BBC asks US court to dismiss Trump’s defamation lawsuit
The BBC has asked a US judge to dismiss its lawsuit over President Donald Trump’s editing of a 2021 speech into a documentary.
In court documents for the US$10 billion ($14 billion) lawsuit announced on Monday, the BBC argued that Trump’s subsequent re-election showed that the alleged insult did not damage his reputation.
Trump accused the UK’s publicly funded broadcaster of defaming him by stitching together portions of his speech on January 6, 2021, to make it appear that he led his supporters to attack the US Capitol.
The documentary was first broadcast in 2024, shortly before the presidential election won by Trump.
There was a segment where he urged his supporters to march to the Capitol, followed by another segment almost an hour later where he said to “fight like hell.”
Trump’s lawsuit filed in Florida alleges that the BBC defamed him and violated Florida law prohibiting deceptive and unfair trade practices.
BBC has it. he apologized He appealed to Trump for the regulation but argued that the case should be dismissed.
In their submissions to the court, BBC’s lawyers said that Trump “cannot reasonably claim that the documentary damaged his reputation” because he won the election after the documentary was broadcast.
The BBC argued that it could not prove that the 12-second clip in the hour-long documentary, which Trump claimed was defamatory, was intended to create a false impression.
“In fact, nothing better reflects President Trump’s words than his own statements, and more than 100 defendants charged with January 6-related charges have told courts they interpreted President Trump’s words as a call to action,” the BBC’s presentation said.
The broadcaster also argued that it did not have jurisdiction to bring proceedings in Florida because the documentary was not available to audiences in Florida, and that the case concerned “a dispute over the role of UK entities in a documentary intended for audiences in the UK”.
If the BBC’s motion to dismiss is not successful, a two-week hearing is planned for February 2027.
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