Stephen Colbert calls ABC 'stupid' over settlement with Trump
Late night host Stephen Colbert said ABC News' settlement with President-elect Donald Trump was "stupid," on Wednesday night, after criticizing the president-elect's decision to sue former Iowa polster Ann Selzer.
"Why is this stupid thing stupidly happening? My guess, because of the stupid, stupid thing ABC did. See, this weekend, ABC News agreed to pay $15 million and issued an apology to settle a defamation lawsuit," Colbert said.
ABC News agreed to pay $15 million as a charitable contribution to a Trump presidential foundation as well as issue an apology to the president-elect.
"If the president thinks he can bully the media into never saying anything bad about him, well, what else is going on?" Colbert said, changing the subject.
Shortly after he settled with ABC News, Trump also sued Iowa pollster Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register over the Iowa poll that found Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump by three points in a historically red state.
"So now it’s interference just to get a prediction wrong? Well, in that case, Punxatawney Phil, you better lawyer up, buttercup, if you ever want to see your shadow again," Colbert joked about the lawsuit.
The lawsuit was filed Monday night in Polk County, Iowa under the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act and related provisions. It says it seeks "accountability for brazen election interference committed by" the Des Moines Register (DMR) and Selzer "in favor of now-defeated former Democrat candidate Kamala Harris through use of a leaked and manipulated Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll conducted by Selzer and S&C and published by DMR and Gannett in the Des Moines Register on Nov. 2, 2024."
Trump ended up beating Harris in Iowa by 13 percentage points. Selzer's poll was hyped up by the media ahead of the election, as her polling predictions in previous elections have been historically accurate.
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Selzer hit back at criticisms of her and the poll during a recent interview, but conceded she still didn't know where she went wrong.
"I'm not here to break any news. If you were hoping that I had landed on exactly why things went wrong, I have not. It does sort of awaken me in the middle of the night and I think, well maybe I should check this, this is something that would be very odd if it were to happen. But we've explored everything. The Des Moines Register, in an unprecedented move for transparency, has put online our cross tabs, our waiting system and my analysis and that I've not needed to update because it was pretty complete. We don't know. Do I wish I knew? Yes, I wish I knew," she said.
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Selzer continued, "I am mystified about what the motivation anybody thinks I had and would act on in such a public poll. I don't understand it. And the allegations I take very seriously. They're saying that this was election interference, which is a crime. So, the idea that I intentionally set up to deliver this response, when I've never done that before, I've had plenty of opportunities to do it, it's not my ethic."