2024 was no different as Trump entered various feuds with legacy media like ABC News and CBS News and some local news, including his latest lawsuit against the Des Moines Register. 

Here are four of Trump’s media fights and their current standing at the end of 2024. 

ABC News and George Stephanopoulos

In March, Trump sued ABC News and its parent company, Disney, for remarks ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos made. 

An ABC segment aired in which Stephanopoulos repeatedly said that Trump had been “found liable for rape” in the E. Jean Carroll civil case. While Trump himself has denied all wrongdoing in the case, last year, a jury found that Trump sexually abused Carroll, which was sufficient to hold him liable for battery. The jury, however, did not find that Carroll proved he raped her, although the judge in that case did later note that New York has a narrow legal definition of rape.

One week after Stephanopoulos’ report, Trump filed a lawsuit in which Trump accused him of “actual malice,” which is a very high bar that public figures must meet to prove they were truly defamed. In July, the federal judge overseeing the case in Florida, Cecilia M. Altonaga, denied ABC News’s motion to dismiss the suit.

“A reasonable jury could interpret Stephanopoulos’s statements as defamatory,” Judge Altonaga wrote, adding in italics for emphasis. “Stephanopoulos stated ten times that a jury — or juries — had found plaintiff liable for rape.”

Although the case never made it to trial, following Trump’s win in the 2024 election, ABC News and Disney settled the lawsuit, agreeing to donate $15 million to Trump’s future presidential foundation and museum and paying Trump an additional $1 million in legal fees. They also had to provide an apology.

According to a New York Times report of Disney’s reason for the settlement, Disney executives were worried that the jury in Florida, a state which Trump now calls home and voted for him by 13 points this election, would side with Trump. 

Disney’s legal team “ultimately decided that settling, even with the inevitable negative headlines, was the best outcome — that $16 million was a small price to pay for resolving a tricky case,” the report states.

CBS News 60 Minutes

As per the news program’s history, both Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump were invited to appear on CBS News’ 60 Minutes. Both had agreed, but CBS News announced Trump backed out after his campaign team learned there would be a fact-checking component to the segment. Trump’s campaign denied that as the reason and has since changed the answer on why he did not appear on the program.

Harris still appeared on the program. Trump then sued CBS News, alleging the company engaged in “deceitful editing” of Harris’s program. Trump’s lawsuit contends this editing decision was meant to intentionally assist his opponent and mislead the public, which CBS News has disputed.

“To paper over Kamala’s ‘word salad’ weakness, CBS used its national platform on 60 Minutes to cross the line from the exercise of judgment in reporting to deceitful, deceptive manipulation of news,” the lawsuit claims.

“Former President Trump’s repeated claims against 60 Minutes are false,” a statement from the network said. “The Interview was not doctored.”

In another statement, CBS News explained the two clips in question were edited differently because one segment afforded more time to accommodate a longer section of Harris’s answer than the other.

“Same question. Same answer. But a different portion of the response,” a statement from 60 Minutes said. “When we edit any interview, whether a politician, an athlete, or movie star, we strive to be clear, accurate and on point. The portion of her answer on 60 Minutes was more succinct, which allows time for other subjects in a wide ranging 21-minute-long segment.”

The suit says Trump is seeking a jury trial and at least $10 billion in damages.

NBC’s Saturday Night Live

Toward the end of the 2024 campaign season, Harris made a surprise appearance on NBC’s Saturday Night Live. Trump has long feuded with the comedy program, calling it “Dem commercials” in the past. 

Because NBC is a cable news company, they are subject to equal-time protection under the Federal Communications Commission guidelines. FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, a Trump-appointed senior Republican, raised concerns on social media about Harris’s appearance, calling it “a clear and blatant effort to evade the FCC’s Equal Time rule.”

The Trump campaign requested he be given equal time under FCC guidelines, and NBC complied with the request. In their filing, NBC said Harris appeared “without charge” on the program for one minute and 30 seconds.

Trump was then given two free 60-second messages that appeared near the end of its broadcast of a NASCAR playoff race and during post-game coverage of a “Sunday Night Football” game between the Minnesota Vikings and Indianapolis Colts.

Ann Selzer’s poll and the Des Moines Register

In December, Trump sued former Iowa pollster Ann Selzer and a local Gannett-owned newspaper, the Des Moines Register, over a poll the paper released in the days before the election. The poll found Harris three points ahead of Trump in the ruby-red state, with some Democrats using it as a basis for high hopes going into election night. 

Iowa, the once swing state that voted for President Barack Obama twice, wound up going for Trump by 14 points. Trump’s lawsuit accuses the outlet and pollster of violating Iowa’s consumer fraud laws by being deceptive. 

“Selzer’s polling ‘miss’ was not an astonishing coincidence — it was intentional,” the complaint states. 

Trump is asking for an unspecified amount of damages and an order compelling the defendants to disclose information they relied upon in publishing the poll. 

“For too long, left-wing pollsters have attempted to influence electoral outcomes through manipulated polls that have unacceptable error rates and are not grounded in widely accepted polling methodologies,” the lawsuit states.