Trump sues BBC for $10 billion, claims defamation from Panorama documentary

President Donald Trump filed a defamation lawsuit against the BBC in Miami federal court on Monday night, seeking $10 billion in damages.

The civil complaint accuses the British Broadcasting Corporation of producing a “false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction of President Trump” in a Panorama documentary aired one week before the 2024 election.

Trump’s suit alleges the documentary was produced as part of “a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence the Election’s outcome to President Trump’s detriment.”

The suit notes that the documentary, titled “Trump: A Second Chance,” was edited to make it appear that during his Jan. 6, 2021, speech outside the White House, Trump had explicitly urged his supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol.

“The Panorama Documentary falsely depicted President Trump telling supporters: ‘We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,’ ” the suit says. “President Trump never uttered this sequence of words.”

In fact, the suit says, the sentence containing the words “And we fight” was uttered by Trump nearly 55 minutes after he said the words “I’ll be there with you.”

BBC Chair Samir Shah recently apologized for an “error of judgment” over the edit, and the broadcaster’s director general and head of news both resigned.

CNBC has requested comment from the BBC on Trump’s suit, which seeks $5 billion in damages for each of its two counts: defamation, and violation of Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

The BBC apologized to Trump on Nov. 13 and promised not to air the documentary again or show it on any of its platforms.

“While the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited, we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim,” the broadcaster said in a statement on Nov. 13.

A spokesman for Trump’s legal team, in a statement, said, “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.”

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 spokesman said. “President Trump’s powerhouse lawsuit is holding the BBC accountable for its defamation and reckless election interference just as he has held other fake news mainstream media responsible for their wrongdoing.”