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President Donald Trump’s 10-figure legal threat against the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is not mere bluster, if his recent spate of legal victories against media and big tech is any indication.
Trump said Friday he was planning to sue the BBC for up to $5 billion over a network documentary’s misleading edit of his remarks on Jan. 6, 2021. A similar edit was found on the network’s “Newsnight” program in 2022.
While the amount is eye-popping, Trump has managed to score large settlements from CBS, ABC and Meta over the past 12 months. To Trump allies, it’s well-deserved for their malign behavior against Trump, while to his detractors, it’s no better than ransom money or bribes to the most powerful person on the planet.
Trump’s settlements with Paramount-owned CBS and Disney-owned ABC over his respective suits touched off a firestorm of liberal criticism that their parent companies were wilting to administration pressure and selling out their own journalists.
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Paramount Global and CBS agreed in July to pay a $16 million upfront sum to settle the president’s lawsuit against the network over how “60 Minutes” edited and released an interview with then-Democratic rival Kamala Harris in 2024. Trump’s team, which initially sought $10 billion, claimed the network’s use of edited clips from a single response about Israel constituted “election interference.”
The same month as the settlement, the Trump administration’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved an $8 billion merger between Paramount and Skydance Media, leading figures like CBS late-night host Stephen Colbert, a fierce Trump critic, to say the settlement was essentially a “big fat bribe.”
Trump’s legal team championed the settlement as a win for media accountability and the American people.
“With this record settlement, President Donald J. Trump delivers another win for the American people as he, once again, holds the Fake News media accountable for their wrongdoing and deceit,” a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team told Fox News Digital at the time.
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That win came on the heels of ABC’s apology and $16 million settlement with Trump last December after he sued for defamation over “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos’ claims on the air that the president had been held “liable for rape.” The jury in the E. Jean Carroll case to which he was referring had actually ruled he was liable for “sexual abuse.”
In addition, Trump’s team has won nearly a combined $60 million in settlements from X, Meta and Alphabet-owned YouTube this year over his prior account suspensions by the respective tech giants in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Shortly after Trump took office again in January, Meta settled with Trump for $25 million over his account suspensions on its platforms in 2021.
X, owned by off-and-on ally Elon Musk, agreed in February to pay about $10 million to settle Trump’s lawsuit after he was banned from Twitter in 2021. Musk reinstated Trump’s account when he bought Twitter, now known as X, in November 2022.
In September, Trump won a $24.5 million settlement from YouTube over the platform’s suspension of his account. According to a court filing obtained by Fox News Digital, $22 million of the settlement was to be contributed on Trump’s behalf to the Trust for the National Mall, a nonprofit supporting construction of the new White House State Ballroom.
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Trump told reporters on Friday he will sue the BBC this week for somewhere between $1 billion and $5 billion, after a Panorama documentary from the network edited together remarks he made on Jan. 6, 2021. The network later apologized and admitted it “gave the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action,” although it contested the notion it had defamed Trump.
The edit made it seem like Trump uttered a single thought about supporters going down to the Capitol, “cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we fight, we fight like hell.”
In reality, those remarks came nearly an hour later in his lengthy address that day.
His full remarks were, “We’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
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Near the end of his speech, which lasted for over an hour, he said, “And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
The controversy has already led to the resignations of BBC News CEO Deborah Turness and BBC director-general Tim Davie.
It’s also not the only legal action Trump has going on against a major media outlet. Trump refiled a $15 billion lawsuit against The New York Times last month, alleging defamation pertaining to The Times’ reporting on Trump’s stint as star of “The Apprentice” and allegations he engaged in suspect tax maneuvers. The suit named individual Times reporters and Penguin Random House, the publisher of the book, “Lucky Loser,” by reporters Susanne Craig, Russ Buettner.
“As we said when this was first filed and again after the judge’s ruling to strike it: this lawsuit has no merit. Nothing has changed today,” a Times spokesperson told Fox News Digital last month. “This is merely an attempt to stifle independent reporting and generate PR attention, but The New York Times will not be deterred by intimidation tactics.”
A Penguin Random House spokesperson told Fox News Digital: “With a second attempt, this lawsuit remains meritless. Penguin Random House will continue to stand by the book and its authors just as we will continue to stand for the important fundamental principles of the First Amendment.”
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