Five billion lawsuit announced This is how Trump wants to go after the BBC now
US President Trump wants to sue the BBC for billions.
Image: dpa
The BBC sees no basis for a libel suit for several reasons.
Image: dpa
US President Trump wants to sue the BBC for billions.
Image: dpa
The BBC sees no basis for a libel suit for several reasons.
Image: dpa
An apology is not enough for Donald Trump: The US president also wants to take legal action against the BBC. The trigger is a program about the day his supporters stormed the Capitol.
15.11.2025, 15:34
dpa
No time? blue News summarizes for you
- US President Donald Trump wants to sue the British BBC for up to five billion dollars over a controversial documentary.
- "We're going to sue them for a billion to five billion dollars, probably sometime next week," Trump told reporters aboard the presidential plane Air Force One on Friday (local time).
- "I think I'm going to have to do that. They even admitted to cheating," he continued.
Despite an apology from the BBC, US President Donald Trump wants to sue the British broadcaster for a billion-dollar sum. The lawsuit will be filed "probably sometime next week" and will amount to between one billion and five billion dollars, the Republican announced to journalists on the government plane Air Force One. "They have changed the words that have come out of my mouth," he said.
The background to this is the dispute over a TV program. At the heart of the dispute is the edited version of a speech Trump gave on January 6, 2021, which the broadcaster had used for the program "Panorama". The broadcast took place shortly before the presidential election in November 2024, in which Trump defeated Democrat Kamala Harris.
Program about storming the Capitol
For the broadcast, the BBC had edited together passages from different parts of Trump's speech to his supporters at the time. On that day, there had been a violent storming of the Capitol in the US capital Washington, where the election victory of Trump's then opponent, Democrat Joe Biden, was to be officially confirmed.
In his speech, Trump - who had been voted out of office after his first term (2017-2021) but was still in office - repeated his repeatedly refuted claim that he had been cheated out of his election victory. After the speech, Trump's supporters stormed the seat of parliament.
The BBC has since admitted mistakes. The impression was unintentionally created in the broadcast that it was one continuous section of the speech. This could have given the impression that Trump had directly called for violence, according to the BBC website. The broadcaster also apologized to Trump. The case was cited as the main reason for the resignation of broadcaster boss Tim Davie and journalist Deborah Turness, who is responsible for news operations.
BBC saw no basis for defamation suit
Trump's legal team had threatened the BBC in a letter that they would file a lawsuit if the broadcaster did not apologize, withdraw the programme and pay compensation. The lawyers set the BBC a deadline of Friday evening and threatened to sue for at least one billion US dollars (the equivalent of around 795 million Swiss francs). A few hours after the deadline expired, Trump announced that he intended to sue.
The BBC declared that the program would no longer be broadcast. However, the broadcaster did not want to pay any compensation. The media company sees no basis for a libel suit for several reasons.
According to the broadcaster in a letter to Trump's legal team, these included the fact that the BBC did not broadcast the "Panorama" episode in question on the broadcaster's US channels and that it was only accessible to viewers in the UK. It had also not harmed Trump, as he had won the presidential election shortly after the broadcast. The clip was also not intended to be misleading - it was merely an abridged version of a longer speech.
Trump: Nothing is as fake as the BBC
In an interview with the right-wing British broadcaster GB News published on Saturday, Trump stated that legal action was essential to prevent future misrepresentations against other people as well. "This was so outrageous. If you don't do anything about it, you don't prevent it from happening again to other people," he said.
He has had "plenty of success" with lawsuits against news organizations and their "fake news", he said elsewhere in the very sympathetic interview. "But I've never had anything as fake as the BBC," Trump added.
Lawsuits as an attack on disagreeable media?
For years, Trump has portrayed himself as the victim of a press that is particularly critical and hostile towards him. In the USA, he has already filed lawsuits against several media outlets, including the broadcasters CBS and ABC. In both cases, the parties agreed to a settlement worth millions without going to trial. Critics see Trump's lawsuits as attempts at intimidation that represent an attack on the freedom of the press.
Most recently, Trump also sued the New York Times. He accuses the newspaper of "deliberately and maliciously" defaming him ahead of the 2024 presidential election. The Republican is demanding 15 billion dollars (around 11.9 billion Swiss francs) in damages. The newspaper stated that the lawsuit lacked any legitimate legal basis and was instead an attempt to suppress and prevent independent reporting.
