ABC (i.e. Disney) not only negotiates with Trump, it also gives him 15 million

The defamation trial, which pitted the ABC television network, owned by the entertainment giant Disney, and the president-elect Donald Trump, ended surprisingly with a plea deal: the company agreed to compensate the tycoon 15 million dollars. During an interview with South Carolina Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace on the “This Week” program, the journalist George Stephanopoulos he asked her how she felt, as a rape victim, about supporting Donald Trump, who a New York jury had found guilty of the same crime. The journalist was referring to the case of the writer E. Jean Carroll, who claimed that Trump raped her in the 1990s and subsequently defamed her by denying the incident: in 2023, a civil court in New York ordered Trump to compensate Carroll with $88.3 million, finding him guilty of defamation and sexual assault.

Here lies the crux of the story: Trump believes he was defamed by Stephanopoulos, as he was never found guilty of rape by the court. However, district judge Lewis Kaplan, in an official document of the trial, highlighted that, as far as the common meaning we give to the word is concerned, the rape essentially happened. The New York penal code, at the time of the facts, indicated only non-consensual penetration as rape, making every other sexual contact fall under the umbrella term of “assault”: this very case convinced the state of New York to enact a new law, which considerably expands the cases attributable to rape.

The judge’s definition, which highlighted the difference between the common sense we give to the word and the legal reasons that did not allow a conviction of that type, was part of ABC’s defense. Many lawyers argue that the company could have gone to trial, with a considerable chance of victory: American defamation law, in fact, is favorable to those who have to defend themselves. Whoever files a complaint must demonstrate not only that the accused gave incorrect information, but that he did so with malice, knowing that the information was false. Trump is no stranger to this type of lawsuit: over the years he has had defamation disputes with the main American publishing companies, from CNN to the New York Times and the Washington Post. Almost all lost, but still expensive and time-consuming for those sued to deal with.

If defamation is a tactic often used by Trump, and this case had no more concrete evidence than others already lost by the tycoon, why did ABC decide for compensation? The idea that many American commentators have had, including Bill Kristol, is that many companies are voluntarily capitulating to the president’s requests, to ingratiate themselves with him and not have problems during his administration. During the election campaign, Trump demonstrated a vengeful intent towards those who hindered him: he spoke of trials and imprisonment for his opponents and raised the level of confrontation with the press. After winning the elections, it seems that the companies that had openly taken sides against the tycoon in the past have decided to review their positions. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, and Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, were at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s residence in Florida, and Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon, donated a million dollars to the president.

Disney, which owns ABC, has already paid the price for openly clashing with politics: after speaking out against the Florida law that banned the discussion of sexual orientation issues in schools, Republican governor Ron DeSantis revoked the company’s autonomous governance of the DisneyWorld amusement park area, starting a long legal dispute . It therefore seems that paying compensation in advance, for a case that would have had a good chance of winning, is a way of ingratiating oneself with an Administration that will be difficult to work with. This move is not, however, without consequences: as written by the American historian Timoty Snyder, obeying in advance the wishes of a politician who behaves in an authoritarian sense only strengthens his claims. On the other hand, as the president-elect said in the press conference, “in the first term they fought me, now they all want to be my friends”.