ANGELO LYNN

While news of the fall of the Assad regime in Syria and those consequences have dominated international headlines this past week, along with worries the Arctic tundra is melting faster than expected, domestically the earth-shattering news was ABC’s spineless capitulation to the president-elect.

If you missed the story, ABC settled a defamation suit in which George Stephanopoulos, host of ABC’s This Week, incorrectly said Trump had been found liable of raping advice columnist E. Jean Carrol, rather than liable of sexual abuse. In the settlement, ABC agreed to donate $15 million to Trump’s presidential library and pay $1 million in Trump’s legal fees over the suit.

There’s a lot to unpack in this story, which Washington Post media reporter Erik Wemple does well in a column Tuesday, but what follows are the key points.

The March 2024 interview by Stephanopoulous was with Rep. Mancy Mace, R-South Carolina, who the host recalled had “courageously” shared the story of her own rape before being elected. How then, Stephanopoulous asked of Mace, could she endorse Trump for president when he had “been found liable for rape by a jury?”

It took Trump and his team of lawyers 8 days to file suit over the distinction: the jury ruled that he had sexually assaulted Carroll (forcible penetration), but it did not meet the precise definition of rape according to New York state laws at the time. It did, however, meet the common definition of rape, according to Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who ruled in posttrial proceedings that the jury had found Trump liable for rape under a common understanding of the offense.

(Kaplan wrote a very descriptive distinction of that understanding of rape versus the New York law, which is detailed in Wemple’s column, but we’ll spare our readers those unseemly details and instead note Wemple’s column is linked in the online version of this editorial.)

ABC had initially defended the interview with Mace because the host’s descriptions of Trump’s actions were “substantially true,” a legal standard that, according to Wemple, “allows for inaccuracies in a narrow bandwidth, so long as the gist of the segment remains accurate.”

ABC’s capitulation is unsettling because it could set the stage for Trump following through on his threats to punish any negative media of him and go after those who have “wronged” him in the past and present.

True to form, Trump filed suit this week against the Des Moines Register and its pollster, J. Ann Selzer, for an outlier poll taken ahead of the election that showed Trump trailing in Iowa by 3 percentage points. The Register is owned by Gannett, which was also named in the suit.

Trump, who has repeatedly called the mainstream media “corrupt,” said this week: “I have to do it. We have to straighten out the press.”

His comment is bull, of course. Mainstream media has been telling the truth, it’s just that Trump doesn’t like any truth that reflects poorly of him.

To be clear, Trump has been found guilty of sexual abuse, and several women who have had past relationships with him have alleged rape and sexual assault. He famously boasted of sexually assaulting women (and them liking it) just prior to the 2016 election. ABC did make a mistake in using the broader definition of rape as defined by Judge Kaplan, and they should have recognized the error and made a correction at the time. That said, their case remained solid and winnable, nor are Americans shocked by allegations of rape against Trump or by the impeachable offenses he has done, so what damage — we ask with ample cynicism — could there have been to Trump’s reputation when the discussion is about the gravity of his sexual assault? In short, ABC did not need to cave. It did so for all the wrong reasons — to make amens, to have access.

As for Selzer and the Des Moines Register, conducting a poll and reporting about it is just that. Neither the Register nor the pollster did anything wrong.

Therein lies the danger: If Trump sets a standard that any reporting of him that isn’t flattering is worthy of a suit or harassment, the nation’s freedom of speech is in serious jeopardy.

But that’s clearly what he’s up to and how experts see it, including Samatha Barbas, a professor at the University of Iowa College of Law. “It’s clear that Trump is waging war on the press,” said Barbas in yesterday’s New York Times. “Trump and his lawyers are going to use any legal claim that they think have a chance of sticking. They’ll cast a wide net to carry out this vendetta.”

And Trump intends to broaden the scope beyond defamation of his character. In the suit against the Register and Selzer, Trump is alleging the pollster violated the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act, which prohibits deceptive practices that occur in sales or advertising.

It’s a ruse, of course, but it’ll cost plenty to defend, and our hunch is that it will have a chilling effect on future news coverage by the Register and by Gannett’s many news outlets.

Importantly, as part of that New York Times story, the reporters noted that “in Mr. Trump’s own telling, winning his civil legal actions isn’t always the point.” In a libel case in which he famously lost to writer Timothy O’Brien, the reporters continued, over Trump’s inflated monetary worth, Trump dismissed the loss and the money he spent on the suit as a victory of sorts: “I spent a couple of bucks on legal fees, and they spent a whole lot more… I did it to make his life miserable, which I’m happy about.”

It’s that brazen, narcissistic attitude that is so dangerous to democracy and that rings true of dictators. What’s the anecdote? Only the public can defend the press’s right to tell truth to power. If they don’t, and if GOP leaders in the House and Senate continue cowering to Trump, he’ll be able to effectively stifle criticism through harassment and financial intimidation. And make no mistake who will pay Trump’s legal bills — one way or the other, the public will. While he lets on that he’s pursuing these suits against the media at a personal cost and for the good of the country — nothing could be further from the truth.

— Angelo Lynn