Chuck Todd said his first reaction to hearing that ABC News had settled a defamation suit with Donald Trump for $15 million was “shock” — and that by not supporting George Stephanopoulos’ right to mention Trump’s conviction — the the jury finding him liable for sexual abuse — in E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit, the network essentially abandoned him.
The former “Meet the Press” host told fellow journalist Chris Cillizza on Monday that the settlement was “stunning to me” and “absolutely a gut punch to anybody that works at a major media company.”
Todd continued, “I think it sets a precedent that is going to be very difficult to get out from under, potentially.” He added that he doesn’t know why the network, which is owned by Disney, settled rather than pursue it in court since, as he figured, the odds of ABC News losing were as low as 5%.
“If I were in the situation that George was in, I would feel like my network abandoned me,” Todd told Cillizza. “Maybe there was more liability that I don’t know about. Maybe there was something else that I don’t know, but [based on] everything I know, I would feel like I was abandoned.”
Cillizza explained, “What we do know is that Debra O’Connell, who is in charge of ABC News overseas, ABC News via Disney, was at Mar-a-Lago having dinner with Susie Wiles, the incoming Chief of Staff.” He then reiterated that networks cozying up to Trump indeed “sets a precedent,” especially after Amazon and Meta both pledged $1 million each to the president-elect’s inauguration fund.
He added that corporations seemed to be “accommodating Trump,” to which Todd replied, “That’s certainly what it looks like, and it looks terrible … I have raised this before, publicly traded companies right now, owning news organizations are not — it’s not going well. It’s just not going well.”
