Trump and his allies settled a defamation suit against ABC News. A sign of things to come?
On Saturday, ABC News settled a defamation lawsuit with President-elect Donald Trump with a surprising outcome: The major media corporation agreed to donate $15 million to the creation of Trump’s presidential library and museum. The company will also provide $1 million to cover Trump’s legal fees.
The case concerned comments made by ABC News host George Stephanopoulos in March, wherein he asked Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) how she could continue to support Trump — who in 2023 was found liable for sexually abusing the writer E. Jean Carroll — despite being a victim of sexual violence herself. After the interview aired, Trump immediately sought legal action against ABC and Stephanopoulos.
The suit's outcome is unusual: Defamation suits in the United States are often difficult to litigate successfully. Trump had filed similar lawsuits against CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post, but such efforts have been unsuccessful.
But the outcome of the ABC suit may be a harbinger of things to come. “There’s been a pattern and practice for the past couple of years of using defamation litigation as a tactic to harass or test the boundary of case law,” Elizabeth McNamara, the lawyer who represented ABC and Stephanopoulos, said prior to the settlement.
According to The New York Times, Trump and controversial cabinet selections — like potential defense secretary Pete Hegseth and Trump’s pick for FBI director, Kash Patel — are exploring options to undermine reporting on the nominees. Reporting on Hegseth’s sexual assault allegations is one such example.
Additionally, “[Trump and his associates] have discussed subpoenaing news organizations, prosecuting journalists and their sources, revoking networks’ broadcast licenses and eliminating funding for public radio and television,” the Times’ David Enrich wrote.
Patel echoed these sentiments preceding last month’s presidential election. Patel promised “to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections,” should he assume a place in Trump’s cabinet.
Trump and his movement appear to be following the example of the Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán, whom the president-elect has praised and who last week visited Trump at his Mar-a-Lago compound in Florida.
Over the past decade and a half in office, Orbán has weaponized right-wing populism and xenophobia to consolidate power in Hungary and has manipulated the country’s liberal judicial infrastructure to alter the constitution, punish political opponents and suppress media critical of his regime. In particular, Orbán’s media strategy has proven to be especially influential in maintaining political supremacy.
“Since 2010, the ruling Fidesz-KDNP government has used its power to deliberately dismantle media freedom and pluralism through control over the media regulatory body, which has allowed pro-government outlets to dominate, by exerting direct political control over the public service broadcaster, and financially rewarding pro-government outlets,” a report published by Human Rights Watch in February explained.
“Independent and investigative journalists face major obstacles in their work, including surveillance, threats, limited or no access to decision-makers and public information and smear campaigns against them in pro-government media.”