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."
Trump earlier Monday told reporters at the White House that the lawsuit would soon be filed.
"In a little while, you'll be seeing I'm suing the BBC for putting words in my mouth," Trump said. "Literally, they put words in my mouth. They had me saying things that I never said coming out."
The suit alleges that "concerns about the Panorama Documentary were raised internally before its dissemination, but the BBC ignored those concerns and did not take corrective action."
The complaint also said the documentary "is part of the BBC's longstanding pattern of manipulating President Trump's speeches and presenting content in a misleading manner in order to defame him, including fabricating calls for violence that he never made."
The suit is the latest in a series of defamation complaints that the notoriously litigious president has filed against media outlets.
Trump filed a $15 billion lawsuit against The New York Times in September, accusing the newspaper of being a "mouthpiece" for the Democratic Party.
In July, Trump filed a lawsuit seeking $10 billion in damages from media baron Rupert Murdoch and the publisher of The Wall Street Journal over that newspaper's report that Trump sent his then-friend Jeffrey Epstein a "bawdy" letter for Epstein's 50th birthday.
Trump denies sending or authoring that letter, which was among the documents that the notorious sex offender Epstein's estate has since turned over to a congressional committee.
Trump sued CBS for $20 billion in October 2024 over what he alleged was deceptive editing of an interview that his then-election opponent Kamala Harris gave to "60 Minutes."
CBS' parent, Paramount Skydance, in July agreed to pay $16 million to settle the lawsuit, with the money allocated to Trump's future presidential library. The payment came weeks before the Federal Communications Commission, which is led by a Trump appointee, approved Paramount's plan for an $8 billion merger with Skydance Media.
ABC in December 2024 agreed to pay $15 million toward Trump's library to settle a defamation lawsuit related to anchor George Stephanopoulos inaccurately describing the civil jury verdict in a lawsuit against Trump by the writer E. Jean Carroll.
