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Donald Trump is suing the BBC, demanding billions in damages
International

Donald Trump is suing the BBC, demanding billions in damages

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US President Donald Trump has sued the BBC for defamation over edited excerpts of a speech that made it appear he was ordering supporters to storm the US Capitol, opening an international front in his fight against media reporting he deems untrue or unfair.
Trump accused Britain’s public broadcaster of defaming him by piecing together parts of a Jan. 6, 2021, speech, including a portion in which he told supporters to march to the Capitol and another in which he said to “fight like hell.” A part in which he called for peaceful protest was omitted.

The lawsuit against Trump alleges that the BBC defamed him and violated a Florida law banning deceptive and unfair trade practices. He is seeking US$5 billion ($7.5 billion) in damages for each of the two counts in the lawsuit.

The BBC has apologized to Trump, admitting an error in judgment and acknowledging that the edit gave the false impression that he had made a direct call for violent action. But it says there is no legal basis to file a lawsuit.
Trump said in his lawsuit filed in Miami federal court on Monday (local time) that the BBC, despite its apology, “has not demonstrated actual remorse for its wrongdoing nor meaningful institutional changes to prevent future journalistic abuses.”
The BBC is funded through a mandatory license fee for all TV viewers, with British lawyers saying any payout to Trump could be politically fraught.

A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said in a statement that the BBC “has a long-standing pattern of misleading its audiences in reporting on President Trump, all in service of its own left-wing political agenda.”

The BBC’s director general Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness both resigned after criticism of the documentary’s editing. Source: Anadolu / Anadolu via Getty Images

A BBC spokesperson told Reuters earlier on Monday that there has been “no further contact with President Trump’s lawyers at this time. Our position remains the same.” The broadcaster did not immediately respond to a request for comment after the lawsuit was filed.

Facing one of the biggest crises in its 103-year history, the BBC has said it has no plans to rebroadcast the documentary on any of its platforms.
The dispute over the clip, which was featured in the BBC documentary Panorama shortly before the 2024 presidential election, led to a PR crisis for the broadcaster, leading to the resignation of its two most senior officials.

Trump’s lawyers say the BBC has caused him enormous reputational and financial damage.

The documentary came under scrutiny after the leak of a BBC memo by an external standards consultant who raised concerns about the way the documentary had been edited, part of a wider investigation into political bias at the publicly funded broadcaster.
The documentary was not broadcast in the US.
Defamation claims in Britain must be brought within one year of publication, a period closed for the Panorama episode.
To circumvent the U.S. Constitution’s legal protections for freedom of speech and the press, Trump will have to prove not only that the edit was false and defamatory, but also that the BBC knowingly misled viewers or acted recklessly.
The broadcaster could argue that the documentary was largely true and that its editing decisions did not create a false impression, legal experts said. It could also argue that the program has not damaged Trump’s reputation.
Other media outlets have settled with Trump, including CBS and ABC when Trump sued them after his comeback victory in the November 2024 election.
Trump has filed lawsuits against the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and an Iowa newspaper, all of which have denied wrongdoing.
The attack on the US Capitol in January 2021 was intended to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential victory over Trump in the 2020 US election.

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