Trump wants money from the BBC. Can he get it? 

LONDON — Donald Trump’s war against the media has gone international. 

Britain’s public service broadcaster has until 10 p.m. U.K. time on Friday to retract a 2024 documentary that he claims did him “overwhelming financial and reputational harm” — or potentially face a $1 billion lawsuit (nearly £760 million).

It’s the U.S. president’s first notable battle with a non-American media organization. The escalation from Trump comes as the BBC is already grappling with the double resignations this past weekend of two top executives, Director General Tim Davie and news CEO Deborah Turness, amid the growing furor sparked by the release last week of an internal ombudsman’s report criticizing the Trump program as well as the BBC’s coverage of the Gaza war.

Trump told Fox News he believes he has “an obligation” to sue the corporation because “they defrauded the public” and “butchered” a speech he gave.

POLITICO walks you through the possible road ahead — and the potential pitfalls on both sides of the Atlantic. 

Why is Trump threatening to sue? 

The U.S. president is objecting to the broadcaster’s reporting in a documentary that aired on Panorama, one of the BBC’s flagship current affairs shows, just days before the U.S. presidential election. 

The program included footage from Trump’s speech ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, which was selectively edited to suggest, incorrectly, that he told supporters: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you, and we fight. We fight like hell.”  

But those lines were spoken almost an hour apart, and the documentary did not include a section where Trump called for supporters “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” 

“I really struggle to understand how we got to this place,” former BBC legal affairs correspondent Clive Coleman told POLITICO. “The first lesson almost you’re taught as a broadcast journalist is that you do not join two bits of footage together from different times in a way that will make the audience think that it is one piece of footage.”

The U.S. president’s legal team claimed the edit on the footage was “false, defamatory, disparaging, and inflammatory” and caused him “to suffer overwhelming financial and reputational harm.” 

BBC Chair Samir Shah apologized on Monday for the “error of judgment” in the edit. Trump’s lawyers said in their letter that they want a retraction, an apology and appropriate financial compensation — though their client’s subsequent comments suggest that may not satisfy him at this point.

Do Trump’s claims stand a chance? 

Trump’s lawyers indicated in their letter that he plans to sue in Florida, his home state, which has a two-year statute of limitations for defamation rather than the U.K.’s one-year limit — which has already passed. 

The U.S. president is objecting to the broadcaster’s reporting in a documentary that aired on Panorama, one of the BBC’s flagship current affairs shows, just days before the U.S. presidential election. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

To even gain a hearing, the U.S. president would first need to prove the documentary was available there. The broadcaster confirmed the Panorama episode was not shown on the global feed of the BBC News Channel, while programs on iPlayer, the BBC’s catchup service, were only available in the U.K. 

The Trump team’s letter to the BBC, however, claimed the clip was “widely disseminated throughout various digital mediums” reaching tens of millions of people worldwide — a key contention that would need to be considered by any judge deciding whether the case could be brought. 

U.S. libel laws are tougher for claimants given that the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guarantees the right to free speech. In U.S. courts, public figures claiming to have been defamed also have to show the accuser acted with “actual malice.” 

The legal meaning doesn’t require animosity or dislike, but instead an intent to spread false information or some action in reckless disregard of the truth — a high burden of proof for Trump’s lawyers. 

American libel standards tend to favor publishers more than those in Britain, so much so that in recent decades public figures angry about U.S. news reports have often opted to file suit in the U.K. That trend even prompted a 2010 U.S. law aimed at reining in so-called libel tourism.

Yet Trump’s legal team is signaling it will argue that since the full video of Trump’s 2021 speech was widely available to the BBC, the editing itself amounted to reckless disregard and, therefore, actual malice. 

BBC Chair Samir Shah apologized on Monday for the “error of judgment” in the edit. | Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images

“The BBC’s reckless disregard for the truth underscores the actual malice behind the decision to publish the wrongful content, given the plain falsity of the statements,” his lawyers wrote. 

However, a court battle wouldn’t be without risks for Trump. Prateek Swaika, a U.K.-based partner with Boies Schiller Flexner, said pursuing litigation “could force detailed examination and disclosure in connection” with Trump’s Jan. 6 statements —  potentially creating “more reputational damage than the original edit.” 

Could the BBC settle? 

Trump has a long history of threatening legal action, especially against the press, but has lately had success in reaching out-of-court agreements with media outlets — including, most notably, the U.S. broadcasters ABC and CBS. 

Trump’s latest claim is the flipside of his $20 billion suit against CBS’s “60 Minutes” over an interview with then-Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, which Trump claimed was deceptively edited to make Harris look good and therefore amounted to election interference. 

CBS settled for $16 million in July, paying into a fund for Trump’s presidential library or charitable causes, though the network admitted no wrongdoing. The settlement came as CBS’ parent company, Paramount, was pursuing a corporate merger that the Trump administration had the power to block — and after Trump publicly said he thought CBS should lose its broadcast license, which is also granted by the federal government.

The president doesn’t hold that same sway over the BBC, though the organization does have some U.S.-based commercial operations. Some news organizations have also opted to fight rather than settle past Trump claims, including CNN, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Some news organizations have opted to fight rather than settle past Trump claims, including CNN, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. | Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

“Litigation is always a commercial decision and it’s a reputational decision,” said Coleman, suggesting settlement talks may look appealing compared to fighting a case that could “hang over the heads of the BBC for many, many years, like a dark cloud.” 

Could the British government step in? 

Despite the BBC’s standing as a state broadcaster, the Labour government has so far taken a hands-off approach, perhaps unsurprisingly given Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s ongoing efforts to woo Trump on trade.

No. 10 said on Tuesday that the lawsuit threat was a matter for the BBC, though Starmer subsequently reiterated his support for it generally.

“I believe in a strong and independent BBC,” Starmer said at prime minister’s questions Wednesday. “Some would rather the BBC didn’t exist … I’m not one of them.”

Perhaps eager to stay in Trump’s good books, the PM’s ministers have also avoided attacking the president and instead walked a diplomatic tightrope by praising the BBC in more general terms.

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy on Tuesday reiterated the government’s vision of the BBC as a tool of soft power.

The BBC documentary did not include a section where Trump called for supporters “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” | Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images

“At a time when the line between fact and opinion, and between news and polemic, is being dangerously blurred, the BBC stands apart,” Nandy told MPs Tuesday. “It is a light on the hill for people here and across the world.” 

Who would fund any payout? 

The BBC is funded by the country’s license fee, which requires any household that has a TV or uses BBC iPlayer to pay £174.50 a year (some people are exempt from paying). In the year ending March 2025, this accounted for £3.8 billion of the corporation’s overall £5.9 billion in income. The remaining £2 billion came from activities including commercial ventures.

Any licence fee revenue that funded a settlement with Trump would likely go down very poorly as a political matter, given looming tax increases in the U.K. as well as the U.S. president’s significant unpopularity with British voters.

The corporation lost a €100,000 (£88,000) libel case earlier this year against former Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams after a Dublin jury found the broadcaster falsely connected him to a 2006 Irish Republican Army killing, showing there is a precedent for politicians winning cases. 

Responding to a question as to whether license fee payers would fund any legal sum, Starmer said Wednesday: “Where mistakes are made, they do need to get their house in order and the BBC must uphold the highest standards, be accountable and correct errors quickly.”

Singer Cliff Richard also received £210,000 in damages and around £2 million in legal costs from the BBC in 2019 over a privacy case, though those payments were within the scope of its legal insurance.

Might an alternative payment work? 

The BBC has paid damages to a foreign head of state before, including compensating then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in 2019 for an incorrect report. But Trump technically faces rules on accepting foreign payments.

There’s every chance that a settlement to Trump could pass through another vehicle, as the with the CBS agreement. ABC’s settlement involved $15 million to a Trump-related foundation alongside $1 million for his legal fees. 

Trump’s former attorney Alan Dershowitz suggested just that on Tuesday, saying if the corporation made a “substantial” contribution to a charity “that’s relevant to the president might put this thing behind them.”