President Donald Trump initiated a defamation lawsuit against the BBC in federal court in Miami on Monday night, demanding $10 billion in damages.
The civil suit claims that the British Broadcasting Corporation created a “false, defamatory, misleading, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious portrayal of President Trump” in a Panorama documentary aired a week prior to the 2024 election.
Trump’s lawsuit argues that the documentary was produced as part of “a blatant effort to meddle in and sway the outcome of the Election against President Trump.”
The suit highlights that the documentary, titled “Trump: A Second Chance,” was manipulated to make it seem that during his Jan. 6, 2021, address outside the White House, Trump explicitly called on his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol.
“The Panorama Documentary incorrectly portrayed President Trump instructing supporters: ‘We’re going to march down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,'” the complaint states. “President Trump never expressed this sequence of phrases.”
In reality, the suit contends, the sentence including “And we fight” was spoken by Trump nearly 55 minutes after he mentioned “I’ll be there with you.”
BBC Chair Samir Shah recently expressed regret for an “error in judgment” regarding the editing, leading to the resignations of the broadcaster’s director general and head of news.
CNBC has sought commentary from the BBC regarding Trump’s lawsuit, which demands $5 billion in damages for each of its two counts: defamation and breach of Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.
The BBC apologized to Trump on November 13 and assured that the documentary would not be broadcast again or made available on any of its platforms.
“While the BBC genuinely regrets the way the video clip was edited, we firmly maintain that there is no basis for a defamation claim,” the broadcaster stated in a statement on November 13.
A representative for Trump’s legal team remarked, “The once-respected and now disgraced BBC defamed President Trump by purposely, maliciously, and deceptively altering his speech in a blatant effort to interfere in the 2024 Presidential Election.”
“The BBC has a long-standing practice of misleading its audience in reporting on President Trump, all in pursuit of its own leftist political goals,” the representative added. “President Trump’s formidable lawsuit is holding the BBC accountable for its defamation and reckless election meddling, just as he has held other mainstream media for their misdeeds.”
Earlier on Monday, Trump informed journalists at the White House that the lawsuit would soon be initiated.
“Very soon, you’ll see that I’m taking legal action against the BBC for putting words in my mouth,” Trump said. “Literally, they fabricated speech that I never delivered.”
The lawsuit claims that “issues concerning the Panorama Documentary were flagged internally prior to its release, but the BBC disregarded those worries and failed to make corrections.”
The complaint further alleged that the documentary “is part of the BBC’s enduring practice of distorting President Trump’s speeches and presenting material in a misleading fashion to defame him, including fabricating violent calls he never made.”
This lawsuit represents the latest in a string of defamation suits that the famously litigious president has lodged against media organizations.
Trump previously filed a $15 billion lawsuit against The New York Times in September, accusing the publication of serving as a “mouthpiece” for the Democratic Party.
In July, Trump began a lawsuit seeking $10 billion in damages from media mogul Rupert Murdoch and the publisher of The Wall Street Journal over that newspaper’s report claiming Trump had sent his former associate Jeffrey Epstein a “racy” letter for Epstein’s 50th birthday.
Trump denies sending or composing that letter, which was included among the documents that Epstein’s estate has since provided to a congressional committee.
In October 2024, Trump sued CBS for $20 billion over what he claimed was misleading editing of an interview his then-opponent Kamala Harris gave to “60 Minutes.”
CBS’ parent company, Paramount Skydance, settled the lawsuit in July, agreeing to pay $16 million, with the funds designated for Trump’s future presidential library. The settlement occurred weeks before the Federal Communications Commission, led by a Trump appointee, approved Paramount’s plan for an $8 billion merger with Skydance Media.
In December 2024, ABC consented to pay $15 million toward Trump’s library to settle a defamation case linked to anchor George Stephanopoulos inaccurately depicting the civil jury verdict in a lawsuit against Trump by writer E. Jean Carroll.
