President Donald Trump announced Monday that he’s suing the British broadcaster BBC for defamation, alleging it “intentionally, maliciously and deceptively doctoring his speech in a brazen attempt to interfere in the 2024 presidential election” in its 2024 documentary, “Trump: A Second Chance?”
[Note: The lawsuit comes after BBC board chairman Samir Shah apologized to Trump and in a letter, saying the editing of Trump’s January 6, 2021 speech had been an “error of judgment.”]
The BBC did not respond to Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit with, at least at first, an attempt to negotiate a settlement as numerous American media companies, universities, and law firms have done this year when confronted by lawsuits from the Trump administration. Rather, the venerable UK news organization has vowed to fight the lawsuit (“We will be defending this case”), noting that the documentary never aired in the U.S.
Former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), a member of the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the Capitol, responded to the news on social media: “So the @BBC is going to fight back hard against Trump and put him under oath? This is how you do it, to our feckless weak organizations that roll over and settle despite knowing you will win in court because some billionaire needs to squeeze more money out of constitution.”
So the @BBC is going to fight back hard against Trump and put him under oath?
— Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@AdamKinzinger) December 17, 2025
This is how you do it, to our feckless weak organizations that roll over and settle despite knowing you will win in court because some billionaire needs to squeeze more money out of constitution
British writer Matthew Todd replied to Kinzinger: “Yes. Can’t wait. The BBC is probably the most important and loved institution in the UK. It’s enormous and not perfect and the right have relentlessly targeted it because it tries to be impartial and honest, doesn’t always get it right, but almost no other UK media even tries. That’s why they hate it. The public still love it though despite Musks [sic] bots. An attack on it feels like an attack on the British public.”
British lawmaker Stephen Kinnock of the Labour Party also praised the BBC for standing firm against Trump: “Yes, there were some mistakes made in that particular piece of film, but I think the broader argument they were making — they’re right to stick by their guns on that and I hope that they will continue to do so as an independent organization.”
Note: Top donors to the BBC in 2024-2025 included the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, development agencies in Sweden, Finland and Norway, the UN and other international organizations, foundations, corporate partners, private individuals and the U.S. Agency of International Development (USAID), which has been effectively shuttered by the Trump administration.
