President Donald Trump filed a $5 billion defamation lawsuit against the British Broadcasting Corporation on Monday, alleging it improperly edited footage of his Jan. 6, 2021, speech in a 2024 documentary.
The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Miami, argues the BBC spliced together portions of Trump’s remarks to show him explicitly encouraging violence at the U.S. Capitol.
“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 Trump’s legal team wrote in a statement. “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.”
In November, the BBC apologized for the edit but rejected any legal basis for a defamation claim over the documentary episode, “Trump: A Second Chance?,” which aired in October 2024 ahead of last year’s presidential election.
The BBC did not immediately respond to a request for comment after the suit was filed Monday, but said earlier in the day that it had not had any contact with Trump’s legal team and its previous statement remained the same. “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 Nov. 13.
BBC Director General Tim Davie and News CEO Deborah Turness resigned in November amid the controversy, which began after the Telegraph, a British newspaper, published a whistleblower report from Michael Prescott, a former BBC editorial standards adviser.
“I’m suing the BBC for putting words in my mouth — literally to put words in my mouth,” Trump said earlier Monday. “They had me saying things that I never said coming out. I guess they used AI or something. So we’ll be bringing that lawsuit. A lot of people are asking, when are you bringing that lawsuit? Even the media can’t believe that one day they actually put terrible words in my mouth.” The complaint does not mention artificial intelligence.
Legal experts have said Trump faces significant hurdles in proving defamation, particularly the requirement to show the BBC knowingly and intentionally published false information.
“Even if Trump could point to inaccuracies in the documentary, mere mistakes are not enough; he’d need evidence that the BBC at least subjectively doubted the truth of what it published,” Jonathan Peters, a media law expert and associate dean at the University of Georgia’s journalism school, previously wrote in an email.
Mark Stephens, a lawyer at the London-based firm Howard Kennedy, noted that the one-year statute of limitations to sue for defamation in the U.K. expired in October.
The suit not only alleges defamation but also a violation of Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, and requests a jury trial.
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