Trump Sues BBC Demanding at Least $10 Billion in Damages Over Edited Jan. 6 Documentary; Broadcaster Says ‘We Will Be Defending This Case’

UPDATED: The BBC has responded to President Donald Trump‘s lawsuit.

A BBC spokesperson said: “As we have made clear previously, we will be defending this case. We are not going to make further comment on ongoing legal proceedings.”

PREVIOUSLY: President Donald Trump has followed through on his threat to sue the BBC over the U.K. broadcaster’s documentary that edited his comments during the rally leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

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The lawsuit was filed Monday by Trump’s lawyers in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in Miami, alleging defamation and violation of Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. Trump’s lawsuit demands no less than $5 billion in damages for each of the two counts, amounting to more than $10 billion total.

“This action concerns a false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction of President Trump, which was published in a BBC Panorama documentary, that was fabricated and aired by the Defendants one week before the 2024 Presidential Election in a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence the Election’s outcome to President Trump’s detriment,” the 33-page complaint reads. (A copy is available at this link.)

The Trump lawsuit says, “The BBC, faced with overwhelming and justifiable outrage on both sides of the Atlantic, has publicly admitted its staggering breach of journalistic ethics, and apologized, but has made no showing of actual remorse for its wrongdoing nor meaningful institutional changes to prevent future journalistic abuses. Accordingly, President Trump brings this action for compensatory and punitive damages for the extensive reputational harm inflicted upon him by the Defendants.”

The BBC did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Trump’s lawsuit.

BBC chair Samir Shah last month told staff in an email that the broadcaster was “determined to fight” any Trump lawsuit. “There is a lot being written, said and speculated upon about the possibility of legal action, including potential costs or settlements,” Shah said in the email, as reported by Sky News. Shah wrote, “I want to be very clear with you — our position has not changed. There is no basis for a defamation case and we are determined to fight this.”

The episode of BBC’s “Panorama” documentary program in question, titled “Trump: A Second Chance?”, aired in Oct. 24, 2024 — but only erupted into a firestorm after a leaked memo published in early November 2025 by The Telegraph accused the broadcaster of editing Trump’s speech to make it sound like he encouraged the Jan. 6 riots.

A BBC review found that “Panorama” edited Trump’s Jan. 6 speech to be: “We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you and we fight. We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not gonna have a country anymore” — and that the part beginning with “and we fight” came 54 minutes after “we’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you.”

Trump’s lawsuit cited the BBC’s internal review, which concluded that there had been “a string of incidents that demonstrate serious bias in the corporation’s reporting.”

The resulting scandal led to the resignations of BBC director general Tim Davie and CEO of news Deborah Turness.

A previous letter from Trump’s lawyers to the BBC demanded a full retraction of the documentary, an apology and payment to “appropriately compensate President Trump for the harm caused.” Last month, the BBC issued an apology to Trump but refused to offer compensation. In a Nov. 14 statement, the corporation said, “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 also said it has no plans to rebroadcast the “Trump: A Second Chance?” documentary on any BBC platforms.

In seeking to establish the U.S. District Court’s jurisdiction over the matter, Trump’s lawsuit notes that the U.S. president is a citizen of Florida while all defendants “are citizens of the United Kingdom.” However, the suit claims, “during the operative period alleged in this Complaint,” the BBC “engaged in substantial and not isolated business activities in Florida” — including through the bbc.com website and the U.S.-based BritBox streaming service. The “Panorama” episode in question was available via BritBox; in addition, Florida residents likely used VPN software to access the documentary via the BBC iPlayer (normally restricted to access in the U.K.), the lawsuit alleges.

Moreover, “as plainly seen in the very beginning of the Panorama Documentary, the BBC’s producers and a film crew contracted by the BBC’s producers traveled to Florida to film significant portions of the Documentary at and around President Trump’s home, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida, spending substantial amounts of time in Florida and capturing extensive footage on and around the grounds of Mar-a-Lago, and surrounding areas, that the BBC ultimately used in the Documentary,” the Trump lawsuit alleges.

Trump has a long history of suing news outlets alleging defamation and attacking the media.

Trump recently sued the New York Times, alleging its reporting about his finances and business career defamed him, in a lawsuit seeking at least $15 billion in damages. (Trump lawyers refiled the suit in October after a judge had dismissed the original complaint for being “tedious and burdensome.”) The New York Times said Trump’s lawsuit was without merit and called it “merely an attempt to stifle independent reporting and generate PR attention.”

Separately, Trump this summer sued the Wall Street Journal, its parent companies Dow Jones and News Corp, Rupert Murdoch and two Journal reporters, alleging defamation over a WSJ story that described details of a birthday letter Trump sent in 2003 to Jeffrey Epstein. According to the lawsuit, Trump is demanding “not less than $10 billion” on two counts of defamation, for at least $20 billion total. Lawyers for the Wall Street Journal filed a motion to dismiss the suit, saying that Trump’s suit should be thrown out because the WSJ article in question “is true,” noting that in response to a congressional subpoena, “Epstein’s estate produced the Birthday Book, which contains the letter bearing the bawdy drawing and [Trump’s] signature, exactly as The Wall Street Journal reported.”

In 2024, Trump also sued ABC News and CBS News’ “60 Minutes.” Disney (parent of ABC News) and Paramount Global (parent of CBS) each paid $16 million to settle the cases. Trump sued ABC News and anchor George Stephanopoulos after Stephanopoulos falsely asserted on air that Trump had been found liable in a court case for raping writer E. Jean Carroll; in fact, a jury found Trump guilty of sexual abuse of Carroll. In the “60 Minutes” case, Trump had alleged a pre-election interview with former U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris was deceptively edited and thereby interfered with the 2024 election.