The PBS NewsHour was in full panic on Monday evening after ABC settled a defamation lawsuit by Donald Trump, offering scaremongering with this online headline: “ABC News settlement with Trump raises concerns about press freedom in his 2nd term.”
PBS’s guest, New York Times business investigations editor David Enrich, mourned ABC’s decision “sends a really chilling message.” Both PBS and Enrich hyped a "crackdown on unfavorable news coverage."
Geoff Bennett: Mr. Trump also weighed in on a defamation lawsuit he settled with ABC News for $15 million. The suit followed an ABC segment earlier this year in which George Stephanopoulos said Mr. Trump had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll. A New York jury found him liable for sexual abuse.
Amna Nawaz: The $15 million will be contributed to Trump's future presidential foundation and museum. Mr. Trump was asked about the settlement and whether he plans to file similar suits against other news outlets or individuals.
Donald Trump: I think you have to do it because they're very dishonest. You need a fair press….I'm doing this not because I want to. I'm doing this because I feel I have an obligation.
Nawaz: Following this all closely is New York Times reporter David Enrich, whose upcoming book Murder the Truth explores challenges to press freedoms….
That upcoming book sounds like liberal catnip. Full title: “Murder the Truth -- Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful.” The first promotional blurb comes from Trump-trashing academic Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a PBS favorite.
Enrich’s piece on the front of Monday’s Business section was ominously headed “Message Sent With a Rise in Threats of Libel Suits.” The online headline deck was even more so: “Trump and His Picks Threaten More Lawsuits Over Critical Coverage -- The small flurry of threatened defamation suits is the latest sign that the incoming Trump administration appears poised to do what it can to crack down on unfavorable media coverage.”
Enrich wrote: “The deal set off criticism of ABC News by those who perceived the network as needlessly bowing down to Mr. Trump. And it led some legal and media experts to wonder whether the outcome would embolden Mr. Trump and others to intensify their assault on the media, at a moment when many news organizations are struggling with declining public trust and deteriorating finances.”
As usual, this ignores how the media can't intensify their assault on Trump -- since it's been at full intensity since 2015.
The discussion continued with no mention of “discovery,” the legal term for the exchanging of evidence between opposing parties before trial, which in this case would risk uncovering potentially embarrassing internal communications from ABC News that would confirm the news network’s inexorable hostility toward Trump.
Instead, the journalists played dumb about why ABC settled, though other networks had ideas. Attorney Andrew Stoltmann was quoted by Fox News about the potentially embarrassing discovery process: "There likely would’ve been a tsunami of bad emails and text messages that would’ve been revealed that would’ve fed into the incoming president’s argument that it is biased against him.” Amna Nawaz kept it vague:
Nawaz: My understanding is, the bar for defamation in particular is high for public figures. So what do we know about why ABC did decide to settle?
Enrich: That is a very good $15 million question right now. And it seems like -- based on the reporting we have done and just talking to people, it seems like they were just very reluctant to have a long legal battle with the president of the United States….
Enrich went on to warn the decision “potentially sends a really chilling message to anyone who wants to not only scrutinize or criticize the president, but really anyone else who is influenced by Trump.”
This paranoid segment was brought to you in part by Consumer Cellular.
A transcript is available, click “Expand.”
PBS News Hour
12/16/24
7:27:18 p.m. (ET)
Geoff Bennett: Mr. Trump also weighed in on a defamation lawsuit he settled with ABC News for $15 million. The suit followed an ABC segment earlier this year in which George Stephanopoulos said Mr. Trump had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll. A New York jury found him liable for sexual abuse.
Amna Nawaz: The $15 million will be contributed to Trump's future presidential foundation and museum. Mr. Trump was asked about the settlement and whether he plans to file similar suits against other news outlets or individuals.
Donald Trump: I think you have to do it because they're very dishonest. You need a fair press. And the press is — no, I see others. I have a few others that I'm doing. I'm going to — as an example, we're bringing — I'm doing this not because I want to. I'm doing this because I feel I have an obligation.
Amna Nawaz: Following this all closely is New York Times reporter David Enrich, whose upcoming book "Murder the Truth" explores challenges to press freedoms. David, welcome to the "News Hour." Thanks for being with us.
David Enrich, Author, "Murder the Truth: Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful": Thanks for having me.
Amna Nawaz: So let's start with that ABC News settlement. They're paying $15 million in that settlement, plus a million dollars for Mr. Trump's legal fees. They also added an editor's note on the interview page Web site. It reads thusly:
"ABC News and George Stephanopoulos regret statements regarding President Donald J. Trump made during an interview by George Stephanopoulos with Representative Nancy Mace on ABC's 'This Week' on March 10 of 2024."
David, how strong a case did Mr. Trump have in this lawsuit? And how usual is a lawsuit like this in the first place?
David Enrich: Well, lawsuits like this have become increasingly common. And this is a tactic that Trump decades ago began pioneering. And he has just been banging this drum more and more loudly ever since. And it's a tactic that's caught on, especially in MAGA circles, but really, politicians, business leaders, companies, big organizations are increasingly using defamation threats and defamation lawsuits as kind of a cudgel to attack unfavorable news coverage. And the reality in this case is that, according to everyone I have spoken to, Trump's case against ABC News seemed not great. And there are very strong protections built into the First Amendment and how it's interpreted by the Supreme Court that give the media and others a lot of leeway when they are scrutinizing powerful individuals, no more so than the president-elect of the United States. And it's basically meant to prevent exactly this type of lawsuit. So I think ABC had a pretty good chance of prevailing in court if they had wanted to let it go that power.
Amna Nawaz: My understanding is, the bar for defamation in particular is high for public figures. So what do we know about why ABC did decide to settle?
David Enrich: That is a very good $15 million question right now. And it seems like — based on the reporting we have done and just talking to people, it seems like they were just very reluctant to have a long legal battle with the president of the United States, which is understandable, right? But it also sets the precedent, potentially, that it really could embolden other political leaders, including Trump himself, to really double down on this tactic. So I think there are a lot of people in the First Amendment community and certainly in the media that were very surprised and quite troubled by this decision to essentially concede this to Trump so early on in what could have been a yearslong legal fight.
Amna Nawaz: You also heard there Mr. Trump saying today that he might go after other platforms, other individuals, including social media influencers in the same way, not just journalists, so suggesting a much broader use of these kinds of lawsuits. What's the potential impact of that kind of statement?
David Enrich: Well, I think it potentially sends a really chilling message to anyone who wants to not only scrutinize or criticize the president, but really anyone else who is influenced by Trump. I mean, already we have seen in the past couple of years a real explosion in the use of legal threats and lawsuits against not just journalists, but everyone. And it's not just people on the right going after people on the left. This is at times a bipartisan trend, where litigation is seen as a solution to shut people up. And I think that's something that we are unfortunately probably going to see a lot more of in the years ahead. And it's not something that is just the mainstream media that's going to be affected by, potentially. And we have — there's — as Trump said today, there are — it's possible he would go after people with huge followings on social media or on YouTube, things like that. So I think it's potentially — the ramifications of this are possibly quite broad.
Amna Nawaz: Well, specific to news organizations, we should note that Mr. Trump has another pending lawsuit against CBS News' "60 Minutes." He said today that he might think about suing The Des Moines Register as well. Is there legal precedent that we should be thinking about or considering for how these kinds of cases might be handled?
David Enrich: Well, the most important legal precedent is a Supreme Court case from 60 years ago, New York Times v. Sullivan, which basically created a very high threshold for public figures like Trump to prevail in defamation cases. The problem is that — or maybe not the problem, but the fact of the matter is that, in recent years, Trump and many of his allies, including two Supreme Court justices, have expressed a willingness, if not a desire, to reconsider that 1964 decision. And so that really — there's the possibility here that not only will Trump and his allies start bringing more and more of these cases, but that some of the historical protections against these cases having a chilling effect are going to start being chipped away at by the — by federal courts.
Amna Nawaz: That is David Enrich of The New York Times, author of the book "Murder the Truth." David, thank you for your time. Really good to talk to you.
David Enrich: Thanks for having me. Thank you.
