Trump seeks billions in defamation lawsuit against BBC over Jan. 6 speech edit

WASHINGTON

US President Donald Trump on Monday filed a lawsuit against the BBC, seeking $5 billion for alleged defamation over an edit of his Jan. 6, 2021, speech by the British broadcaster.

The suit, filed in federal court in the Southern District of Florida, also brings a separate $5 billion claim for violating the state's trade practices law for a total of $10 billion in damages for the two counts.

Trump’s lawyers alleged that the BBC presented a "false, defamatory, malicious, disparaging, and inflammatory" portrayal of him in a documentary that aired in the UK a week before the 2024 election.

Earlier Monday, Trump told reporters he would be suing the BBC "for putting words in my mouth."

"Literally, they put words in my mouth. They had me saying things that I never said," Trump said.

Trump alleged that Britain’s state-funded broadcaster defamed him by stitching together portions of his Jan. 6 speech — highlighting his calls to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell” while leaving out remarks in which he urged supporters to protest peacefully.

In November, the BBC apologized to Trump for airing the documentary on its Panorama program that spliced together two separate lines from his speech but said it would not pay compensation or accept his claim of defamation.

BBC Director General Tim Davie and the corporation's head of news, Deborah Turness, resigned after the accusations.

Trump has previously filed defamation lawsuits against several news organizations, including US networks CBS and ABC, both of which reached multimillion-dollar settlements.