Earlier today David wrote about the media’s response to ABC’s decision to settle a claim brought by Trump against the network and George Stephanopoulos in particular. This afternoon, the NY Post has an exclusive report claiming Stephanopoulos himself is feeling humiliated by the turn of events.
ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos is “apoplectic” and “humiliated” by the network’s decision to pay $16 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by President-elect Donald Trump, The Post has learned…
Stephanopoulos, who claimed Trump had raped E. Jean Carroll during an interview with Republican lawmaker Nancy Mace, was particularly upset about being forced to apologize, a source with knowledge of the situation said.
Another source told The Post that “George is defiant.”
He can’t be feeling that defiant because he deleted his entire X account this weekend.
ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos deactivated his account on X, formerly Twitter, where he had more than 2.3 million followers.
Stephanopoulos’ account on Elon Musk-owned X (@GStephanopoulos) is no longer available, displaying a message that says, “This account doesn’t exist.” Stephanopoulos’ Instagram account remains active…
Reps for Stephanopoulos and ABC News did not respond to requests for comment.
Did Stephanopoulos make the decision to delete his account himself or was he advised to do so by ABC’s attorneys? Who knows. Maybe he’s just joining Bluesky with all the rest of the progressives. It’s not just George who is reportedly feeling down about the outcome.
Three sources told The Post that morale is down after a series of layoffs in all departments..
The settlement “is another gut punch,” one of the people said. “It’s sheer level embarrassment. People are furious.”
The theory is that ABC News could have fought this lawsuit and won in court eventually but settled to just get it over with. The NY Post story includes some speculation that may be true.
Industry insiders speculated that Disney CEO Bob Iger wanted to put the legal matter to rest before Trump took office because he was fearful it would affect other departments in the company’s portfolio that are subject to government regulation.
Iger is also said to still have in mind how poorly the battle against Florida Gov. DeSantis went for the company.
It’s pretty clear that most of the major news outlets, including ABC News, have been visiting Mar-a-Lago to make their peace with Trump. I don’t suspect it will last very long but for now they are trying to start with a clean slate. But no one, including Trump, really believes it. At the first opportunity they will jump on the next Russia-gate bandwagon, whatever that is. Just like Stephanopoulos they are apoplectic he is back and also defiant even if they’ve calculated that now is not the time to show that definance.