Trump says he will sue the BBC despite broadcaster’s apology
By Charlotte Reck, CNN
(CNN) — US President Donald Trump says he intends to sue the BBC for between $1 billion and $5 billion “probably sometime next week” despite the broadcaster’s apology to him over a documentary Trump’s lawyers described as defamatory.
“I think I have to do it,” Trump told reporters. “They’ve even admitted that they cheated … They cheated, they changed the words coming out of my mouth.”
On Thursday, the BBC apologized to Trump over an editing blunder in an October 2024 documentary, titled “Trump: A Second Chance?,” saying that it “sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited.”
However, the BBC has rejected the defamation claim and is refusing to pay compensation. The controversy has sparked a crisis in the BBC, triggering the resignations of BBC director general Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness.
Speaking to UK network GB News, Trump acknowledged the apology he received from the BBC, saying “they wrote me a nice letter.”
“’We apologize,’ but when you say it’s unintentional, I guess if it’s unintentional, you don’t apologize,” he added.
The president told GB News he is not looking to get into lawsuits but painted the move as essential to prevent similar mishaps in the future.
“This was so egregious,” he said, “If you don’t do it, you don’t stop it from happening again with other people… I’d like to find out why they did it.”
Plans to call the UK PM
In the BBC’s edit, on an edition of the TV show Panorama, different parts of Trump’s speech from the day of the January 6 storming of the US Capitol were spliced together, creating the impression Trump told the crowd he would walk with them to the Capitol and “fight like hell.”
He told GB News: “I made a beautiful statement, and they made it into a not beautiful statement.”
The president said Friday he plans to call UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer in the coming days to discuss the spat with the BBC, claiming the prime minister is “very embarrassed” about the situation.
Should Trump proceed with his case and win it would impose enormous financial burdens on the BBC.
The BBC is primarily license-fee funded, meaning anyone watching live television in the UK or who accesses BBC content online must pay a compulsory charge. The BBC’s income is further supplemented by commercial subsidiaries.
According to the BBC’s most recent operational report, in the year ending March 2025 the BBC’s total income was £5.9 billion (more than $7.5 billion.) The license fee raised £3.8 billion (around $5 billion) – 65% of the BBC’s revenue in that year.
Trump previously threatened to sue the BBC for $1 billion unless it retracted the documentary and apologized for what his lawyers have described as “overwhelming financial and reputational harm” before a deadline of 5 p.m. ET Friday.
While Trump said he wants the BBC to “appropriately compensate” him for the alleged harm caused, the UK’s strict limitations on defamation cases mean the president cannot take legal action in the courts of England and Wales, as the purported wrongdoing happened more than 12 months ago.
If he wishes to pursue his claim, Trump’s only option is to do so in US courts. But this process will not be simple. In the US, the president will be expected to present a high standard of compelling evidence proving his reputation was materially damaged because of the BBC’s edit.
Rebuking Trump’s demands for compensation, the broadcaster said that “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 letter from the BBC’s legal team summarizes the organization’s grounds to reject Trump’s defamation claim, including that the documentary was not distributed in the US, that the edit was not made to mislead viewers, rather to “shorten a long speech,” and that the 12-second clip was never meant to be considered in isolation.
The documentary also did not cause Trump any harm, the letter argues, as he was re-elected as US President shortly after the clip aired in the UK.
CNN’s Billy Stockwell and Laura Sharman contributed to this report.
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