Trump v BBC: broadcaster to fight back against $10bn lawsuit – The Latest

Today in Focus

The Guardian

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🗓️ 16 December 2025

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

The BBC has vowed to defend itself against the $10bn lawsuit that the US president, Donald Trump, filed against it. Trump alleges the broadcaster ‘intentionally, maliciously and deceptively’ edited the speech he gave before the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol. On Tuesday, 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.’ Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian’s head of national news, Archie Bland – watch on YouTube. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/infocus

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The Guardian.
0:12.6	There's been real inflation on this lawsuit.
0:14.5	It started out at a billion dollars.
0:16.5	Then he said it would be a $5 billion lawsuit.
0:18.6	And now he has said it is a $10 million lawsuit.
0:20.4	It's got real Austin Powers energy. Absolutely times 100 million or whatever, or more than that. Yeah, I'm suing the BBC for putting words in my mouth literally to put words in my mouth. They had me saying things that I never said coming out. I guess they used AI or something. I think you'd have to say that if the BBC doesn't fight this case, there is very
0:37.9	little hope that others will in the future because it's hard to think of a broadcaster or an
0:41.8	institution in a stronger position to do it. Why the BBC is fighting back in a multi-billion
0:47.1	dollar defamation lawsuit from President Trump. From the Guardians today in Focus, this is the latest
0:53.1	with me, Lucy Hoff.
0:56.9	Joining me is Archie Bland, head of national news at The Guardian.
1:00.4	Thanks for being with us, Archie. It's great to see you.
1:02.5	So let's recap what this lawsuit is all about, because this is an edit of a panorama documentary
1:09.4	that was released just over a year ago that spliced two parts
1:14.1	of a Trump speech delivered on January 6th together. The clips were actually delivered 50 minutes
1:19.8	apart and this was all part of an internal BBC memo that came to light at the start of last
1:25.5	month. Trump at that time threatened a lawsuit. The BBC
1:30.4	apologised with a very public apology saying this was just an honest mistake, but Trump has
1:36.3	pressed ahead with a very costly lawsuit that's hit the BBC late last night. Yeah, and there's
1:42.5	been real inflation on this lawsuit. It started out at a billion dollars. Then he said it would be a $5 billion lawsuit, and now he has said it is a $10 billion lawsuit. It's got real Austin Powers energy. Absolutely times 100 million or whatever, or more than that. And I think part of what that shows you is that this isn't really a measure of the real harm done by this to Donald Trump. It's a measure of
2:02.1	his desire to exact a kind of political revenge against an institution that he views as an enemy.
2:07.9	Yeah. So Trump has filed two lawsuits, both of them $5 billion. The BBC was obviously presented
	...

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