Trump slaps BBC with $10 billion defamation lawsuit: All you need to know

President Donald Trump has filed a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), alleging that the public broadcaster deliberately misled viewers by deceptively editing his 6 January 2021 speech in a pre-election documentary.

The lawsuit, filed on Monday at the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, contains one count of defamation and one count of violating Florida trade practices law. According to court documents, Trump’s legal team is seeking $5 billion in damages for each count.

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At the centre of the lawsuit is a BBC Panorama documentary that aired in the United Kingdom about one week before the 2024 US presidential election. The programme examined Trump’s speech delivered at the Ellipse on 6 January 2021, shortly before the Capitol riot.

The lawsuit claims the BBC “intentionally and maliciously” edited the documentary in a way that misled viewers by splicing together excerpts from Trump’s speech that were delivered 55 minutes apart. It further alleges that the broadcaster omitted Trump’s call for supporters to protest “peacefully and patriotically”.

According to the complaint, the documentary combined three quotations from two separate portions of the speech, delivered nearly an hour apart, into what appeared to be a single continuous statement suggesting Trump urged supporters to march with him and “fight like hell”.

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Trump’s lawyers described the documentary as presenting “a false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory and malicious depiction” of the president.

Speaking to reporters at the White House on Monday, Trump announced the lawsuit and accused the BBC of fabricating his words.

“I’m suing the BBC for putting words in my mouth,” Trump said. “They actually put terrible words in my mouth about January 6 that I didn’t say.”

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The lawsuit alleges that concerns were raised internally at the BBC before the Panorama documentary was broadcast, but that the network ignored those warnings and failed to take corrective action.

Reports indicate that the programme came under scrutiny following the leak of a BBC memo from an external standards adviser, which questioned the editing as part of a wider review into alleged political bias at the publicly funded broadcaster.

The BBC has apologised to Trump and acknowledged that the editing was “an error of judgement” that created the mistaken impression he had made a direct call for violence. However, the broadcaster maintains that there is no legal basis for the lawsuit.

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In a statement issued in November, the BBC said it strongly disagreed with claims that the documentary amounted to defamation. A BBC spokesperson told Reuters on Monday that the network had received no further communication from Trump’s lawyers and that its position remained unchanged.

The BBC has also confirmed it has no plans to rebroadcast the documentary. BBC Chairman Samir Shah previously described the editing as an error of judgement, which led to the resignations of the broadcaster’s top executive and its head of news. No financial compensation was offered to Trump as part of the apology.

Legal analysts note that Trump faces significant constitutional challenges in pursuing the case. Under US law, public figures must prove that defamatory material was published with “actual malice”, meaning it was knowingly false or published with reckless disregard for the truth.

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BBC lawyers argue that Trump cannot meet this standard. They have also challenged the Florida court’s jurisdiction, stating that the documentary was not broadcast in the United States or made available on the BBC’s website for US audiences.

Trump’s legal team counters that the BBC can be sued in Florida because the documentary was accessible to US viewers through BritBox, a streaming service.

The lawsuit is the third legal action Trump has taken against a media organisation while serving as president. He filed a $15 billion lawsuit against The New York Times in September and sued The Wall Street Journal in July.

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Several major media companies have recently settled disputes with Trump. Paramount, the parent company of CBS News, agreed to pay $16 million to resolve claims relating to an allegedly edited 60 Minutes interview with Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. ABC also paid $15 million to settle separate legal claims brought by Trump.