When President Donald Trump filed a $10 billion defamation suit against the BBC last December, he claimed the network’s reporting on his remarks before his supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol had caused him financial harm.
Now, Trump wants to try a new approach — in part to keep his financial records out of the hands of the British public broadcaster.
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Trump’s lawyers have asked a judge for permission to rewrite the lawsuit to focus on reputational harm, rather than Trump’s financial losses. A federal judge paused an order for Trump to turn over financial records while the request to amend the complaint is considered.
“Here, in his zeal to file the most threatening lawsuit he could against the BBC, the president claimed that the BBC broadcast had damaged him to the tune of $10 billion, including harm to his businesses and his ‘brand,’” Jeffrey Robbins, an attorney who has represented both media and public figures in defamation cases, told Straight Arrow. “That placed the very evidence that the BBC lawyers proceeded to demand squarely on the table, and appropriate for discovery.”
Robbins called the lawyers’ attempt to refocus the lawsuit “a retreat, a fevered attempt to prevent disclosure of evidence their client very much does not want to have disclosed.”
The defamation case stems from a 2024 BBC documentary news program, “Panorama,” which edited parts of Trump’s speech before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump’s lawsuit seeks $5 billion in damages for defamation and $5 billion for allegedly unfair trade practices.
The BBC apologized for the editing, but argues it wasn’t defamation.
Trump’s lawyers say the BBC demanded to examine “a shockingly broad amount of information” about the president’s finances — and that the demand was “based on clearly political motivations.”
Allegations that news organizations have treated him unfairly for political reasons have driven Trump’s unprecedented lawsuits against media companies since he won a second term in the White House in November 2024.
In all, he has sought more than $70 billion in damages.
Although he reached settlements with two television networks, Trump has yet to win a defamation case against the media.
One of many defamation lawsuits
Trump has lodged multiple defamation lawsuits against mainstream media, more than any other U.S. president in history. In 2024, ABC News and its parent company, Disney, agreed to donate $15 million to Trump’s presidential library to settle his claim that anchor George Stephanopoulos defamed the president by saying he had been found liable for “rape.” Actually, a jury found that Trump had sexually abused magazine writer E. Jean Carroll.
Trump also settled with Paramount, the parent company of CBS News, for $16 million. He claimed the magazine program “60 Minutes” had deceptively edited an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris to improve her chances in the 2024 presidential election.
Paramount settled as it was seeking approval from the Trump administration for an $8 billion merger with Skydance.
Trump has not fared so well in cases contested by media companies.
He sued The Wall Street Journal and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, claiming he had been defamed by publication of a bawdy birthday note Trump allegedly sent to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. A judge dismissed the case in April, saying Trump’s legal team couldn’t prove actual malice. Trump refiled the case in May, but in a recent hearing, the judge signaled it could be dismissed once again.
Another judge dismissed Trump’s $15 billion lawsuit against The New York Times, in which he claimed the newspaper worked to defeat him in 2024. The judge recently gave Trump’s lawyers until Aug. 27 to submit an amended complaint.
“The Failing New York Times, after 10 years of harassment, slander, and libel, just failed again in their desperate attempt to have our powerful Defamation Lawsuit against them dropped,” Trump posted on Truth Social on July 27. He said his legal team will lay out “extreme detail” on how The Times defamed him, his family and the Make America Great Again movement.
“We will continue to hold The Times and their ‘comrades’ in the Mainstream Media accountable for publishing, promoting, and dealing in Fake News,” Trump said.
Meanwhile, Trump’s case against the Des Moines Register is pending a dismissal. The newspaper published a high-profile poll that said Harris was leading in Iowa, where Trump ultimately won by 13 points in Iowa. Trump claims the newspaper and its pollster violated Iowa’s Consumer Fraud Act. In July, the newspaper’s attorneys pushed for a dismissal.
Experts in media law say Trump’s cases lack an essential element: proof that he suffered harm.
“Lawyers advising clients who want to bring defamation claims always advise them that a consequence of doing so is that defendants will be able to test the claim that their reputation has actually been harmed,” Robbins told Straight Arrow. “That means, among other things, that evidence is going to have to be produced supporting the claim of damages — or showing that the claim of damages is contrived, or overstated.”
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