NBC's Chuck Todd says ABC 'abandoned' George Stephanopoulos in settling with Trump
After ABC News' defamation settlement favoring President-elect Donald Trump, NBC's Chuck Todd said he would have felt "abandoned" if he were George Stephanopoulos.
NBC host Chuck Todd said he would have felt "abandoned" if he were George Stephanopoulos during the legal dispute that led to ABC News settling with President-elect Donald Trump for a whopping $15 million.
"This was stunning to me and absolutely a gut punch to anybody that works at a major media company, because I think it does set a precedent that is going to be very difficult to get out from under potentially," Todd told Substacker Chris Cillizza.
Todd added that "this was a decision to buy off bad PR."
"All I will say is, if I were in the situation that George was in, I would feel like my network abandoned me," Todd said.
Trump sued ABC News and Stephanopoulos after the anchor repeatedly insisted he was found "liable for rape" during a tense exchange with Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., on the March 10 episode of his Sunday program "This Week." Todd previously hosted fellow network Sunday show "Meet the Press."
Stephanopoulos repeated that claim ten times during his spat with Mace, despite the fact that a jury actually determined Trump was liable for "sexual abuse," which has a distinct definition under New York law.
The surprising settlement was publicly filed on Saturday, revealing that the two parties have come to an agreement and avoided a costly trial.
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ABC News will pay $15 million as a charitable contribution to a "Presidential foundation and museum to be established by or for Plaintiff, as Presidents of the United States of America have established in the past." Additionally, the network will pay $1 million in Trump's attorney fees.
Todd acknowledged he does not "know the specific situation" that led to the settlement. Legal experts told Fox News Digital the decision was likely made by the Disney-owned network to avoid potential embarrassment in the discovery process.
"Maybe there was more liability that I don't know about," Todd said. "Maybe there was something else that I don't know about. But everything I know, I would feel like I was abandoned."
Cillizza replied, "To your point, are we setting a precedent here on the heels of Amazon giving $1 million to the [Trump] inaugural fund, Meta giving $1 million. OpenAI is giving a million. Is this sort of the world accommodating Trump?"
Todd replied, "I've raised this before. I mean, publicly traded companies right now owning news organizations … It's not going well. It's just not going well."
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