Defamation or Damage Control: Trump’s continued fight against the media
The BBC sued again. More people refuse to pay the annual TV License Fee. Top jobs are lost. Crisis?
In the past 2 years we (@whitestonechambers) have acted in both Strictly Come Dancing & MasterChef to take legal action against the BBC.
Now a new Plaintiff (Claimant) arrives in FL…….
CNN, ABC, and Paramount/CBS are just a few of the five news agencies that Donald Trump has sued in recent years and as of December 2024, the BBC, (“Auntie”), can now add itself to this list after being hit with a $10 billion lawsuit seeking a minimum payout of $5 billion in damages across two separate issues.
The case surrounds part of the Panorama documentary, which was broadcast on October 28, 2024, in the wake of the upcoming presidential election. The video cropped together two parts of a speech Trump gave on January 6, 2021, where he stated, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.” Later in the same speech, Trump proceeded to state, “And we fight. We fight like hell.” Ultimately, the clip in the video appeared to show President Trump say, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol… and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.” In the eyes of the Trump team, this editing suggests that Trump was inciting the violence that would later take place during the January 6 Capitol riots, which led to multiple deaths and injured over 100 police officers.
In the lawsuit filed by the Trump legal team, the BBC is accused of both defamation and violating Florida law through its “deceptive” and “malicious” editing, which they state was done as an attempt to “interfere in and influence the [2024] election’s outcome to President Trump’s detriment.”
The BBC did apologise for the clip, acknowledging it gave a “mistaken impression” and both Tim Davie, (former BBC Corporation Director General), and Deborah Turness (former BBC Head of News) seemingly resigned in light of the situation. However, the BBC did not accept that the program was maliciously distributed to harm the Trump presidential campaign, which became the first element of the claim. The second element of this case is that the BBC violated trade practice law, as the program was available to viewers in the US through distribution rights acquired by Blue Ant Media.
The BBC has made clear that it intends to defend this case in multiple statements it has released, and its disagreement with both claims laid out in the suit comes as no surprise. However, BBC Chairman, Samir Shah, has also personally contacted the White House, offering a personal apology on behalf of the corporation. Legally, the BBC has laid out five arguments to refute the Trump team’s claims, stating that it did not stream Panorama in the US and that the shortening of the clip did not cause harm nor was it meant to mislead, as it simply shortened a long speech and should be considered in the larger context of the hour-long program.
In the end, as the Trump team seems set on pursuing this case, the BBC is left with the choice of agreeing a settlement or proceeding with the case. Either way, this case will present an interesting outcome not only due to its connection to freedom of speech and media but also in its effect on UK-US relations. Even though Prime Minister Keir Starmer has explicitly distanced the UK government from the BBC’s actions, Trump’s past conflicts with countries such as Canada and Mexico over the actions of private companies has demonstrated the possibility of backlash for US-UK relations.
© Lawrence Power 2026
References
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpvd81470v1o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kifz8BS0AWc