US President Donald Trump has filed a $5bn lawsuit against the BBC, accusing the broadcaster of defamation and deceptive trade practices over an edited clip of his 6 January 2021 speech used in a Panorama documentary. The case, filed in Florida, claims the BBC “intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively” altered the sequence of his remarks, giving the impression that he made a direct call for violent action at the US Capitol.
The complaint centres on a Panorama edit that combined two separate lines from Trump’s speech. The documentary presented the clip as: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol… and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.” In his original remarks, the first phrase appeared early in the speech, while the second occurred more than 50 minutes later.
The BBC acknowledged last month that the edit created “the mistaken impression” of a direct incitement but said there was “no basis for a defamation claim”. The broadcaster apologised but rejected Trump’s demands for compensation, arguing there was no malice and no demonstrable harm, noting that Trump was re-elected shortly after the documentary aired in the UK.
The Panorama edit led to internal criticism within the BBC and the subsequent resignations of Director General Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness following a leaked internal memo that questioned the handling of the footage.
In the lawsuit, Trump claims the programme was accessible to viewers in the US, despite BBC statements that the documentary did not air on its American channels and that BBC iPlayer access is restricted to the UK. The filing argues that distribution agreements with third-party broadcasters could have made the documentary available outside the UK, and also cites VPN usage as a means by which viewers in Florida may have accessed the programme.
BBC lawyers previously said the organisation had not distributed the documentary in the United States and disputed that the broadcaster could be held liable for viewing through VPNs or other platforms. The BBC has not yet responded to the lawsuit, and the corporation identified in the filing as a third-party distributor has also not commented.
Trump had publicly signalled his intention to file the lawsuit, claiming the edit “changed the words coming out of my mouth”. The case forms part of a broader legal landscape surrounding media representations of the 2021 Capitol events and Trump’s ongoing disputes with news organisations over coverage of his presidency and re-election campaign.