Donald Trump Is Suing the BBC for $10 Billion Over Claims of Defamation

If you've followed President Trump's exploits through his first year in office, you're likely aware that he has spent a decent amount of time suing various news organizations over claims that they are attacking him in some way. In the early days of the administration, companies like CBS and ABC settled with the president, and now, the president is going after the BBC, one of the biggest news providers in the world.

Following the news that the BBC is being sued by Trump, many wanted to better understand why the BBC was being singled out in this way. Here's what we know.

According to CNBC, the president filed a civil complaint on Dec. 15 alleging that the BBC had produced a “false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction of President Trump” in a Panorama documentary that aired one week prior to the 2024 election. The suit further suggests that the documentary was designed as “a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence the Election’s outcome to President Trump’s detriment.”

More specifically, the suit seems to suggest that the documentary, which was titled Trump: A Second Chance, edits Trump's speech made on Jan. 6, 2021, so that it seems like he was directly encouraging his supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol.

The issue appears to have occurred because the BBC edited together two segments of Trump's speech that, in real time, were separated by almost an hour.

“The Panorama Documentary falsely depicted President Trump telling supporters: ‘We’re going to walk 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.'" President Trump never uttered this sequence of words.”

Instead, the segment starting with "And we fight" came 55 minutes after the first section.

Trump has been suggesting that he may sue over the documentary for some time. In November, the BBC issued a statement saying that the edit was made in error, but that they didn't think they should be sued over it.

“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 broadcaster said in a statement.

Trump's complaint also argues that this is just one example of the bias of the BBC, arguing that it is “Part of the BBC’s longstanding pattern of manipulating President Trump’s speeches and presenting content in a misleading manner in order to defame him, including fabricating calls for violence that he never made.”

Of course, there is evidence that Trump and those around him played a direct role in the violence that took place on Jan. 6, even if his speech was edited in this way. It's worth noting, also, that Trump's team does not dispute the fact that Trump said everything the BBC quoted him as saying, even if he said those things with other stuff in the middle.