Unveiling the lawsuit last year, a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said the “formerly respected and now disgraced BBC defamed President Trump by intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively doctoring his speech in a brazen attempt to interfere in the 2024 Presidential Election”.
“The BBC has a long pattern of deceiving its audience in coverage of President Trump, all in service of its own leftist political agenda,” the spokesperson said.
The British Broadcasting Corporation, whose audience extends well beyond the United Kingdom, faced a period of turmoil after a media report brought renewed attention to the edited clip.
The furore led the BBC director-general and the organisation’s top news executive to resign.
The BBC has denied Trump’s claims of legal defamation, although BBC chairman Samir Shah has sent Trump a letter of apology.
Shah also told a UK parliamentary committee that the broadcaster should have acted sooner to acknowledge its mistake after the error was disclosed in a memo, which was leaked to the Daily Telegraph newspaper.
The BBC lawsuit is the latest in a string of legal actions Trump has taken against media companies in recent years, several of which have led to multimillion-dollar settlements.
Lawyers for the British broadcaster have sought to have the case dismissed on the grounds that the court in Florida lacks jurisdiction.
They have also argued that Trump will not be able to prove that the documentary, which aired before the 2024 election but not in the United States, “caused him any cognisable injury”.
“He won reelection on November 5, 2024, after the documentary aired. He carried Florida by a commanding 13-point margin, improving over his 2020 and 2016 performances,” they said.
- Agence France-Presse
