George Stephanopoulos is well known for his meticulous nature. He rarely makes mistakes.
Every day, he would arrive at 2:30 a.m. for Good Morning America, a program he has co-hosted for the past 15 years, to allow “his face to settle” before broadcasting at 7 a.m. Post-show, he would eat an apple in a monastic fashion at 9 a.m.
He exercises, runs, and meditates—leaving social gatherings early, and he keeps to an early bedtime. The name of his and his spouse Ali Wentworth’s production firm is quite fitting: Bed By 8.
Numerous executives regard him as one of the most intelligent broadcasters they’ve encountered. He has mostly overcome his partisan background as Bill Clinton’s chief communications advisor to present himself as a national news anchor intentionally modeled on Peter Jennings, Ted Koppel, and David Brinkley; a figure embodying moral credibility, intellectual honesty, and mainstream consensus.
So, how did Stephanopoulos end up costing ABC News $15 million in damages and $1 million in legal expenses after inaccurately labeling Donald Trump a rapist during an interview last March?
In a This Week interview in March, Stephanopoulos repeatedly stated to Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), “Donald Trump has been found guilty of rape by a jury”—despite being aware that this assertion was at best debatable, if not entirely incorrect.
“You can’t be the smartest person in the room and then commit the silliest error repeatedly,” remarks a former news producer.
Among executives and broadcasters acquainted with Stephanopoulos, there are two prevailing theories regarding how he could have made such a mistake.
One theory posits that his moral conviction leading to his response to Trump since 2015 clouded his judgment regarding what he knew to be accurate. The other theory suggests he made an honest, albeit repeated, mistake.
Some news executives propose that his choice of words was anything but accidental. When he interviewed E. Jean Carroll—the woman Trump was found to have sexually assaulted—he appeared to grasp the verdict against Trump clearly last year. In May 2023, he asked her on-air for her thoughts about Trump being “not found liable for rape.”
However, two months post-Carroll interview, the presiding judge shared an opinion stating that while Trump was not found liable under the state’s legal construct, “The determination that Ms. Carroll did not prove she was ‘raped’ within the confines of the New York Penal Law does not imply that she did not establish that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her, as many individuals commonly define the term ‘rape.’”
Those familiar with Stephanopoulos note that his careful word choice presented a significant risk for Disney. Should it be demonstrated that he acted with a reckless disregard for the truth, or with malice, the network could be held liable for defamation and damages. (Requests for comment from his agent at CAA went unanswered; ABC News refused to comment officially.)
In court documents prior to the settlement, Disney did not address whether Stephanopoulos acted with intention; instead, it contended that the term “rape” was “substantially accurate.”
Regardless of Stephanopoulos’ actual intent, insiders from the industry indicate that his disdain for the president-elect is palpable.
“Anyone affiliated with ABC is aware that George cannot stand him,” shares a news executive. “It’s instinctive. Trump contradicted everything George believed about how a presidential administration should operate. It drove him insane. He couldn’t fathom why the country wouldn’t spurn him.”
Rather than letting the dispute proceed to court, Disney opted to settle. The Beast has learned that Stephanopoulos has expressed to friends that he feels relieved. As a fellow network insider puts it, “Would I prefer to apologize and have someone cover the $15 million, or endure two years of discovery with every text and email ending up on the front page of the Daily Mail? For most broadcasters, that’s an easy call.”
Yet Stephanopoulos is acutely aware of the professional ramifications stemming from ABC’s retreat; the New York Post has reported that he feels “apoplectic” and “humiliated.” No private narrative can disguise his new public circumstance.
Indeed, several insiders who communicated with the Beast were taken aback that Stephanopoulos consented to apologize to Trump. There is speculation that an imminent contract renewal may have influenced his decision. (Having earned over $100 million from ABC during the 2010s, he is currently drawing $25 million annually under his existing contract.)
Financial matters are significant for him, along with ethical considerations. His life is filled with high stakes, split between the Upper East Side, ABC’s Times Square studio, and the Hamptons—idyllic liberal environments where status can vanish in an instant. He dines with filmmaker J.J. Abrams and prominently sports the merchandise of his friend Howard Stern.
After devoting 500 weeks to documenting Trump’s endeavors, aspirations, and controversies each weekday morning, Stephanopoulos has now found himself embroiled in a political skirmish that transcends his own identity or that of his news organization, which some analysts believe Disney would willingly sell if feasible.
Stephanopoulos could have chosen to leave. Yet, as one executive humorously noted, “There’s already a backlog of 57 CNN anchors at JFK trying to get jobs.” There simply aren’t enough opportunities available for moral stances.
This has left Stephanopoulos—aiming to be the ultimate impartial anchor—grappling with a decline in the value of his profession and craft, a situation that previously impacted magazine journalists and is now affecting the stars of television news.
By remaining, Stephanopoulos finds himself once again involved in a presidential administration. This time, he starts as a vanquished figure rather than an ascendant one: as he once was in various capacities under the last three Democratic presidents—Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. Today, he represents the diminished state of legacy media as Trump prepares to enter his second term.
In his early years, Stephanopoulos was the brilliant presidential aide whose life inspired The West Wing. He later evolved into the anchor America recognized, his narrative unfolding publicly since he was filmed attempting to secure Clinton’s election in The War Room, the 1993 documentary that inspired a generation of political strategists, including Steve Bannon, and was one of Netflix’s most rented DVDs when it operated as a mail-order service. An early episode of Friends in 1994 bore his name—he was only 33 at the time.
The son of a Greek Orthodox priest, he represented an unconventional liberal ideal in the 1990s, oscillating between being a boy wonder and a scapegoat within Clinton’s sphere.
In 1999, he drew acclaim by writing about his experiences in the White House after parting ways with the president over the Monica Lewinsky scandal. His transition into news coverage paved the way for future Democratic presidential aides, from Jon Favreau to Jen Psaki, to follow their unique paths.
This summer, he secured a significant global scoop: Joe Biden’s last effort to salvage his presidency following the debate that devastated his standing, interviewing the president for 22 crucial minutes.
He was chosen for that interview, according to insiders, after years of being “protective” of the president. He showed reluctance to report on loosely sourced narratives that could potentially damage Biden; a stance many liberal journalists adopted towards Democratic leaders amid the Trump administration.
Stephanopoulos’ focus has been on Trump, whom he views as a threat to democracy. Many sources describe his enthusiasm for the Mueller investigation concerning Trump’s connections with Russia, as well as the now-debunked “Steele dossier.”
“He believed that was going to take [Trump] down,” states an executive at a competing network—a sentiment many Democrats held during the president-elect’s initial term.
Throughout this period, he has contended with the emergence of a rival anchor at ABC News: David Muir, who has effectively become the network’s face since 2021—a broadcaster Stephanopoulos considers his intellectual subordinate: the victory of charm over depth.
Stephanopoulos, a Rhodes scholar, attended Columbia University. Muir, along with Disney CEO Bob Iger and a few others in the media sector, graduated from Ithaca College in upstate New York, located near Cornell.
For years, Stephanopoulos held ABC’s “chief anchor” position, a title hard-earned after he succeeded Diane Sawyer on GMA in 2009. Yearning for the prestigious World News Tonight position in 2014, he was hoping to transition to the evening news program when Sawyer stepped down.
He did not attain that role. Muir did. Following that, in 2021, Muir was awarded the “chief anchor” title after Stephanopoulos was compelled to relinquish it. Stephanopoulos felt betrayed; he had been informed that no one else would take the position. In frustration, he threatened to resign.
Iger personally stepped into the negotiations to convince Stephanopoulos to remain with a better offer that included a pay increase, a production agreement, and primetime programming. Still, Muir took the reins of breaking news coverage as well as election specials.
Stephanopoulos opted not to appear alongside him on air again, effectively marginalizing himself as Muir exclusively anchored coverage of the 2022 midterms and this year’s presidential election.
Stephanopoulos stayed with GMA, a show that dominated ratings for 13 years—until recently when NBC’s Today has begun to surpass it. (Today already outperforms GMA in the advertiser-preferred 25-54 demographic.)
This situation has left Stephanopoulos increasingly isolated on a waning morning program, where his co-hosts handle the populist segments that frustrate his political sensibilities.
He typically presents This Week (which carries his name) once a month on Sundays, where he has engaged in combative interviews with Trump supporters, including former Ohio senator JD Vance and Mace in the interview that has now cost ABC $16 million—along with four years of anticipated ridicule from the right and a president who has already dubbed him “Slopadopoulos.”
Trump will invoke that label each time Stephanopoulos or ABC attempts to cover him or report on his administration. His $16 million blunder, regardless of the intention behind it, has resurfaced a gaffe from earlier in Stephanopoulos’ career when it was revealed in 2015 that he donated $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation—compromising the neutral image he had meticulously built since departing the White House.
That reputation has been undermined once more.
Stephanopoulos stated on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert shortly afterward that he would “not be intimidated into abstaining from doing my job due to Donald Trump’s threats.”
He has ultimately decided to remain at ABC. While he may not have been intimidated out of his job, it seems he has been constrained within it.
