Trump Threatens Legal Action Against BBC, Demands $1 Billion In Damages Over Misleading Edit

Last Updated:November 10, 2025, 22:19 IST

Trump sent a legal letter to BBC demanding $ 1 billion after Tim Davie and Deborah Turness resigned over a scandal involving misleading edits to a January 6 speech documentary.

US President Donald Trump has threatened legal action against BBC

US President Donald Trump on Monday sent a threatening legal letter to BBC after BBC Chief Tim Davie and BBC News CEO Deborah Turness resigned following a scandal over the editing of a documentary about the US President.

Britain’s publicly funded national broadcaster has been criticised for editing a speech Trump made on January 6, 2021, before protesters attacked the Capitol in Washington.

According to CNN, the pre-election film spliced together different parts of Trump’s infamous January 6 speech at the Ellipse to make it sound like Trump told the crowd he would walk with them to the Capitol and “fight like hell."

Critics said that the way the speech was edited for a BBC documentary last year was misleading and cut out a section where Trump said that he wanted supporters to demonstrate peacefully.

On Monday, a lawyer for Trump said the BBC defamed the President “by intentionally and deceitfully editing its documentary in order to try and interfere in the Presidential Election".  He has demanded at least $1 billion in damages.

CNN quoted the letter sent to BBC accusing the broadcaster with defamation and claims that Trump has suffered “overwhelming financial and reputational harm," despite no one seeming to call out the error at the time of the broadcast.

A BBC spokesperson told CNN that “we will review the letter and respond directly in due course."

Interestingly, Trump had sent several legal letters to other news organisations, including CNN, during his second term in office.

Earlier in the day, BBC Chair Samir Shah issued a belated apology for the “error of judgment" with the October 2024 documentary.

The BBC, funded by a licence fee paid by all UK households that watch live television, has been at the centre of several editorial controversies in recent months. Earlier this year, the broadcaster issued multiple apologies over “serious flaws" in the production of its February documentary Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone.

In October, the BBC also accepted a sanction from the UK’s media watchdog after one of its programmes was found to be “materially misleading." The investigation revealed that the child narrator featured in the film was the son of a former Hamas deputy agriculture minister.

News world Trump Threatens Legal Action Against BBC, Demands $1 Billion In Damages Over Misleading Edit

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