Trump has threatened the BBC with a $1 billion lawsuit. Here’s what’s going on

U.S. President Donald Trump is once again on the warpath against a major global media company, having threatened the BBC with a $1 billion lawsuit this week.

The British public broadcaster found itself in hot water after airing a documentary in which Trump’s Jan. 6 speech in 2021 was edited to make it look like he was explicitly encouraging his supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol.

As concerns over the documentary came to light, the BBC went into crisis mode, with both its director general and head of news resigning. Meanwhile, BBC Chair Samir Shah said the corporation was assessing the “very serious allegations” and apologized for an “error of judgment” over the edit.

The BBC on Thursday apologized to Trump and agreed not to show the documentary again on any of its platforms. It reportedly rejected the U.S. president’s call for compensation, however. Trump told Fox News this week that he has an “obligation” to sue the BBC.

Here’s what’s going on and why it matters:

In October 2024, the BBC aired a Panorama documentary called “Trump: A Second Chance?” in which it showed Trump addressing supporters on Jan. 6, 2021.

In the Panorama program, Trump was shown saying, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol … and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.” The edit combined two separate parts of his speech, although this was not flagged to viewers, making it look like he had explicitly instructed his supporters to riot in a single statement.

That was not the case as Trump had said, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women,” and only much later (in fact, around 54 minutes later) he said, “and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.”

The speech became infamous as Trump supporters descended on the Capitol after the address, with skirmishes breaking out with police and a number of protesters entering the building. At the time, Trump urged those involved in the riots to “go home now.”

The documentary doesn’t appear to have caused a fuss at the time, but the editing process came to light when a memo written by ex-BBC adviser Michael Prescott was leaked to the press in which he criticized editorial standards at the BBC.

The Panorama documentary in the spotlight was not made by the BBC, but by a third-party production company called October Films. Nonetheless, questions have been asked as to why it was reviewed and approved for broadcasting. The documentary is no longer available to view on the BBC iPlayer.

A crisis engulfed the BBC as news of the rogue edit emerged. Director General Tim Davie and Head of News Deborah Turness resigned. But that has not stopped the scandal snowballing with questions centering on the BBC’s editorial standards amid allegations of institutional bias.

On Tuesday, the BBC issued a statement in which it said, “we accept our edit created the impression we were showing a single continuous section of the speech, rather than excerpts from two different points in the speech.”

“Consequently, this gave the impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action. The BBC would like to apologise for that error of judgement,” it said, adding that “there was no intention to mislead.”

Trump’s legal team wrote to the BBC, demanding that it immediately retract what it said were “false, defamatory, disparaging, and inflammatory statements” about the president in the documentary. The letter, which was published in full by Sky News, said the airing of the program had “caused President Trump to suffer overwhelming financial and reputational harm.”

It warned that Trump would sue for $1 billion in damages unless the corporation issued a “full and fair retraction,” apologized and compensated the president “for the harm caused.”

The letter, signed by Trump’s lawyer Alejandro Brito, said the BBC has until 5 p.m. EST on Friday Nov. 14 to comply with the president’s demands, otherwise, “he will be left with no alternative but to enforce his legal and equitable rights … including by filing legal action for no less than $1,000,000,000 (One Billion Dollars) in damages.”

“The BBC is on notice,” the letter concluded.

In his first comments on the matter, the president told Fox News on Monday that his Jan. 6 speech had been “butchered” in the Panorama edit. When asked if he would go ahead with the lawsuit, Trump said, “Well, I think I have an obligation to do it, because you can’t get people, you can’t allow people to do that.”

The BBC on Thursday issued a statement on its Corrections and Clarifications page, saying it had reviewed the Panorama documentary following criticism over how Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021 speech was edited.

“We accept that our edit unintentionally created the impression that we were showing a single continuous section of the speech, rather than excerpts from different points in the speech, and that this gave the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action,” the BBC said.

“The BBC would like to apologise to President Trump for that error of judgement,” it added.

A BBC spokesperson has said that while the corporation “sincerely regrets” the manner in which the documentary clip was edited, they “strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim.”

BBC News has reported that, “if Trump sues in Florida, he would also need to establish the BBC Panorama documentary was available there.” There appears to be no evidence so far to suggest it has been shown in the U.S.

The British government has defended the corporation, however, with Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy wanting to distinguish between “editorial failings” and the BBC’s critics who, she said, were ” launching a sustained attack on the institution itself.”

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer also commented on the furore on Wednesday, telling lawmakers he believed in a “strong and independent BBC.”

It’s not the first time Trump has pursued legal action against big media organisations, with lawsuits launched against the Wall Street Journal, CNN, CBS, ABC and New York Times in recent years, with some cases settled and others dismissed.

— CNBC’s Sam Meredith contributed to this report.