Trump's suing the BBC for $10 billion: Here's the lowdown

U.S. President Donald Trump has upped the ante in his legal dispute with the BBC, suing the broadcaster for $10 billion in a defamation lawsuit filed Monday.

The president's legal team had initially threatened the BBC with a $1 billion lawsuit last month after it emerged that it had aired a documentary in which Trump's Jan. 6 speech in 2021 was edited to make it look like he was explicitly encouraging his supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol.

But in a defamation lawsuit filed in a federal court in Florida Monday night, Trump's legal team said they were now seeking $10 billion in damages, accusing the broadcaster of producing a "false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction of President Trump."

The BBC knew a lawsuit was coming and went into crisis mode last month as concerns over the documentary came to light, with both its director general and head of news resigning.

The broadcaster apologized to the president last month and agreed not to show the documentary again, but rejected his call for compensation. Trump, meanwhile, said he had an "obligation" to sue and on Monday accused the corporation of putting "terrible words" in his mouth.

In October 2024, the BBC aired a Panorama documentary called "Trump: A Second Chance?" in which it showed Trump addressing supporters on Jan. 6, 2021.

In the Panorama program, Trump was shown saying, "We're going to walk down to the Capitol ... and I'll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell."

As such, the edit combined two separate parts of his speech, but this was not flagged to viewers, making it look like he had explicitly instructed his supporters to riot in a single statement.

That was not the case as Trump had actually said: "We're going to walk down to the Capitol, and we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women."

Only much later (in fact, around 54 minutes later) did Trump then say, "and I'll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell."

Trump's speech became infamous as Trump supporters descended on the Capitol after the address, with skirmishes breaking out with police and a number of protesters entering the building. At the time, Trump urged those involved in the riots to "go home now."

The documentary doesn't appear to have caused a fuss at the time, but the editing process came to light when a memo written by ex-BBC adviser Michael Prescott was leaked to the press, in which he criticized editorial standards at the BBC.

The Panorama documentary in the spotlight was not made by the BBC, but by a third-party production company called October Films. Nonetheless, questions have been asked as to why it was reviewed and approved for broadcasting. The documentary is no longer available to view on the BBC iPlayer.

Trump's civil complaint accuses the BBC of producing a "false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction of President Trump" in the documentary, which was aired one week before the 2024 election.

The suit also alleges the documentary was produced as part of "a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence the Election's outcome to President Trump's detriment."

The suit alleges that "concerns about the Panorama Documentary were raised internally before its dissemination, but the BBC ignored those concerns and did not take corrective action."

CNBC has requested comment from the BBC on Trump's suit, which seeks $5 billion in damages for each of its two counts: defamation and violation of Florida's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

Trump's legal team initially wrote to the BBC in November to detail its complaints. The letter, which was published in full by Sky News, said the airing of the program had "caused President Trump to suffer overwhelming financial and reputational harm."

It warned that Trump would sue for $1 billion in damages unless the corporation issued a "full and fair retraction," apologized and compensated the president "for the harm caused."

The BBC said on Tuesday that it would be defending the lawsuit and would not make further comment on legal proceedings. It has previously apologized to Trump, while rejecting his calls for damages.

The BBC issued a statement last month in which it said, "we accept our edit created the impression we were showing a single continuous section of the speech, rather than excerpts from two different points in the speech."

"Consequently, this gave the impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action. The BBC would like to apologise for that error of judgement," it said, adding that "there was no intention to mislead."

The BBC noted in news coverage on Dec. 16 that lawyers for the corporation had responded at length to the president's claims, arguing that there was no malice in the edit and that Trump was not harmed by the program, given that he was re-elected shortly after it aired.

BBC News also noted that the corporation's lawyers said the BBC did not have the rights to, and did not, distribute the Panorama programme on its U.S. channels and was restricted to viewers in the U.K.

It's unclear how lawyers for the BBC will respond to Trump's lawsuit, but it might end up being tempted to settle in order to avoid a potentially lengthy and costly court case.  Nonetheless, a BBC spokesperson has previously said that while the corporation "sincerely regrets" the manner in which the documentary clip was edited, they "strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim.

The British government has defended the corporation, with Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy wanting to distinguish between "editorial failings" and the BBC's critics who, she said, were " launching a sustained attack on the institution itself." U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, meanwhile, said he believed in a "strong and independent BBC."

It's not the first time Trump has pursued legal action against big media organisations, with lawsuits launched against the Wall Street Journal, CNN, CBS, ABC and New York Times in recent years, with some cases settled and others dismissed.

— CNBC's Sam Meredith contributed to this report.