- Trump is seeking $5 billion on each of two counts.
- BBC faces crisis, redundancies over editing of documentary.
- Admits errors of judgment but denies legal basis for action.
President Donald Trump sued the BBC for defamation on Monday over edited clips of a speech that made it appear he directed supporters to storm the US Capitol, opening an international front in his fight against media coverage he deems untrue or unfair.
Trump accused Britain’s state-owned broadcaster of defaming him by splicing together parts of a January 6, 2021 speech, including a section where he told supporters to march on the Capitol and another where he said “fight like hell”. It omitted a section where he called for peaceful protest.
Trump’s lawsuit claims the BBC defamed him and violated a Florida law that prevents deceptive and unfair trade practices. He is seeking $5 billion in damages for each of the lawsuit’s two counts.
The BBC has apologized to Trump, admitting an error in judgment and acknowledging that the editing gave the false impression that he had made a direct call for violence. But the broadcaster has said there is no legal basis to sue.
Trump said in his lawsuit filed Monday in federal court in Miami that the BBC, despite its apology, “has shown no real remorse for its wrongdoing or meaningful institutional changes to prevent future journalistic abuses.”
The BBC is funded through a compulsory license fee on all television viewers, which British lawyers say could make any payout to Trump politically fraught.
A spokesman for Trump’s legal team said in a statement that the BBC “has a long pattern of deceiving its audience in its coverage of President Trump, all in service of its own left-wing political agenda.”
A BBC spokesman told Reuters earlier on Monday that it had “no further contact from President Trump’s lawyers at this stage. Our position remains the same.” The broadcaster did not immediately respond to a request for comment after the suit was filed.
Crisis led to layoffs
Facing one of the biggest crises in its 103-year history, the BBC has said it has no plans to rebroadcast the documentary on any of its platforms.
The row over the clip, shown on the BBC’s documentary program “Panorama” shortly before the 2024 presidential election, sparked a public relations crisis for the broadcaster, leading to the resignation of its two most senior officials.
Trump’s lawyers say the BBC caused him overwhelming reputational and financial damage.
The documentary came under scrutiny following the leak of a BBC memo from an external standards adviser raising concerns about how it was edited, part of a wider investigation into political bias at the publicly funded broadcaster.
The documentary was not broadcast in the United States.
Trump may have sued in the U.S. because defamation claims in Britain must be made within a year of publication, a window that closed for the “Panorama” episode.
To overcome the US Constitution’s legal protections for free speech and the press, Trump must prove not only that the editing was false and defamatory, but also that the BBC deliberately misled viewers or acted recklessly.
The broadcaster could argue that the documentary was essentially true and that its editing decisions did not create a false impression, legal experts said. It could also argue that the program did not harm Trump’s reputation.
Other media outlets have settled with Trump, including CBS and ABC, when Trump sued them following his comeback victory in the November 2024 election.
Trump has filed lawsuits against the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and an Iowa newspaper, all three of which have denied wrongdoing.
The attack on the US capital in January 2021 aimed to block Congress from confirming Joe Biden’s presidential victory over Trump in the 2020 US election.
