President Donald Trump sued the BBC for $5 billion Monday over its “false, deceptive and defamatory” edit of Panorama documentary “Trump: A Second Chance?,” making good on weeks of threats against the British broadcaster.
“The formerly respected and now disgraced BBC defamed President Trump by intentionally, maliciously and deceptively doctoring his speech in a brazen attempt to interfere in the 2024 Presidential Election,” a spokesperson for the president’s legal team said in a statement obtained by TheWrap.
The statement continued: “The BBC has a long pattern of deceiving its audience in coverage of President Trump, all in service of its own leftist political agenda. President Trump’s powerhouse lawsuit is holding the BBC accountable for its defamation and reckless election interference just as he has held other fake news mainstream media responsible for their wrongdoing.”
Representatives for the BBC did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of Florida on Monday, accuses the BBC of editing a clip of Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021 speech in Washington, D.C. to appear as if the president was calling on his voters to “walk down to the Capitol” and “fight like hell” moments before the violent insurrection took place. The documentary, which aired Oct. 28, 2024 ahead of the November presidential election, also edited out Trump saying, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
The lawsuit claims that the edits were “a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence the Election’s outcome to President Trump’s detriment.”
Trump targeted the British public broadcaster in November over the documentary, threatening a $1 billion lawsuit unless BBC leadership retracted the program, issued an apology and agreed to “appropriately compensate” Trump for damages done by a set deadline. On Nov. 13, the BBC apologized for the edits to his Jan. 6, 2021, speech in Washington, fulfilling one of the three demands to prevent the lawsuit. The broadcaster also pulled the documentary from all streaming platforms and has stated it will not be rebroadcast.
However, the BBC stopped short of admitting the edits were defamatory. “The BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited, we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim,” a spokesperson said at the time. BBC Chair Samir Shah also sent a letter to the White House “making clear to President Trump that he and the Corporation are sorry for the edit.”
The October 2024 documentary ignited Trump’s fury over a year after it first aired after an internal memo alleging the broadcaster “completely misled” viewers was leaked to the Telegraph last month. The memo ignited a wave of controversy in the U.K. and led to the resignations of its director general, Tim Davie, and its head of BBC News, Deborah Turness.
“These are very dishonest people who tried to step on the scales of a Presidential Election,” Trump wrote on Truth Social after the executives’ resignations. “On top of everything else, they are from a Foreign Country, one that many consider our Number One Ally. What a terrible thing for Democracy!”
