President Donald Trump has filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the British Broadcasting Corporation, accusing the UK public broadcaster of defamation and unfair trade practices stemming from a documentary aired days before the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
The 33-page complaint, submitted Monday in federal court in Florida, alleges the BBC produced a “false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction of President Trump” and describes the program as “a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence” the election.
At the center of the lawsuit is the claim that the BBC deliberately manipulated footage from Trump’s January 6, 2021, speech by “splicing together two entirely separate parts of President Trump’s speech on January 6, 2021” in order to “intentionally misrepresent the meaning of what President Trump said.” The suit seeks $5 billion in damages for defamation and an additional $5 billion for alleged unfair trade practices.
The dispute arises from an hour-long Panorama documentary titled “Trump: A Second Chance?” which aired shortly before the November 2024 election. The program combined three excerpts from Trump’s January 6 address—delivered nearly an hour apart—into what appeared to be a single continuous statement in which Trump urged supporters to march and “fight like hell.” The broadcast did not include Trump’s explicit call for a peaceful protest.
Trump’s January 6 speech preceded the storming of the U.S. Capitol by some of his supporters as Congress met to certify Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory, an outcome Trump has long claimed, without evidence, was fraudulent.
Speaking from the Oval Office on Monday, Trump said he pursued the lawsuit “for putting words in my mouth.”
“They actually put terrible words in my mouth having to do with Jan. 6 that I didn’t say, and they’re beautiful words, that I said, right?” Trump said. “They’re beautiful words, talking about patriotism and all of the good things that I said. They didn’t say that, but they put terrible words.”
“While the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited, we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim,” the BBC wrote on November 13.
Trump’s decision to file in Florida follows the expiration of statutes of limitation that would have allowed legal action in the United Kingdom more than a year earlier. Some legal analysts have raised doubts about the viability of the case in U.S. courts, noting that the Panorama episode was not formally broadcast within the United States.
Trump’s legal team argues that the documentary was nonetheless accessible to American audiences through the BritBox streaming platform and via virtual private networks.
The BBC, founded 103 years ago, is funded through a mandatory annual license fee of £174.50—about $230—paid by UK households that watch live television or consume its programming. Its royal charter requires political impartiality, a mandate that has drawn sustained criticism from across the political spectrum.
Last month, the BBC issued an apology to Trump over the editing decision.
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