Trump Launches $10bn Defamation Lawsuit Against BBC over Panorama Speech Edits

President Donald Trump on Monday filed a lawsuit seeking at least $10 billion from the BBC over a documentary that edited his 6 January 2021 address ahead of the U.S. Capitol riot. The speech and doctored edits in question aired in a Panorama documentary.

Trump accused the broadcaster of defamation and of violating a trade practices law, according to documents filed in federal court in Miami as seen and reported by the BBC.

The BBC apologised to Trump last month over the bungled report but rejected his demands for compensation.

The broadcaster said it had investigated itself and acknowledged the edit had given “the mistaken impression” he had “made a direct call for violent action”, but disagreed there was basis for a defamation claim.

In November, a leaked internal BBC memo criticised how the speech was edited, and led to the resignations of the BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, and its head of news, Deborah Turness.

The lawsuit seeks “damages in an amount not less than $5,000,000,000” for each of two counts against the British broadcaster, for alleged defamation and violation of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

Trump, 79, had said earlier on Monday the lawsuit was imminent, claiming the BBC had “put words in my mouth,” even positing that “they used AI or something.”

The video in question spliced together two separate sections of Trump’s speech on January 6, 2021 in a way that made it appear he explicitly urged supporters to attack the Capitol, where lawmakers were certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 election win.

He did no such thing.

“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 said in a statement to AFP.

“The BBC has a long pattern of deceiving its audience in coverage of President Trump, all in service of its own leftist political agenda,” the statement added.

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