A day of reckoning is coming for the media after their biased coverage of Donald Trump.
It happened sooner than one outlet expected.
And Donald Trump created a nightmare for Disney’s CEO after he got this scary news.
Disney’s decision to settle Donald Trump’s lawsuit against ABC News causes outcry
The media has told despicable lies about President-elect Donald Trump but has skirted accountability because of the difficulty of defamation suits for public figures.
ABC News host George Stephanopoulos, a one-time hack for former President Bill Clinton, parroted a Democrat Party talking point by lying that Trump was found “liable for rape” over the bogus E. Jean Carroll lawsuit.
Trump’s legal team sued Stephanopoulos and ABC News for defamation.
Disney, ABC’s parent company, settled the lawsuit out of court for a $15 million donation to Trump’s future Presidential library and agreed to pay $1 million in legal fees.
A member of the media and a network was finally held accountable for telling a blatant lie about Trump.
That decision created a backlash against Disney by ABC News employees.
A report in the Wall Street Journal claimed that rank-and-file ABC News employees are fuming at Disney CEO Bob Iger for settling the Trump case.
University of Georgia School of Law professor Sonja West thought that Disney should have dug in its heels.
“It’s really surprising and honestly perplexing that ABC decided to settle at this time and for this amount,” West said. “No one wants to send the message to potential future plaintiffs that defamation lawsuits against the press are likely to end with a big payday.”
ABC News employees are upset but Disney was worried about a bigger problem with the Trump lawsuit.
Disney feared that Pandora’s Box would be opened to suing the press
Disney settled the case in part because the company was worried that it could be used to overturn the Supreme Court’s New York Times v. Sullivan decision.
That case gives the media the ability to lie with impunity by setting an impossible bar to cross in defamation lawsuits.
Disney also worried that a jury in Florida where the case would have been heard could have a jury made up of people willing to drop the hammer on ABC News.
The company settled it to avoid those bad situations and to keep internal ABC News communications being made public in discovery.
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press legal director Katie Townsend said the settlement sent “shockwaves” through the media.
“It’s candidly pretty troubling,” Townsend. “The concern is – particularly given the timing and the nature of the settlement – that it will encourage and embolden President Trump and people in his circle to pursue even more of these types of not just litigation, but threats of litigation.”
Trump has more lawsuits against the media including 60 Minutes for editing its interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, journalist Bob Woodward, the Pulitzer Prize Committee, and the Des Moines Register.
“It costs a lot of money to do it, but we have to straighten out the press,” Trump said. “Our press is very corrupt. Almost as corrupt as our elections.”
The tide could be turning against the media’s stream of lies against Donald Trump.
DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
