Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons / Tulane Public Relations, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons, Cropped by Resist the Mainstream

Donald Trump filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against ABC News and its presenter George Stephanopoulos, alleging defamation for being labeled a rapist during the latter's interview with Representative Nancy Mace.

In the interview, Stephanopoulos challenged Mace to justify why she had endorsed Trump despite the allegations of sexual misconduct against the former president. In asking this question, Stephanopoulos falsely claimed that Trump had been found liable for rape.

“You endorsed Donald Trump for president. Judges and two separate juries have found him liable for rape and for defaming the victim of that rape. How do you square your endorsement of Donald Trump with the testimony that we just saw?” Mr. Stephanopoulos asked Ms. Mace.

Mace, who had previously disclosed her own experience of rape at the age of 16, defended her endorsement amidst repeated mentions of Trump's legal battles concerning Carroll's rape allegations.

A New York jury last year concluded Trump sexually abused Carroll in 1996, although they did not rule it as rape. The judge later affirmed the rape claim was “substantially true” but qualified that under New York law, rape is defined specifically as a genital act. Carroll was awarded $83.3m for battery and defamation.

Mace, during the interview, expressed offense at Stephanopoulos's line of questioning and criticized the approach as shaming, potentially deterring women from coming forward about rape. She made a distinction between sexual assault and rape, asserting the allegations against Trump were not criminally proven and accusing Carroll of trivializing the gravity of rape by her public comments on the settlement.

The lawsuit, filed in Florida by Trump, characterizes the interview's statements as “false, intentional, malicious, and designed to cause harm.”