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The immediate aftermath of ABC’s defamation settlement with President-Elect Donald Trump coincided with George Stephanopoulos’s scheduled turn to host ABC This Week. Stephanopoulos’s presentation was cosmetically muted, but unchanged in terms of bilious bias and disregard for facts.

The first apparent change in tone came during the show’s introduction: a focus on the drones of indeterminate (or undisclosed) origin flying over New Jersey, in lieu of the usual anti-Trump hysterics:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Good morning, and welcome to This Week. In its final weeks, the Biden administration is facing questions over mysterious flights over the night skies along the East Coast. Reports of unidentified aircraft over the state of New Jersey have been popping up for weeks. Reports of drone sightings have spread from Connecticut to Virginia. Federal officials say there’s little to worry about, but there’s no known foreign connection to the objects, and that many of them are traditional manned aircraft. But that answer has not satisfied state and local officials, and citizens worried about privacy and security. The Homeland Security Secretary will join us in a moment. Transportation correspondent Gio Benítez starts us off.

Hard news, as opposed to straight Dem-friendly politics, is a devation for This Week. There was an expectation that Stephanopoulos might, at some point in the program, deliver a statement of regret for his March 10th statement as outlined in the settlement of the defamatory lawsuit. However, that requirement was fulfilled with the following editor’s note, tacked to the bottom of the ABC News item covering the Steph-Mace interview:

Editor’s Note: ABC News and George Stephanopoulos regret statements regarding President Donald J. Trump made during an interview by George Stephanopoulos with Rep. Nancy Mace on ABC’s This Week on March 10, 2024.

The show’s tone with Stephanopoulos at the helm was muted, as was his lone Republican interview. There was no testy pushback of any responses given by U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) to his questions. But Stephanopoulos was still venomous:

STEPHANOPOULOS: The president’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has a history with Bashar al-Assad and his regime. She met with Assad-  she has said supportive things about him, said he wasn’t an enemy of the United States, also questioned whether he used chemical weapons. Does that give you any concerns as she faces confirmation for Director of National Intelligence?

ERIC SCHMITT: I know Tulsi Gabbard. She’s a patriot. She served our country honorably. She, I think, fits the reform agenda. President Trump ran on disrupting Permanent Washington and having people are going to view things differently. The intelligence agencies in this country were part of the Hunter Biden laptop, suppressing that story. There’s a lot of reform, George, that needs to happen in those agencies. Tulsi Gabbard is somebody who I think can execute on that, and she also is somebody that believes in our Constitution, individual liberties, and I think this smearing her as some sort of foreign asset is a slur against her, and I look forward to her opportunity to answer these questions in these Senate confirmation hearings.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you do have questions about her relationship with the Assad regime or no?

SCHMITT: No, not at all. I don’t think so. I mean, I don’t think it’s unusual for Members of Congress to visit foreign countries and talk to foreign leaders. In fact, what Joe Biden has done is not talk to anybody and not be respected. President Trump, I think, believes in engaging in diplomacy, solving these things. He wants to bring peace to Ukraine. I think that’s something the American people support.

What is this relationship that Stephanopoulos is suggesting here? Nancy Pelosi also sat down with Assad, does she have a relationship with him, too? Or does that warrant (D)ifferent coverage? In this case, it’s only Gabbard that is smeared as a Syrian asset. Schmitt rightfully went to the Hunter Biden laptop and the “Russian disinformation” letter circulated by the “Dirty 51” former intelligence officials. One suspects that the ongoing anti-Gabbard campaign is driven by a fear that she’ll rip the clearances of anyone involved in the several hoaxes and abuses of power

Whatever statement of regret was issued by ABC pursuant to the Trump settlement is belied by the fact that Stephanopoulos went right back to smearing people with whose worldview or politics he does not agree. Once a Clintonite smear merchant…