According to a Just the News report, President Donald Trump followed through on his threat to sue the BBC on December 15, 2025 for $5 billion, notwithstanding the network's apology for broadcasting a program last year that manipulated clips from his January 6, 2021 speech to suggest he was inciting violence.
Trump's legal team threatened legal action against the broadcaster for $1 billion last month over its airing of the Panorama episode if it failed to issue a retraction, apologize and provide compensation for the deceptive edits.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Florida, contends the BBC "maliciously" spliced together two statements Trump made more than 54 minutes apart to create the false impression that he'd encouraged his supporters to commit acts of violence.
"It would have been impossible for BBC's journalists and producers to splice together two distinct parts of the Speech from nearly 55 minutes apart unless they were acting intentionally," the lawsuit claimed. "Such a dramatic distortion could never have occurred by accident."
The segment edited Trump's declaration at the White House that he and his supporters were "going to walk down to the Capitol, and we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women," and his statement nearly an hour later that Republicans "fight like hell."
The clip instead combined the comments to have the president state: "We're going to walk down to the Capitol... and I'll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell."
The British broadcasting organization has apologized for the editing, acknowledging that it failed to live up to the company's standards by giving a false impression and promised to never show the segment again, but declined to say it was defamatory.The lawsuit represents the latest legal action Trump and his administration have pursued against news organizations. He has already secured settlements with CBS News and ABC News for alleged deceptive editing, and has cases pending against the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
