Donald Trump, President of the USA, filed a defamation lawsuit against the British broadcaster BBC. The litigation was filed in a federal court in Southern Florida, USA, on Monday night.
The legal action was initiated following a public announcement Trump made to reporters at the White House. The lawsuit alleges that the BBC produced a false and malicious description of the president in a documentary.
Trump is seeking at least 5 thousand million dollars in damages. This action is part of a series of defamation lawsuits the president has filed against various media outlets.
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Why did Trump sue the BBC?
The controversy originates from the documentary «Trump: A Second Chance», aired by the Panorama program. The program edited the speech Trump delivered on January 6, 2021.
The edit spliced together two fragments of the speech delivered nearly an hour apart.The edited sequence showed Trump saying: «We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and I will be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell».
The lawsuit contends that this edit created the impression the president was directly urging his supporters to attack the Capitol. The BBC omitted from the clip a portion of the speech where Trump called for a peaceful protest.
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The lawsuit process
The defamation lawsuit against the BBC was filed in the Southern District of Florida. Trump’s lawyers included a second count for violating the state’s deceptive trade practices law. The claim for compensation amounts to five billion dollars for each of the two counts.
Samir Shah, Chairman of the BBC, had already apologized on November 13, 2025, for an «error in judgment» in the editing. The corporation also promised not to air the documentary again on any of its platforms.
Despite the apology, the broadcaster refused to pay financial compensation and stated it saw no legal basis for the lawsuit. The internal crisis caused by the case resulted in the resignation of Director-General Tim Davie and News Chief Deborah Turness.
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Legal experts indicate Trump will face the challenge of proving the BBC acted with knowledge of falsity. USA laws strongly protect speech on matters of public interest. The network’s defense could argue the program was not distributed in the USA and did not cause reputational harm, given Trump was re-elected.
What was the BBC’s response?
The BBC responded to the lawsuit announcement by reiterating its stance. A corporation statement, dated November 13, 2025, expressed its disagreement with the existence of grounds for a defamation lawsuit.
The network’s lawyers argued, in a letter to Trump’s legal team, that the editing was not done with malice. The broadcaster also maintained the documentary was restricted to viewers in the United Kingdom and was not aired on USA channels.
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The lawsuit filed by Trump against the BBC goes beyond this specific case and fits into a pattern of litigation by the president against media organizations. The outcome of the judicial process could set references regarding the limits of journalistic editing and the protection of public figures in the USA.
The case also casts a shadow over the editorial and self-regulation mechanisms of a global media institution like the BBC. The final resolution will depend on the parties’ ability to prove their arguments under strict defamation and free speech laws.
