Donald Trump is on one of the biggest winning streaks in American political history.
Once again, Trump pulled off the unthinkable.
And Donald Trump went to court and forced the left-wing media to make this damning admission.
Media is in panic mode over ABC settlement
Donald Trump winning his defamation suit against ABC News sent shockwaves across the media landscape.
ABC was forced into an agreement to pay a $16 million settlement to Trump after This Week host George Stephanopoulos falsely stated a jury found Donald Trump “liable for rape” in the E. Jean Carroll lawsuit.
Prior to this settlement, left-wing journalists felt impervious to being sued and thought they could call Trump every name in the book while smearing him with hoax after hoax because of the extremely high standard for public figures to win a defamation case thanks to the New York Times v. Sullivan Supreme Court case.
In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that to be held liable for defamation a media outlet didn’t just have to publish false information, they had to act with “actual malice” and knowingly so.
ABC surrendering to Trump left other members of the media worried.
MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle was one of the Lefty journalists who panicked about the settlement.
“For the media environment for the rest of the world, when they see a settlement like this, there is a chilling effect, right? Because what happens immediately after?” Ruhle began.
Ruhle mentioned that Trump also sued the Des Moines Register and pollster J. Ann Selzer for consumer fraud over a pre-election poll showing Kamala Harris winning Iowa by three.
Trump won Iowa by 14 but Selzer’s poll dominated the media coverage the weekend before the election.
Ruhle then admitted that maybe the lawsuit was a good thing because it would force journalists to actually do their job and present accurate coverage of Donald Trump.
“Well, you see Donald Trump say, I’m going to sue the Des Moines Register. I’m going to sue the pollster [J. Ann Selzer] who put out a poll just before the election that said women in Iowa are going to vote for Kamala Harris. And you’re saying I want to accurately cover this administration like all of us are going to, it’s a scary time,” Ruhle continued.
“So for all of us, this is a warning. You better have your T’s crossed. You better have your i’s dotted, which I actually think is a positive because we need to do that. But yeah, there’s definitely a chilling effect,” Ruhle concluded.
FAKE NEWS: Stephanie Ruhle warns that the ABC defamation settlement has shown the media that *now* they need to be accurate when reporting news about Trump. 🤣
h/t @EricAbbenante pic.twitter.com/sB1KMa9RLf
— @amuse (@amuse) December 20, 2024
NBC political director Chuck Todd also whined about the settlement, calling it a gut punch.
“This was stunning to me and absolutely a gut punch to anybody who works for a major media company,” Todd began.
NBC host Chuck Todd is worried but thought ABC should have fought
“I think it does set a precedent that is going to be very difficult … to get out from under potentially,” Todd continued. “I just, you know, I think the risk of losing this suit was 5 percent.”
But ABC feared a Florida jury siding with Trump, and for good reason.
The New York Post reported that Stephanopoulos’ producer warned him not to accuse Trump of rape before Stephanopoulos went on the air.
“‘This Week’ producer said ‘don’t use the word rape’ before the segment started,” an ABC source revealed to the Post. “The EP [executive producer] said it so many times.”
That testimony at trial would have meant Trump had ABC and Stephanopoulos dead to rights for knowingly making a false claim about him, and a jury in ruby red Florida may have wanted to send a message to left-wing ABC by awarding Trump a massive amount in damages.
