trump liable for sexual abuse (not rape under New York law), Stephanopoulos doubled down on his wording and cited a later court filing by a judge that used the word “rape” [4] [1].
2. Why Trump’s legal team said those phrases were defamatory
Trump’s complaint argued Stephanopoulos’s repeated assertions were “false, intentional, malicious and designed to cause harm,” stressing that the jury verdict form did not find Trump guilty of rape and that transcripts showed Stephanopoulos knew or should have known that distinction [6] [7]. The lawsuit alleged actual malice or reckless disregard for the truth because the broadcast, according to Trump’s lawyers, misstated the legal finding and misled viewers about the jury’s verdict form [6] [7].
3. How ABC and some courts viewed the accuracy defense
ABC argued defenses including substantial truth and the fair report privilege, saying the broader reporting about Carroll’s lawsuits and the judge’s later filings justified contextualizing the outcomes; a federal judge denied ABC’s motion to dismiss and allowed discovery to proceed, finding a reasonable viewer could have been misled by Stephanopoulos’s statements because they omitted the jury’s specific findings [1] [7]. The tension in the filings was between the literal jury finding (sexual abuse/defamation) and later judicial commentary that described the conduct as “rape” in certain contexts [4].
4. Settlement terms and the on‑air/online corrective step
Rather than reach a trial verdict, ABC News and Stephanopoulos agreed to a settlement that included a $15 million payment to a Trump foundation/museum escrow, $1 million toward Trump’s attorney fees, and a public editor’s‑note regret statement to be appended to the March 10 online article reading that “ABC News and George Stephanopoulos regret statements regarding President Donald J. Trump made during an interview… on March 10, 2024” [2] [8] [9]. The settlement avoided court resolution on whether the remarks met the legal standard for defamation [2].
5. Disagreements among commentators and legal analysts
Media and legal commentators split: some, including First Amendment defenders, believed ABC had arguable defenses and that the suit raised difficult free‑press issues; others said the repeated on‑air language — especially the word “rape” — was a clear factual misstatement that could support a defamation claim [5] [4]. Variety quoted media lawyers who felt ABC had “strong arguments” to beat the suit, while other coverage emphasized that Stephanopoulos’s repetition of “found liable for rape” made the network vulnerable [5] [3].
6. What available reporting does not settle
Available sources do not mention the full, verbatim transcript of every exchange beyond the repeated “liable for rape” phrase, nor do they provide an independent audio‑forensic ruling on Stephanopoulos’s intent or state of mind (not found in current reporting). They also do not contain a judicial ruling that definitively labels the March 10 statements defamatory because the case settled before trial [2] [1].
7. Bottom line for readers
The concrete statements that triggered Trump’s suit are well documented: Stephanopoulos repeatedly said on air that Trump had been “found liable for rape” and referenced a judge’s later characterization of the conduct, while critics and the lawsuit focused on the legal distinction between a jury’s verdict (sexual abuse/defamation) and the term “rape”; the parties resolved the dispute via a $15 million settlement and a published regret statement rather than a court determination of defamation [1] [2] [4].