Donald Trump threatens BBC with $5 billion lawsuit

Late Friday night (November 14, 2025), President Donald Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he intended to sue the BBC for billions of dollars. This threat follows an edited and misleading version of his speech on January 6, 2021, appearing in a Panorama documentary produced by the media outlet. He claimed the altered images were used to damage his reputation.

Although the BBC publicly apologized to Trump for the incident, it appears he has no intention of forgiving them. “We will sue them for between $1 billion and $5 billion, probably next week.“he told the press. The President of the United States made it clear and explained that he had to sue them whether they were sorry or not.”Well, I think I have to do it. They cheated. They changed the words that came out of my mouth.»

Samir Shah, chairman of the BBC, issued a statement on November 13, 2025, taking responsibility for the corporation’s misleading edit. He apologized on behalf of the entire company for creating the impression that Trump encouraged violence. He also promised that the edited speech would never be broadcast again.

We accept that our editing unintentionally gave the impression that we were showing a single continuous section of the speech, rather than snippets from different points in the speech, and that this gave the erroneous impression that President Trump had issued a direct call for violent action.

The BBC would like to apologize to President Trump for this error in judgment. This program was not intended for rebroadcast and will no longer be rebroadcast in this form on any BBC platform.

The BBC said that while it was sincerely sorry for the ordeal, Trump did not have a valid defamation case. The broadcasting company redoubled its efforts and said its apology and removal of the documentary was sufficient. They made it clear that the BBC would not compensate the President of the United States.

The Panorama documentary scandal also led to two resignations. BBC director general Tim Davie, who worked for the corporation for 20 years, and the corporation’s head of information, Deborah Turness, both left the BBC shortly after Trump reacted to the footage.