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By Khaleda Rahman
National Correspondent
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The BBC will seek to dismiss President Donald Trump’s lawsuit over a documentary program he claims defamed him, according to court documents.
The lawsuit, filed in a Florida court last month, is seeking $5 billion in damages for defamation and $5 billion for unfair trade practices.
Newsweek contacted the White House and attorneys for Trump via emails sent outside regular business hours for comment.
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Why It Matters
The lawsuit stems from an episode of the BBC's Panorama program titled Trump: A Second Chance? that was broadcast days before the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
The episode spliced together two parts of a speech given by Trump on January 6, 2021, to give the impression that he had urged supporters to march with him and “fight like hell.” That speech came before Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol as Congress was poised to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election, which Trump falsely claimed was stolen from him.
The BBC apologized in November and the BBC director-general Tim Davie and BBC News CEO Deborah Turness resigned, but the BBC has said it will defend itself against the defamation claim.
While Trump had won some lucrative settlements against U.S. media companies, this case stands out because it targets the taxpayer-funded public broadcaster of a close foreign ally. It has also stirred international debate on media accountability, press freedom and the viability of cross-border defamation claims.
What To Know
In court documents filed on Monday, attorneys for the BBC said it will argue in a forthcoming motion to dismiss that the Florida court lacks "personal jurisdiction" over the BBC and that Trump “fails to state claims for defamation or violations of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.”
A BBC spokesperson declined to comment further when contacted by Newsweek, and sent the BBC’s statement from December that said: “As we have made clear previously, we will be defending this case. We are not going to make further comment on ongoing legal proceedings.”
In the complaint, Trump’s lawyers said the episode falsely portrayed the president as a “violent insurrectionist” and caused “massive economic damage to his brand value and significant damage and injury to his future financial prospects, in additional to continuing to harm his reputation as President of the United States of America.”
The court documents said the BBC’s motion to dismiss will argue:
- That it did not create, produce or air the documentary episode in Florida and that Trump’s claim it was available in the U.S. on the streaming service BritBox is not true.
- That Trump failed to “plausibly allege” that the BBC published the documented episode with “actual malice,” as is required when filing a defamation suit.
- That the lack of actual malice is “underscored by the fact” that the brief clip shows less than 15 seconds of Trump’s speech, while the hour-long episode featured “extensive coverage of his supporters and balanced coverage of his path to reelection.”
- That Trump has “failed to plead, and will not be able to prove, that the Program caused him any cognizable injury,” given he won the 2024 election and carried Florida with a commanding majority.
The BBC asked the court to “stay all other discovery,” a pretrial process in which parties exchange evidence and information, until after a decision on the forthcoming motion to dismiss.
What People Are Saying
President Donald Trump told reporters in December that he was “suing the BBC for putting words in my mouth.”
He said: “Literally, they put words in my mouth. They had me saying things that I never said coming out. I guess they used AI or something.”
A BBC spokesperson said: “As we have made clear previously, we will be defending this case. We are not going to make further comment on ongoing legal proceedings.”
Mark Stephens, a leading international media lawyer, told Newsweek in November, before the lawsuit was filed: "The problem is that Panorama wasn’t broadcast in the USA and the BBC iPlayer—the online streaming service—similar to Hulu—that lets U.K. viewers watch BBC programs on demand—isn’t legally available in the U.S. without a VPN; and that would prove to be a key issue in Trump’s potential lawsuit."
He added that "a consumer sitting in Florida can't think less of Donald Trump about something they haven't seen. And because he's the claimant, he'll have to prove it was officially available, not unofficially pirated via online uploads."
What Happens Next
In the court documents, the BBC’s lawyers wrote that the motion to dismiss will be filed “soon, on March 17, 2026.”
A trial date has not been set, but the BBC reported that a 2027 trial date has been indicated should the case continue.
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