Following ABC News’s eye-popping $15 million payment to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by President-elect Trump, the future of the star anchor who made the defamatory comments, George Stephanopoulos, is being called into question.

The controversial settlement has exposed tensions over Mr. Stephanopoulos’s salary, which is believed to be around $25 million and one of the highest at the Walt Disney Company, as “Good Morning America” has seen its ratings plummet and Disney’s linear television properties – such as ABC and Disney’s cable networks are a persistent drag on the stock price. 

According to recent media reports, Mr. Stephanopoulos is close to agreeing to a contract extension with relatively the same compensation, a prospect that’s both baffled and enraged his ABC News colleagues, who’ve been facing repeated cutbacks and lay-offs. 

Contract extensions at Disney, however, are far from a guarantee of job security. Earlier this year, the president of ABC News, Kim Godwin, was forced out shortly after she signed a new, three-year deal. 

According to two veteran media reporters, the massive payout to Trump’s future presidential library from the settlement might pressure the network to force out Mr. Stephanopoulos, a former top aide and political operative for Bill Clinton. Matthew Belloni of Puck and Kim Masters, two of Hollywood’s best-sourced reporters, discussed the decision in Mr. Belloni’s closely read newsletter.

Ms. Masters said that the Disney chief executive, Bob Iger, may be able to withstand a revolt from left-wing staffers over the settlement. However, she said, “This does raise the question of whether Stephanopoulos will stay at ABC News. I don’t see how he does. Every time he would try to interview a Republican — well, you can see how that would go.”

The Wall Street Journal reports Mr. Stephanopoulos is still negotiating his contract before the one he signed in 2021 expires. And Mr. Belloni says there is a chance ABC and Mr. Stephanopolous agree to “a mutual parting of ways” as the network seeks to drastically cut costs. The salaries for the three co-hosts of “Good Morning America” total more than $75 million a year, which is almost half of what the morning show brings in from advertising revenue, Puck’s Dylan Byers reports. 

The Journal also reports ABC News insiders view Mr. Stephanopoulos as having “unnecessary reputational and legal liability — without delivering blockbuster ratings.”

During the campaign season, Mr. Stephanopoulos did not moderate the presidential debate, despite it being ABC News’ most high-profile event in years, and his core competency being politics. He did not even participate in the post-debate analysis panel.

Previously, Mr. Stephanopoulos conducted the first TV interview with President Biden after his disastrous debate performance. The interview – during which Mr. Stephanopoulos appeared to be communicating to Mr. Biden, through his line of questioning, that he should resign in order to preserve his legacy – was viewed by some observers as part of the Democratic establishment’s ultimately successful pressure campaign to get Mr. Biden to yield.

Shortly after the debate, Mr. Stephanopoulos was caught on camera at Manhattan in his workout clothes, telling a passerby he did not believe Mr. Biden could serve another four years. The incident was a highly unusual slip for the famously guarded TV star, with some observers wondering if it was deliberate.

As for Trump’s defamation lawsuit, Mr. Belloni said it seemed to be “very winnable” for ABC News as Mr. Stephanopoulos “did falsely say Trump was found liable for rape.” 

“But that kind of fleeting error, especially against a public figure like Trump, almost never rises above the high ‘actual malice’ hurdle in defamation cases,” he said. 

But Disney was facing a hostile courtroom – in the beet-red Florida panhandle with a judge appointed by Governor DeSantis – and his rulings so far had been wholly inimical to the ABC News team. In fact, Mr. Stephanopoulos had just been ordered to sit for a multi-hour deposition, beginning a “discovery” process during which Disney would be forced to disgorge internal emails and texts which could be embarrassing and reveal its executives’ and on-camera personalities’ hostility to Trump.

Indeed, Mr. Belloni noted that one theory behind the massive settlement is that executives at ABC and Disney were afraid of the discovery process. Another theory is that the settlement was an attempt to curry favor with Trump, after Disney’s lengthy battle with Mr. DeSantis over gay rights issues in Florida turned into a public relations nightmare for the company.

In 2017, ABC News settled another libel suit, with a South Dakota meat processor, for $177 million for defaming the lean, finely textured beef it sold by calling it “pink slime” and urging school systems to drop the product. A similar, nine figure verdict in the Trump case would have to be appealed and, even if winnable once it got out of the Florida courtroom, would take years to resolve and, along with the bad publicity, incur legal fees perhaps in excess of $15 million. 

Looming over ABC News was also cognizance of the almost $800 million settlement Fox News recently paid to the Dominion voting machine company. 

The ABC News defamation lawsuit stems from a March interview on “This Week” in which Mr. Stephanopoulos grilled Congresswoman Nancy Mace over her support for Trump. The ABC News anchor claimed Trump had been found liable for raping columnist E. Jean Carroll. The president-elect was found liable in a civil lawsuit for sexually abusing Ms. Carroll. However, the jury checked the “no” box on the question of whether the “preponderance of the evidence” showed Trump “raped Ms. Carroll.” 

Trump sued the network, claiming Mr. Stephanopoulos displayed “actual malice”— the standard required for public figures to prove they were defamed — by “knowingly or recklessly making multiple false and disparaging statements regarding Plaintiff during ABC broadcasts.”

In an appearance on CBS’ late night show, Mr. Stephanopoulos said he refused to back down, citing remarks by the judge in the Carroll case as saying the jury’s ruling on rape vs sexual abuse was merely a matter of semantics.

The decision to settle the defamation lawsuit in the face of what was seen as a winnable lawsuit left liberal journalists fuming. NBC News’s chief political analyst, Chuck Todd, called the decision a “gut punch” for the media and insisted it set a bad precedent for the news industry. Meanwhile, MSNBC’s Jen Psaki, the former Biden press secretary, said the settlement is proof Trump’s strategy of “threats and pressure and intimidation” is working. 

Mr. Iger signed off on the settlement, according to the Journal, following advice from Disney’s general counsel. Executives at Disney reportedly fretted that if the company appealed a loss to the Supreme Court, the conservative majority might strip away at the landmark defamation protections afforded to press outlets under the New York Times v. Sullivan ruling.

Besides outrage over the settlement, some media insiders are upset that Mr. Stephanopoulos is still at the network earning a massive salary. A former ABC News staffer told Fox News that it is “disgraceful” the anchor “continues to earn an eight-figure salary” even as the morning show he co-anchors, “Good Morning America,” has seen its ratings plummet and is now in second place behind NBC’s “Today.”

While Mr. Stephanopoulos, who has an active social life on the east end of Long Island,  reportedly enjoys up to 100 days off as part of his contract, staffers at ABC News are reportedly furious. The New York Post reported that while the hosts of “Good Morning America” enjoy exorbitant pay packages, staffers are forced to work in a “decrepit” office building where the WiFi and heat frequently do not work. Disney is moving its staff to a new headquarters at downtown Manhattan, and staff who have yet to be moved are still working in the old Disney complex, now slated for demolition to make way for a luxury condominium tower, and basic building functions have ceased to operate properly.

ABC News did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment by the time of publication.