Trump rips ABC over cut-off Vance interview with Stephanopoulos
President Trump ripped ABC News after a contentious interview with Vice President Vance over the weekend.
“This Week” host George Stephanopoulos abruptly ended an interview with Vance on Sunday after the vice president did not directly answer a question about bribery allegations against border czar Tom Homan.
While talking with reporters during a meeting with the president of Argentina on Tuesday, Trump refused to take a question from ABC, citing the interview.
“After what you did with Stephanopoulos to the vice president of the United States, I don’t take questions from ABC Fake News,” Trump said.
Stephanopoulos, during Sunday morning’s edition of “This Week,” asked Vance whether Homan kept or returned a reported $50,000 bribe.
Vance deflected, saying the media is “going after” Homan “because he’s doing the job of enforcing the law.”
“You’re focused on a bogus story, you’re insinuating criminal wrongdoing against a guy who has done nothing wrong, instead of focusing on the fact that our country is struggling because our government shutdown,” Vance added.
The vice president also blamed Democrats and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) for the shutdown, saying that as a result, low-income women are struggling to buy food.
Stephanopoulos then ended the interview, cutting Vance off and going to break.
In a post on the social platform X later Sunday, Vance said that the ABC anchor “doesn’t care” about stories such as Israel and Hamas agreeing to phase one of a peace deal proposed by the Trump administration, the effects of Chinese rare earth and magnet restrictions on global supply chains and the ongoing shutdown.
“[Stephanopoulos is] here to focus on the real story: a fake scandal involving Tom Homan,” the vice president added.
Homan, according to multiple reports, accepted the sum last September from undercover FBI agents posing as business executives, in exchange for assistance with receiving government contracts if President Trump returned to office.
Trump has tangled with ABC more than once before Tuesday.
Last month, he hailed the network’s decision to pull comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s show off the air for a week. ABC indefinitely suspended Kimmel the same day FCC Chair Brendan Carr called on broadcasters to push back at the network over remarks the late-night host made.
In December, ABC News and Stephanopoulos agreed to settle a defamation suit brought by then-President-elect Trump by issuing a public apology and providing $15 million to fund Trump’s future presidential library.