ABC Drops Terry Moran After Social Media Post

ABC News dropped anchor correspondent Terry Moran after he posted on X (formerly Twitter), calling far right White House aide Stephen Miller and Donald Trump “world-class” haters.

Moran had been with ABC News almost thirty years. He had served as a foreign correspondent, chief White House correspondent and anchor of Nightline.

A month and a half earlier, Moran interviewed Trump. His reporting had long been regarded as careful and more conservative than that of most colleagues. He asked about Trump’s false claims about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was unlawfully deported to El Salvador. The federal government dragged its heels and did all it could to avoid retrieving him despite court orders, including from the Supreme Court. Irritated by Moran’s persistence on the topic, Trump told Moran he had “never heard of you” and “You’re not being very nice.”

Trump indicated he had given Moran a “big break” by granting the interview and Moran should stick with topics Trump liked.

In December 2024, ABC’s corporate parent the Walt Disney Co., agreed to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit by Trump over anchor George Stephanopoulos’ statements that in a civil trial Trump was found liable for rape. Those statements were based on the actual outcome of Trump’s civil trial in New York City, but Disney chose to pay money to end the problem of Trump’s lawsuit.

The soon-deleted post said (unedited):

The thing about Stephen Miller is not that he is the brains behind Trumpism.

Yes, he is one of the people who conceptualizes the impulses of the Trumpist movement and translates them into policy.

But that’s not what’s interesting about Miller.

It’s not brains. It’s bile.

Miller is a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred. He’s a world-class hater.

You can see this just by looking at him because you can see that his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats his hate.

Trump is a world-class hater. But his hatred only a means to and end, and that end his his own glorification. That’s his spiritual nourishment.

Moran was quickly suspended, then dropped after a few days.

ABC News’ announcement said in a statement:

We are at the end of our agreement with Terry Moran and based on his recent post—which was a clear violation of ABC News policies—we have made the decision to not renew. At ABC News, we hold all of our reporters to the highest standards of objectivity, fairness and professionalism, and we remain committed to delivering straightforward, trusted journalism.

Moran promptly launched as an independent journalist on Substack.

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