Donald Trump made a point of shutting down an ABC News reporter just days after George Stephanopoulos abruptly cut-off JD Vance during a heated interview.
The president was taking questions from reporters following a meeting with Argentinian President Javier Milei on Tuesday when he snubbed the broadcaster, offering a blunt explanation as to his reasoning.
‘You’re ABC fake news,’ Trump said as a reporter tried to ask him a question.
‘I don’t take questions from ABC fake news after what you did with Stephanopoulos to the Vice President of the United States, I don’t take questions from ABC fake news,’ he declared.
Stephanopoulos had been interviewing the vice-president over the weekend when the conversation spiraled out of control.
The pair had been discussing the Trump-brokered peace deal between Israel and Hamas, states sending National Guardsmen to Chicago and the indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James when the longtime television host asked the Vance if Tom Homan was guilty of accepting a $50,000 bribe in an undercover FBI sting in September 2024.
Homan had been recorded saying he could help federal agents get government contracts should Trump win the election.
Stephanopoulos, who served as the White House Communications Director for President Bill Clinton, wanted to know if Homan kept the money or gave it back – to which Vance insisted that the border czar ‘did nothing wrong.’
President Donald Trump fired back at ABC News on Tuesday, snubbing a reporter who tried to ask a question
It came days after longtime ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos (pictured) abruptly cut off the vice president
Then, when Stephanopoulos continued to push, Vance wrote off the accusation as a bias-filled distraction from the ongoing government shutdown.
‘I think the American people would benefit much more from [talking about the shutdown] than from you going down some weird left-wing rabbit hole where the facts clearly show that Tom Homan didn’t engage in any criminal wrongdoing,’ Vance said.
Stephanopoulos angrily fired back: ‘It’s not a weird left-wing rabbit hole. I didn’t insinuate anything, I asked you whether Tom Homan accepted $50,000 as was heard on an audio tape recorded by the FBI in September 2024, and you did not answer the question’.
‘Thank you for your time this morning,’ he added, before Vance tried to cut in and explain himself.
‘No, George, I said-‘
Stephanopoulos cut him off and said ‘we’ll be right back’ before going straight to commercial.
It was not the first time the network irked the Trump administration either.
Last December, ABC News agreed to pay a total of $16 million to Trump to settle a lawsuit over assertions made by Stephanopoulos that the president was found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll.
The interview with JD Vance spiraled out of control when Stephanopoulos asked the vice president if Tom Homan was guilty of accepting $50,000 in cash in an undercover sting
Stephanopoulos had questioned Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican Congresswoman, as to why she was supporting a presidential nominee ‘who’s been found liable for rape.’
A New York jury in May 2023 ordered Trump to pay $5million in damages for sexually abusing Carroll in the 1990s, though he was not found liable for rape.
Trump’s lawyers accused Stephanopoulos – whom the president has derisively nicknamed ‘Slopadopoulous’ – of making the statements with ‘malice’ and a disregard for the truth.
The settlement stipulated that the network will pay $15 million as a charitable contribution towards Trump’s presidential library. They also paid his legal fees as part of the settlement, which have totaled $1 million.
ABC also posted a note on its website expressing regret over the claim in a March 10 segment on ‘This Week’ made by Stephanopoulos.
The network also earned the Trump administration’s ire when comedian Jimmy Kimmel falsely insinuated that the man who shot and killed conservative podcaster Charlie Kirk.
When the network then announced that Kimmel’s long-running show would be canceled, the president even celebrated on social media.
Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, was reportedly the target of an FBI sting operation last year
The most recent clash between the network and the Trump administration came amid an MSNBC report that said Homan was the target of anFBI undercover operation last year following a separate investigation, which accused the border czar of soliciting payments in exchange for promises of contracts should Trump win reelection.
In the undercover sting, the FBI recorded Homan accepting $50,000 in cash after indicating that he could help the agents win government contracts should a Trump 2.0 administration come to fruition.
The FBI agents pretended to be business executives, and on September 20, 2024 hidden cameras recorded Homan accepting the money in cash at a designated meeting spot in Texas.
While Homan was appearing alongside Trump on the campaign trail, he wasn’t a public official at the time.
The president then named Homan ‘border czar’ on November 11, 2024, just six days after he won the election.
Homan is technically a White House official, meaning the job did not require Senate confirmation or an FBI background check.
The case stalled after Trump was sworn in and MAGA-aligned officials filled the top of the FBI and Justice Department.
It’s unclear what official justification was given for shutting down the probe, but a Trump Justice Department appointee called it a ‘deep state’ investigation in early 2025, sources told MSNBC.
Other Trump officials suggested they believed the case to be politically motivated.
‘This matter originated under the previous administration and was subjected to a full review by FBI agents and Justice Department prosecutors. They found no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing.
The Department’s resources must remain focused on real threats to the American people, not baseless investigations. As a result, the investigation has been closed,’ FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told MSNBC in a statement.
