Trump says he will sue BBC for up to $5 billion over edited Panorama speech 

Donald Trump confirms he will sue the BBC over Panorama edit

US President Donald Trump says he plans to sue the BBC for between $1 billion and $5 billion over the way his January 2021 speech was edited in a Panorama documentary. Speaking aboard Air Force One, Trump confirmed he intends to file the lawsuit next week, after the broadcaster apologised for the edit but refused to offer compensation.

“We’ll sue them. We’ll sue them for anywhere between a billion (£792m) and five billion dollars (£3.79bn), probably sometime next week. We have to do it, they’ve even admitted that they cheated. Not that they couldn’t have not done that. They cheated. They changed the words coming out of my mouth,” he said. The BBC has acknowledged the editing was an “error of judgment” but insists there is “no basis for a defamation claim.”

Trump’s lawyers previously threatened legal action unless the BBC retracted the clip, issued an apology, and paid damages. They gave the broadcaster a Friday 10 pm deadline to respond. The row stems from the Panorama programme Trump: A Second Chance?, which spliced together sections of his 6 January 2021 speech in a way that appeared to show him directly urging the crowd to march to the Capitol and “fight like hell.”

The BBC said it accepted the edit unintentionally gave “the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action,” and has withdrawn the episode from all platforms.

The fallout prompted the resignations of director-general Tim Davie and news chief Deborah Turness. Chairman Samir Shah also sent a personal letter to the White House apologising for the edit, and BBC lawyers contacted Trump’s legal team.

“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,” a spokesperson said.

Trump has repeatedly criticised the broadcaster, telling Fox News earlier in the week that the edit had “defrauded the public.” He later told GB News he felt an “obligation” to pursue the case, adding: “I’m not looking to get into lawsuits, but I think I have an obligation to do it. This was so egregious. If you don’t do it, you don’t stop it from happening again with other people.”

He also said he would raise the matter with UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, claiming “the people of the UK are very angry about what happened… because it shows the BBC is fake news.”

The BBC’s handling of Trump’s 2021 speech had drawn internal complaints even before the Panorama broadcast. According to the Daily Telegraph, a memo raised concerns that an earlier BBC news programme had also misleadingly edited clips.

Despite Trump’s threat to pursue action in either the UK or the US, experts say significant legal hurdles remain. The deadline to bring a defamation case in the UK has passed, as the documentary aired more than a year ago. Damages in UK cases rarely approach the sums Trump is claiming. In the United States, where the Panorama episode was not broadcast, establishing harm to his reputation could be difficult.

Trump has highlighted past litigation successes, referencing a $16 million settlement he received this year from Paramount over a 2024 CBS interview with Kamala Harris.

(With agency inputs)