Trump sues BBC for up to £7.5bn over Panorama speech edit

THE US president has filed a lawsuit against the BBC, seeking up to $10bn (£7.5bn) in damages in response to the editing of a speech he made before the 2021 attack on the Capitol.

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Donald Trump's lawyers argue the depiction of him given in the edit, which aired in a Panorama documentary a week before the results of the 2024 US election, "was false and defamatory" and said "the BBC intentionally and maliciously sought to fully mislead its viewers around the world".

In the Panorama programme, a clip from Mr Trump's speech on January 6 2021 was spliced to show him saying: "We're going to walk down to the Capitol... and I'll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell."

The lawsuit is seeking $5bn (£3.7bn) in damages on two counts - for an allegation of defamation, and for a violation of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

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."

The Panorama programme was not broadcast in the US, but the lawsuit says it can be watched on the BritBox subscription streaming platform and also claims "millions of Florida citizens use a virtual private network (VPN) to view content".