Why is Donald Trump suing the BBC?
BBC news
16 December 2025
Ian Aikman
US President Donald Trump has filed a multi-billion dollar lawsuit against the BBC.
He has accused the corporation of defamation over an edit of his speech before the US Capitol riot in a Panorama documentary.
The lawsuit, which has been filed in Florida, demands $5bn (£3.7) and accuses the BBC of "intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively doctoring" Trump's speech.
The BBC has said it will defend the case.
It previously apologised to Trump for the edit, but disagreed there was a basis for a defamation claim.
What was in the BBC's Trump documentary?
The Panorama documentary, called Trump: A Second Chance?, was broadcast on 28 October 2024, just days before the US presidential election.
In his speech on 6 January 2021, Trump told a Washington DC 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 same speech, he said: "And we fight. We fight like hell."
In the Panorama programme, a clip showed him as saying: "We're going to walk down to the Capitol... and I'll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell."
Criticism of the edit emerged more than a year later when a leaked internal memo was published by the Telegraph newspaper.
This led to the resignations of the BBC's director general , Tim Davie, and its head of news, Deborah Turness.
BBC chairman Samir Shah apologised for the edit, which he described as an "error of judgement".
Trump's lawyers sent a letter to the BBC in November, demanding that it immediately retract the documentary, issue an apology, and compensate him. The BBC was given a deadline of 14 November to respond.
The letter added that if the BBC did not comply, the president might file legal action.
Before that deadline, the BBC apologised to Trump and confirmed the programme was not scheduled to be re-broadcast and would not be broadcast again in that form on any BBC platform, but rejected his demands for compensation.
A month later, on 15 December, Trump's legal team filed a lawsuit in Florida.
The filing alleges that the BBC:
defamed Trump "intentionally, with actual malice" by the edit of his speech for the Panorama documentary violated a Florida trade practices law by engaging in "deceptive acts" in editing the speech.
The introduction to the lawsuit says the Panorama edit was a "brazen attempt to interfere in and influence the [2024] election's outcome to President Trump's detriment ".
He is seeking $5bn (£3.7m) in damages.
After Trump filed the lawsuit, a BBC spokesperson said: "As we have made clear previously, we will be defending this case. We are not going to make further comment on ongoing legal proceedings."
Previously, the broadcaster said "we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim".
In its apology to Trump in November, the BBC said the edit resulted in "the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action".
BBC chairman Samir Shah separately sent a personal letter to the White House, making clear to Trump that he and the corporation were sorry.
However, the corporation rejected Trump's demands for compensation and set out five main arguments for why it did not think it had a case to answer.
Those arguments were:
The BBC did not have the rights to, and did not, distribute the Panorama episode on its US channels, and it was geographically restricted to viewers in the UK when it was on iPlayer
The documentary did not cause Trump harm as he was re-elected
The clip was not designed to mislead, but just to shorten a long speech, and the edit was not done with malice
The clip was never meant to be considered in isolation; rather, it was 12 seconds within an hour-long programme, which also contained many voices in support of Trump
An opinion on a matter of public concern and political speech is heavily protected under defamation laws in the US.The BBC has said it will defend the case.
Some US news organisations that Trump has sued recently paid multi-million dollar settlements to the president.
Before the case reaches trial, it could be dismissed by a judge. In September, a US federal judge dismissed Trump's $15bn defamation lawsuit against the New York Times because it was submitted with an "improper and impermissible" form, but allowed Trump to refile a shorter complaint.
Legal experts have said arguments over jurisdiction could play a central role, with the case hinging on whether anyone in Florida saw the documentary. The filing says the episode may have been available to viewers in Florida using a VPN or via the BritBox streaming service.
If it does go to trial, the US Constitution's First Amendment gives significant protection to freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
Trump would need to prove three major components - that the content published was factually false in a way that was defamatory; that he suffered harm due to the false and defamatory coverage; and that the media organisation knew it was false and acted with "actual malice".
Chris Ruddy, founder of conservative media outlet Newsmax, and an ally of Trump, told BBC Radio Four's Today programme that it was hard to win a defamation suit in the US because "the bar is very high".
But he said the litigation process could be damaging to the BBC's reputation and expensive, with costs possibly reaching between $50m (£37m) and $100m (£74m).
It is unclear when, or if, the case could go to trial, and how much it could cost the BBC.
Former BBC Radio controller Mark Damazer said it would be "extremely damaging to the BBC's reputation not to fight the case", arguing that the case was "about the BBC's independence".
Task 1. Read the article.
Task 2. Write out and transcribe unknown words.
Task 3. Be ready to explain the meaning of key vocabulary reated to the topic of the article.
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