WASHINGTON, D.C., United States — President Donald Trump has initiated a $5 billion lawsuit against the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), accusing the broadcaster of defamation and violating Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. The lawsuit centers on the editing of his January 6, 2021, speech in a Panorama documentary that aired in the UK ahead of the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election.
According to court documents filed in Florida, Trump’s legal team alleges the BBC defamed him by “intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively doctoring his speech.”
The heart of the dispute lies in how the Panorama program presented remarks made by Trump before the riot at the U.S. Capitol.
In his actual speech on January 6, 2021, Trump initially told the crowd:
“We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.”
More than 50 minutes later in the speech, he followed up with:
“And we fight. We fight like hell.”
However, the clip broadcast in the Panorama documentary spliced these sections together, presenting the sequence as:
“We’re going to walk down to the Capitol… and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.”
The BBC previously acknowledged that this editing gave “the mistaken impression” that the President had “made a direct call for violent action.”
This admission, following a leaked internal memo that criticized the edit, led to the high-profile resignations of BBC Director-General Tim Davie and Head of News Deborah Turness last month.
Legal arguments and BBC defense
Before the lawsuit was filed, the BBC issued a formal apology for the edit but firmly rejected Trump’s demands for compensation, stating there was no “basis for a defamation claim.”
The BBC’s lawyers previously argued that the documentary caused no harm to Trump’s reputation, noting that he was re-elected shortly after the program aired. They also pointed out that the BBC did not distribute the documentary on its U.S. channels, as the program was restricted to viewers in the UK via the BBC iPlayer.
In his $5 billion lawsuit, however, Trump counters this jurisdictional defense by citing agreements the BBC had with other distributors. The suit specifically alleges that a third-party media corporation held licensing rights to the documentary outside the UK.
Also Read: BBC apologizes to Trump over Panaroma edit, rejects to pay $1bn compensation
Furthermore, the suit attempts to establish jurisdiction by claiming that Florida residents could have accessed the program via a Virtual Private Network (VPN) or the streaming service BritBox:
“The Panorama Documentary’s publicity, coupled with significant increases in VPN usage in Florida since its debut, establishes the immense likelihood that citizens of Florida accessed the Documentary before the BBC had it removed,” the lawsuit said.
The BBC has not yet issued a formal response to the lawsuit itself, nor have the alleged third-party distributors commented.
Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has publicly urged the Prime Minister to intervene, stating that Trump’s decision to sue the BBC is “unacceptable,” and appealing to other political leaders to “stand up for the BBC against Trump’s outrageous legal threat and protect licence fee payers from being hit in the pocket.”
