U.S. President Donald Trump has filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the BBC, accusing the British public broadcaster of defamation and deceptive trade practices over its editing of his January 6, 2021 speech. The 33-page lawsuit, filed Monday in a Florida court, alleges the BBC aired a “false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction” of Trump. It claims the broadcaster deliberately manipulated footage in a way that misrepresented his words and interfered with the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
According to the lawsuit, the BBC spliced together separate portions of Trump’s speech delivered nearly an hour apart, presenting them as a single continuous statement. Trump’s legal filing argues the edit falsely suggested he encouraged violence by urging supporters to “fight like hell,” while omitting remarks in which he called for peaceful protest. Trump is seeking $5 billion in damages for defamation and an additional $5 billion for alleged unfair and deceptive trade practices.
The BBC has not issued an immediate response to the lawsuit. Last month, however, the broadcaster apologized to Trump over the edited segment but rejected claims that it amounted to defamation. BBC chairman Samir Shah previously described the edit as an “error of judgment,” a controversy that led to the resignations of the corporation’s top executive and head of news. The disputed footage appeared in an hourlong BBC documentary titled “Trump: A Second Chance?”, which aired days before the 2024 U.S. election.
The documentary edited together three quotes from Trump’s January 6 speech, delivered shortly before some of his supporters later stormed the U.S. Capitol as Congress moved to certify Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory — a result Trump has repeatedly and falsely claimed was stolen. Among the material cut from the broadcast was Trump’s statement calling on supporters to demonstrate peacefully, a key omission cited in the lawsuit as evidence of intentional misrepresentation.
