The US president accuses the British broadcaster of attempting to influence last year’s election
U.S. President Donald Trump has filed a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC, claiming the British public broadcaster manipulated footage of his January 6, 2021 address to make it seem he incited violence at the U.S. Capitol.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in a federal court in Miami, alleges that the BBC’s 2024 Panorama documentary combined remarks made nearly an hour apart and paired them with footage of protesters marching toward Congress, which was recorded before Trump had started speaking.
“They had me saying statements I never made… They literally put awful words in my mouth,” Trump told reporters on Monday.
Last month, the BBC acknowledged that the editing created “the false impression that President Trump had directly called for violent action,” issuing a formal apology. Chairman Samir Shah directly wrote to Trump to express “sincere regret” and promised not to reair the segment.
Trump had previously accused the BBC of trying to influence the vote with the documentary, which first aired just a week before last year’s U.S. presidential election. The lawsuit also condemned it as “a flagrant attempt to meddle in and sway the election result to President Trump’s disadvantage.”
He is seeking $5 billion in damages for defamation and another $5 billion under Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. His legal team characterized the broadcaster’s behavior as “malicious,” stating that the selective editing “could not have been an accident.” A spokesperson stated the BBC “has a long history of deceiving its audience in coverage of President Trump, all to serve its own leftist political agenda.”
The BBC declined to comment further after the filing but previously said it had not received contact from Trump’s lawyers since the apology. The network, funded by a mandatory license fee in the UK, maintains there is “no legal ground” for the defamation claim and has vowed to fight the lawsuit in court “to safeguard our license fee payers.”