Trump Sues BBC for $10 Billion, Claims Jan. 6 Speech Was Misleadingly Edited

President Donald Trump has filed a massive $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC, accusing the British broadcaster of misleading the public by editing his Jan. 6 speech in a documentary aired before the 2024 election.

The lawsuit was filed Monday in federal court in Miami. Trump’s attorneys argue that the BBC deliberately changed the meaning of his words to damage his reputation and influence voters.

According to the 33-page complaint, the documentary was “a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence the Election’s outcome to President Trump’s detriment.”

The case names BBC, BBC Studios Distribution Ltd., and BBC Studios Productions Ltd. as defendants. All were involved in producing the documentary titled “Trump: A Second Chance.”

In response, the BBC said it would fight the lawsuit.

“As we have made clear previously, we will be defending this case. We are not going to make further comment on ongoing legal proceedings,” a BBC spokesperson said, according to Reuters.

The lawsuit centers on how the BBC edited Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021 speech delivered at the Ellipse in Washington, just before the Capitol riot.

Trump claims the documentary spliced together two separate moments from the speech to make it sound as if he directly called for violence.

The edited version made it appear Trump said: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol… and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.”

However, Trump argues that those statements were made nearly an hour apart.

In the earlier part of the speech, Trump 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 we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.”

Later, he added: “And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

Trump insists the BBC falsely combined those lines to suggest he encouraged the crowd to storm the Capitol.

“They actually put terrible words in my mouth having to do with Jan. 6 that I didn’t say,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “And the beautiful words that I said, right, the beautiful words talking about patriotism and all of the good things that I said, they didn’t say that.”

Still, critics point out that Trump’s rhetoric that day has long been under scrutiny.

After an 18-month investigation, the House Jan. 6 committee concluded that Trump spent much of the speech “amping up his crowd with lies about the election, attacking his own vice-president and Republican members of Congress, and exhorting the crowd to fight.”

Even the BBC has admitted the edit was flawed.

BBC Chairman Samir Shah previously acknowledged that the documentary “gave the mistaken impression” that Trump “made a direct call for violent action.” He apologized for what he called “that error of judgement.”

Trump’s legal team included a letter from BBC attorney Charles B. Tobin, who said the broadcaster had “no intention of misleading anyone” and had offered a public apology, a private email apology to Trump, and an online correction.

Despite those steps, Trump pushed ahead with the lawsuit.

This case is part of a larger pattern.

Trump has repeatedly attacked news organizations, often accusing them of corruption, bias, or election inte⁸rference. He has also used lawsuits as a political weapon.

Earlier this year, Paramount, the parent company of CBS News, agreed to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Trump over a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris.

Last year, ABC agreed to pay $15 million to settle a defamation case involving anchor George Stephanopoulos.

Featured image via YouTube screengrab