In their defense, the BBC has said that the documentary news shows that featured the edit were not available in the United States. This did not deter Trump from bringing the suit. Trump announced the suit from the Oval Office on Monday, saying, "In a little while, you'll be seeing I'm suing the BBC for putting words in my mouth. Literally they put words in my mouth. They had me saying things I never said coming out."
The show in question was Panorama, and the episode was aired a week prior to the 2024 US presidential election. It showed clips from Trump's speech from the DC Ellipse, right behind the White House, on January 6, 2021, which was the day of the Capitol riot. That riot was used as fodder against Trump and Republicans for the entirety of Joe Biden's term in the White House.
The words in the speech that were spliced together were from over an hour apart. The BBC admitted that it was an "error of judgement" to splice the clips together like they did, and they apologized. Trump clearly does not believe that an apology is adequate compensation for what he sees as outright intentional defamation.
The head of the BBC, Deborah Turness, resigned. The edit has been the subject of controversy in the UK, where the state-funded BBC has been under pressure from pundits and critics to explain itself in light of the fabrication.
The BBC was also taken to task over airing a pro-Gaza documentary that featured a narrator who was the son of a terrorist leader. In that case, they again acknowledged their failure to disclose the terrorist family ties.
The BBC isn't the first broadcaster against whom Trump has brought suit, far from it. He's sued The New York Times as well as Paramount, the parent company to CBS, which aired an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris, against whom Trump was running in the 2024 election, to show her in a more favorable light. CBS was made to pay Trump $16 million, but they also won an Emmy nomination for that interview.
