What a segment this was on The Daily Beast Podcast with Joanna Coles and Samantha Bee. MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle discussed President-elect Donald J. Trump's legal win over ABC News. The network must pay Trump $15 million which will all go to the building of the future library for the 45th and 47th president of the United States. They also must issue an apology over a testy exchange between ABC News host George Stephanopoulos and Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), a survivor of sexual assault, where the former Clinton operative said Trump was found liable for rape regarding the legal action filed by E. Jean Carroll.
JUST IN: ABC News forced to pay $15 million to Trump to settle defamation lawsuit, George Stephanopoulos forced to issue public apology.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) December 14, 2024
The development stems from a March incident where Stephanopoulos claimed Trump was found “liable for r*pe.”
Now, ABC News has to pay $15… pic.twitter.com/jsRuetccuv
Reportedly, producers for ABC’s This Week told Stephanopoulos not to use the word “rape,” which he ignored. The longtime host is reportedly “apoplectic” and “humiliated” over the settlement. Yet, it’s also called accountability since what George said was wrong. Ruhle alluded to the “chilling effect” this will have on the media covering the second Trump presidency:
Stephanie Ruhle warns that the ABC defamation settlement has shown the media that *now* they need to be accurate when reporting news about Trump:
— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) December 20, 2024
Stephanie Ruhle: "For the media environment for the rest of the world, when they see a settlement like this, there is a chilling… pic.twitter.com/yxXW71RH6H
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? 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.
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“So, for all of us, this is a warning,” she added. “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."
In other words, you cannot lie at will anymore. The fact that she claims this industry will cover this second Trump administration honestly and accurately is also a crock. There is no chilling effect here, lady. Stop lying, and you won’t get sued.
As for the Ann Selzer poll, that survey was facially untrue and dropped days before Election Day in what arguably was a gross attempt to drop a suppression poll into the news cycle. The problem was multi-layered. First, we’re not morons; Iowa was never in play for Kamala Harris. The state was Trump+18 in June; by late October-early November, it was Harris +3. Nope. Sorry, Ann. If it were true, we would’ve seen the trends shift in Iowa and across the Rust Belt. We didn’t because the poll was a lie. Trump won Iowa by 14 points.
Second, this was beyond a margin of error issue. Most polls admit they’re three to five points off, which this was, but the timing, the state, and Trump’s previous lead a mere eight weeks ago made this laughably inaccurate. You didn’t need to be a top operative to know Iowans weren’t going for Kamala, who hardly stepped inside the state. I’m not saying that it was, but for those who feel this was an attempt to interfere in an election by giving the liberal media a suppression poll—it’s not insane to make that suggestion. The poll was also leaked to Democrats before it was made public. The party brass believed it. After the dust settled, you can see why liberal Americans needed a splash of Selzer: every internal poll by the Kamala campaign had the VP losing to Trump. She was never ahead. You might as well get a fake poll in the mix to keep Democrats in their state of delusion over this election.
That is very different from a poll that is off or biased. It was leaked and weaponized. I don’t know if Trump has any legal standing against Selzer, but he should have a staffer or intern watch CNN and MSNBC often. They’ll repeat the liable for rape lie, and when they do, attack them.
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