On 15 December 2025, President Donald Trump issued a claim for defamation and deceptive and unfair trade practices, [pdf] claiming damages of “not less than” $5 billion, interest, costs punitive damages and attorney’s fees for each cause of action.

As many have pointed out, this is not the first time that President Trump has brought libel proceedings against the media.  The news website Axios has identified 34 media or defamation claims in which he has been involved in since 2015 (compared to 7 in the previous 30 years).  Among other claims in 2025 he filed a $15 billion lawsuit against The New York Times and a claim seeking $10 billion in damages from Rupert Murdoch and the publisher of The Wall Street Journal.   Some US media organisations have, for apparent commercial reasons, settled claims brought by President Trump – in 2025 Paramount Skydance agreed to pay $16 million towards Trump’s presidential library and ABC agreed to pay $15 million to the same recipient.

The BBC has announced that it will defend the claim. This is not surprising, as the claim faces very formidable legal obstacles and has been described by one US commentator as “a total loser” and by others as a “SLAPP”.  Consideration of the merits supports this view.

The Claim

As is well known, the claim arises from a BBC Panorama documentary, “Trump: A Second Chance,” which President Trump claims falsely depicted him in a defamatory manner. The BBC edited  Trump’s January 6, 2021 speech, spliced together two separate parts.

The claim is filed in the US District Court, Southern District of Florida.  It is said that President Trump is a citizen of the state of Florida and that the BBC conducted filming for the documentary there.  It is alleged that he BBC has a significant presence in Florida, including a local office and distribution of its content to Florida residents [15] to [41].

It is alleged that the BBC’s conduct was intentional and malicious, with evidence suggesting a pattern of bias against President Trump.

It is claimed that the defamatory portrayal in the documentary caused President Trump significant reputational harm and  “massive economic damage to his brand value and significant damage and injury to his future financial prospects” [100].

It is also said that BBC has have violated the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act by engaging in unfair methods of competition, unconscionable acts or practices and/or unfair or deceptive acts or practices by, inter alia, intentionally and maliciously seeking to completely mislead their viewers by splicing together two separate parts of President Trump’s Speech, while omitting other critical parts of the Speech in such a manner as to intentionally, falsely, maliciously, and defamatorily change the meaning of what President Trump said [117].

On each count President Trump is claiming “not less than $5 billion, as well as interest, costs, punitive damages” – so $10 billion  in total.

The Legal Obstacles

The first obstacle is jurisdiction.   In order to establish that the US District Court in Florida has jurisdiction over the BBC President Trump must rely on the Florida “long arm statute” (Fla. Stat § 48.193 (2017)).  Under this provision it is necessary to show that the claim relates to or arises from the BBC’s activities in Florida.  The Florida courts take a broad view of jurisdiction.  It will be sufficient if online defamatory material about a Florida resident is accessed in Florida (see Internet Solutions v Marshall, SC09-272 (2010) [pdf].  This is a problem for President Trump as the Panorama programme was not shown in Florida and US residents cannot view it on iPlayer. According to the complaint

The Panorama Documentary’s publicity, coupled with significant increases in VPN usage in Florida since its debut, establishes the immense likelihood that citizens of Florida accessed the Documentary before the BBC had it removed. [29]

The complaint also relies on the use of  VPNs although there is no evidence that these are, in fact, used to view the BBC.  It is also suggested that the the documentary was viewed by BritBox subscribers in Florida but it appears that only one episode of Panorama – from 2000 – was available on the platform.  .

Secondly, President Trump must prove that the allegation made as a result of the BBC’s edit – that he was inciting his supporters to use violence –  was false.  This will be very difficult. The speech which was edited by the BBC was considered by Judge Mehta in Thompson v Trump Case No. 21-cv-00400 (APM) (2022). He held that there was a plausible claim that the speech incited supporters to commit imminent acts of violence.

Thirdly, as a public official, President Trump must prove by “clear and convincing evidence” that the BBC acted with actual malice—meaning they knew the edit was false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth.  The BBC will argue the edit was a standard editorial condensation of a long speech and did not materially alter the “sting” of his rhetoric, which they believed (based on other investigations) was an incitement. Admitting an “error of judgment” or “misleading impression” in an apology is not the same as admitting to malice.  As is argued by a US commentator

“Editing video to change the order of quotes to make a point is what video editors do every day. Every YouTuber, and every news organization from both political sides, does the same thing. That’s what video editing is all about—to take video and edit it to make a point more clearly. While all video editing is, of course, technically misleading because context is important, viewers generally recognize that video is being edited to make a point.  The BBC’s editing of the Trump speech may not have met the highest journalistic standards for integrity, as the BBC has itself recognized. But it was not a ‘false’ statement of fact”

Fourthly, President Trump must prove that the broadcast caused actual harm to his reputation.  It is said that

“President Trump’s damages take the form of direct harm to his professional and occupational interests, including, without limitation, the value of his brand, properties, and businesses, and severe diminishment and tarnishing of his reputation as a politician, leader, and businessman in the eyes of the American public and around the world”. [101]

No “direct harm” is identified or quantified.  As a number of commentators have pointed out, shortly after the broadcast President Trump won the 2024 presidential election.

Moreover, there is a powerful argument that his reputation regarding January 6 is already so damaged by the findings of the House of Representatives January 6 Committee that this broadcast could not have damaged his reputation further.

Conclusion

The legal hurdles faced by President Trump’s claim are, in reality, insurmountable.  The claim has been characterised as a SLAPP, both in the US and by the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition.  The claim brings to mind the remarks of Judge Middlebrook in the case of Trump v Clinton, Case No 22-14102-CV (2023) [pdf] when ordering sanctions against Donald Trump and his lawyers he said

This case should never have been brought. Its inadequacy as a legal claim was evident from the start. No reasonable lawyer would have filed it. Intended for a political purpose, none of the counts of the amended complaint stated a cognizable legal claim. … . A continuing pattern of misuse of the courts by Mr. Trump and his lawyers undermines the rule of law, portrays judges as partisans, and diverts resources from those who have suffered actual legal harm.