A federal judge in Florida on Tuesday denied the BBC's motion to dismiss President Donald Trump's $10 billion defamation lawsuit, allowing the case to move forward against the British broadcaster over its editing of a 2021 speech.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Kuntz, a Trump appointee, ruled that the president's complaint plausibly alleged the BBC "acted with actual malice" when it edited two comments in a documentary about the January 6, 2021, events at the U.S. Capitol, according to the Washington Examiner. The judge did not rule on the merits of the case.
"Whether President Trump can prove these claims and establish he sustained damages at summary judgment or trial is left for another day," Kuntz wrote in Tuesday's order, according to the BBC.
The lawsuit, filed in Florida, accuses the BBC of "intentionally, maliciously and deceptively doctoring" the speech Trump gave outside the Capitol on January 6, 2021, making it appear he directed supporters to storm the building. Trump is seeking at least $10 billion in damages.
The broadcaster had asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing the program did not meet the legal criteria for defamation and was not available in the United States. Kuntz rejected that argument for the defamation claim, finding Trump had plausibly alleged the broadcaster damaged his reputation and knew or should have known the clip was misleading, Reuters reported.
Kuntz did dismiss a second claim in the lawsuit under Florida's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, ruling that the documentary did not constitute commercial speech, according to the BBC.
Trump celebrated the ruling in a post on Truth Social on Tuesday, calling it a "huge victory."
A BBC spokesperson said the broadcaster was "surprised by this decision but respect[s] the Court's authority and note[s] the case will now proceed to the next stage," according to the BBC.
The ruling comes as Trump is scheduled to answer questions under oath in the lawsuit by December 11, after the president canceled a previous deposition last month, citing "matters of national importance," the BBC reported. The judge ordered that deposition last month.
Earlier this year, Trump's lawyers conceded they had no evidence that the documentary was available in the U.S. on the BBC's BritBox subscription service — as they originally argued — or on the BBC's website, BBC Select, or through U.S. broadcasters, according to the BBC. Trump ultimately agreed to drop BBC Studios, the broadcaster's commercial arm, from the lawsuit after the BBC argued it had "no role in creating or producing the document."
POLITICO reported that Kuntz's ruling found the president presented a plausible defamation claim over the editing of a 2024 documentary. The case is one of several Trump has filed against news media outlets as part of a wider pressure campaign against coverage he dislikes, Reuters noted.
The ruling is the second legal development in the case this month. The Instagram account @nextnewsnetwork referenced the lawsuit in a post, captioning a video "Trump's BBC lawsuit is getting worse for him" — a characterization that Tuesday's order does not support. The post's caption was indexed at the time of publication, and the video itself showed commentary on the case. The post is a social-media post, not a report on the court's ruling.
Trump's lawsuit accuses the BBC of airing a documentary that spliced his January 6 speech to suggest he encouraged the Capitol breach. The BBC has maintained the program did not meet the legal standard for defamation. Whether the president can prove his claims and establish damages will be decided at summary judgment or trial.
Our Take
For two years, the legacy media has told Americans that Trump's lawsuits against the press are frivolous — the desperate flailing of a man who can't take criticism. On Tuesday, a federal judge looked at the BBC's editing job and said: not so fast.
Kuntz didn't rule that Trump wins. He ruled that the case is serious enough to proceed — that the president's complaint plausibly alleges the BBC acted with actual malice. That is a direct rebuke of the broadcaster's attempt to slink out of court before a single document was produced. The BBC's own statement — "surprised by this decision" — tells you everything. They thought a Trump-appointed judge in Florida would toss it. He didn't.
The heart of this case is the same trick the media pulled on the American people for years: take a speech, cut it, splice it, and present the edited version as reality. If the BBC did that to the President of the United States, what do you think they're doing to you? The press has spent a decade insisting it is the guardian of truth. A $10 billion lawsuit and a surviving defamation claim is the price of treating that guardianship as a license to invent.
Note what the judge did throw out — the unfair trade practices claim. This was never about money for Trump. It's about the principle that the people who claim to report the news cannot manufacture it. The case now moves to discovery, and the president will sit for a deposition by December 11. The BBC will have to answer for its edits under oath, in an American court.
Patriots, this is what accountability looks like. The question now is simple: if the BBC doctored a President's words to fit a narrative, how many other stories have been doctored to fit theirs?
