Donald Trump has now filed a lawsuit accusing the BBC of maliciously editing his 6 January speech to supporters in Washington. His followers then stormed the Capitol in an attempted insurrection. Now, Trump is asking for $10bn in damages over the edit.
The lawsuit centers on a clip the BBC aired on Panorama. In the programme, Trump appeared to say:
We’re going to walk down to the Capitol… and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.
As I previously wrote for the Canary, Trump actually voiced the “and we fight” portion of the speech more than 50 minutes later. As such, the clip appears to show him directly inciting the riot. This was obviously terrible journalism. The BBC is at fault.
It was also completely pointless. Trump stood in front of an audience who chanted “fight for Trump”, told them to march on the Capitol, claimed the election had been stolen, told them Biden was an illegitimate president, and urged them to fight like hell. There is only one possible outcome from doing that.
Why on earth would the BBC think it necessary to edit together a clip as they did, when there’s plenty of existing evidence of Trump fanning the flames?
Trump comes for the BBC
Some Twitter users commented mockingly about Trump’s out-of-character tirade. Although, as a disclaimer, this could also be referring to any one of a dozen of the week’s international Trump incidents:
Can't believe that the recipient of the FIFA Peace Prize is behaving like this.
— Covie (@covie_93) December 15, 2025
Others called attention to an apparent discrepancy in what the US president considers inaccurate:
Ask yourself why Trump will cheerfully sue anyone on the spot for any defamation no matter how slight, but not any of the hundreds of people that daily call him a paedophile.
https://t.co/VL9K35vMbf
— Marlene Robertson
(@marlene4719) December 15, 2025
Trump’s legal team wrote in his complaint against the BBC that:
The BBC, faced with overwhelming and justifiable outrage on both sides of the Atlantic, has publicly admitted its staggering breach of journalistic ethics, and apologized, but has made no showing of actual remorse for its wrongdoing nor meaningful institutional changes to prevent future journalistic abuses.
Accordingly, President Trump brings this action for compensatory and punitive damages for the extensive reputational harm inflicted upon him by the defendants.
However, and somewhat bizarrely, Trump himself didn’t actually seem to know what the lawsuit is about:
Trump: "I'm suing the BBC for putting words in my mouth … I guess they used AI or something" pic.twitter.com/VxYMDp6oZ2
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 15, 2025
‘I guess they used AI or something’
The US president claimed that the BBC used AI to change the wording of his speech. This simply isn’t true, and a lot of people on social media noticed it:
Trump is suing the BBC. He doesn’t know why. But he’s suing anyway. https://t.co/T06LPzcvpe
— Sangita Myska (@SangitaMyska) December 15, 2025
Legal expert Jessica Simor also pointed out Trump’s cluelessness, alongside highlighting the *ahem* ‘mixed allegiances’ of his supporters in the UK:
He’s so dumb – he doesn’t even know what his lawsuit’s about. As for Brits who want Trump to destroy the BBC, they tend to people like Lee, who pretend to love their country but are batting for another team… https://t.co/FNM8OXXGcB
— Jessica Simor KC (@JMPSimor) December 15, 2025
Speaking of Trump’s British fan squad:
Trump is suing the BBC. Good luck to him, I say.
— Rupert Lowe MP (@RupertLowe10) December 15, 2025
We paid for that
And, on that note, several users tried to point out to Trump’s UK cheerleaders that the BBC is a publicly funded entity:
Given the BBC is publicly funded, this is Donald Trump suing you & me.
It’s a pathetic cry-bully attack on journalism by a wannabe dictator & an attack on every British person.
And our far right politicians & pundits are cheering him on, of course. #r4today
— Zoe Gardner (@ZoeJardiniere) December 16, 2025
And again:
Watching people cheer this seemingly not realising that the BBC is a public service therefore he’s suing us for $10bn https://t.co/pubRcSteZA
— Tharries (@TharriesYT) December 16, 2025
Oo, rare moment of political lucidity from Ed Davey:
Keir Starmer needs to stand up for the BBC against Trump's outrageous $5bn lawsuit and protect licence fee payers from being hit in the pocket.
Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.
— Ed Davey (@EdwardJDavey) December 16, 2025
On 15 December, Seth Stern – director of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press foundation – pushed the BBC to fight the lawsuit:
You don’t get to call out any alleged journalistic blunder and demand $10bn. It’s preposterous for Trump to claim those damages when he won the 2024 election and hasn’t lost a penny because of the BBC’s editing.
It’s also absurd for him to claim associating him with January 6 is defamatory after he spent years insisting nothing bad happened that day and then pardoned those involved. And it’s similarly outrageous that his claims are based on supposedly damaging implications of his using the word ‘fight’. He sells T-shirts with that word on them.
However, most of what the BBC has actually been doing is rolling over and censoring criticism of Trump. Because, you know, the UK’s public broadcaster is hopelessly unequipped and unwilling to fight back against fascism.
The BBC’s edit of Trump’s speech was a completely unforced error. The House January 6th Committee’s report concluded that Trump lit the fires of the insurrection. The charge of election interference was only dropped against Trump when he was about to re-gain presidential immunity.
The edit wasn’t needed. Trump was and is already obviously willing to circumvent pesky little matters like ‘actually being elected’ and ‘things that are legal’. Now, the BBC could be on the hook for $10bn dollars – a round of applause please folks.
Featured image via the Canary
This post was originally published on Canary.