Trump Sues BBC for $10 Billion Over Edited Speech

President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit on Monday in federal court in Miami, seeking $10 billion in damages from the British Broadcasting Corporation over an edited clip of his January 6, 2021, speech that he claims defamed him by suggesting he called for violence at the U.S. Capitol.

The 46-page complaint accuses the BBC of defamation and violating Florida's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. Trump is requesting $5 billion for each of the two counts. According to the filing, the broadcaster spliced together two segments of Trump's speech from the Ellipse near the White House, delivered about 50 minutes apart, to create a composite quote: "We're gonna walk down to the Capitol, and I'll be there with you ... and we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore." The edit omitted intervening remarks in which Trump urged supporters to act "peacefully and patriotically."

The footage appeared in a BBC Panorama documentary aired a week before the November 2024 U.S. presidential election. The program was not broadcast on BBC channels in the United States but was available via the BBC-owned streaming service BritBox and...