Lawyers for US President Donald Trump claim the BBC has caused overwhelming reputational and financial damage to the president.
Published December 16, 2025
US President Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against the BBC for at least $10 billion over an edited documentary of a speech he gave to supporters before the 2021 Capitol riot.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court in Miami, seeks “more than $5 billion in damages” for each of the two complaints against the British broadcaster for defamation and alleged violations of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.
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Earlier in the day, President Trump confirmed his plans to file a lawsuit.
“I’m literally accusing the BBC of putting words in my mouth…I think they used AI or something,” he told reporters at the White House.
“It’s called fake news.”
President Trump: “Literally suing the BBC for putting words in my mouth… I think they used AI or something… They actually put horrible words in my mouth in connection with January 6th, which I didn’t say.” pic.twitter.com/cUwXqBq3Zd
— CSPAN (@cspan) December 15, 2025
President Trump has accused British state television of defaming him by splicing together parts of his January 6, 2021, speech, including parts in which he called on his supporters to march on Parliament House and told them to “fight like hell.”
The edited portion of the speech also omitted Trump’s call for peaceful protests.
Trump’s lawsuit alleges that the BBC defamed him, and his lawyers claim the documentary caused him overwhelming reputational and financial damage.
The BBC has already apologized to Trump, acknowledged its error in judgment and acknowledged that its editing had wrongly given the impression that Trump had directly called for violence.
The broadcaster also said the suit had no legal basis and to defeat the US Constitution’s strong legal protections for free speech and the press, Trump would need to prove in court not only that the edits were false and defamatory, but also that the BBC intentionally misled viewers or acted recklessly.
Legal experts say the broadcaster could argue that the documentary is materially truthful and that editing decisions did not create a false impression. They could also argue that the show did not damage President Trump’s reputation.
Trump said in his lawsuit that despite the apology, the BBC “has shown no real remorse for its misconduct or meaningful systemic changes to prevent future journalistic abuses.”
A spokesperson for Mr Trump’s legal team said in a statement that the BBC had a “long-standing pattern of deceiving viewers with its coverage of President Trump, all for its own left-wing political purposes”.
The BBC did not immediately respond to a request for comment after the lawsuit was filed on Monday.
The controversy over an edited speech featured in the BBC documentary Panorama just before the 2024 presidential election has triggered a public relations crisis at the broadcaster and led to the resignation of two top executives.
Other news organizations, including CBS and ABC, settled with President Trump when he filed suit following his upset victory in the November 2024 election.
President Trump has also filed lawsuits against the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and an Iowa newspaper, all of which deny wrongdoing.
