The British Broadcasting Corporation, or BBC, chopped and spliced video clips from President Donald Trump’s famed Jan. 6 speech to supporters to make it appear he was saying something he didn’t.
The network’s chairman later apologized, stating the editing provided “a misleading impression” of what the president said, including that it “gave the mistaken impression that you had made a direct call for violent action” and should not have happened.
But the network’s lawyers have recanted that apology, insisting the editing gave the correct impression.
A federal judge in Florida hearing the president’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC was having no part of that scheme, ordering the case to continue.
Trump called it a “Huge Victory against Fake News BBC, a terrible abuser of the truth.”
He cited the ruling from “highly respected District Court Judge, Jeffrey T. Kuntz, of the Southern District of Florida.”
Kuntz wrote, “Here, the news entity created the story. BBC admitted as much by confirming it had edited a video to make it appear as though President Trump made a statement he never made.”
The BBC falsely claimed that Trump’s statement was: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
Actually, the two lines came 55 minutes apart in the speech, with the first part in, “Now it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy. And after this, we’re going to walk down and I’ll be there with you. We’re going to walk down, we’re going to walk down. Anyone you want but I think right here, we’re going to walk down to the Capitol and 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.”
Then nearly an hour later Trump said, “[B]ut I said ‘Something’s wrong here, Something’s really wrong, can’t have happened.’ And we fight, we fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
He followed immediately with a call for peaceful protest, explaining, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard[.]”
🇺🇸🇬🇧 Trump’s £7.5 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC can proceed after a Florida judge REJECTED the broadcaster’s attempt to have the case dismissed. The lawsuit, filed in Dec 2025, concerns a BBC Panorama documentary that edited together separate parts of Trump’s Jan 6 speech, making it appear that he directly encouraged supporters to storm the Capitol. Today, the court ruled that Trump had plausibly alleged reputational harm and presented sufficient grounds for his defamation claim to proceed. The BBC previously acknowledged that the editing gave the impression of a direct call for violent action, with chairman Samir Shah apologising for what he described as an “error of judgment”. The controversy also contributed to the resignation of then-BBC director-general Tim Davie. Trump celebrated the ruling on Truth Social, calling it a “Huge Victory against Fake News BBC” and accusing the broadcaster of deceiving the American public. The BBC said it was surprised by the decision but remained confident in its legal position, warning that the lawsuit could have a “chilling effect” on journalism. The broadcaster has until Dec 1 to respond, as the case moves on to its next stage… Source: Daily Mail / Writer: Mhedi https://t.co/lRMOYrHY4l
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) November 11, 2026
🔴 EXCLUSIVE: The BBC is accused of editing a Trump speech to make him seem to back the Capitol riot.
A whistleblower memo says Panorama “completely misled” viewers by cutting key lines
Watch @gordonrayner’s full breakdown ⬇️ https://t.co/A6nngI44Ll
— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) November 3, 2025
While much remains to be addressed in the case, the judge confirmed, “Of course, all of this does not prove BBC acted with actual malice. But it does make it plausible. And Trump need only allege facts sufficient to give rise to a reasonable inference that the BBC edited and published the Documentary ‘with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.’ Trump has done so here…”
Constitutional expert Jonathan Turley explained the BBC case involves “an act that is anathema to ethical journalists — cutting lines from different parts of a tape and then joining them as if they were stated together.”
He said the “statement” by the president, according to the BBC’s editing, was “very different” from what Trump actually stated.
He explained, “Kuntz found that the BBC not only recognized its violation of journalistic ethics but actively sought to guarantee that the misleading segment would be heard before the election in states such as Florida.”
He noted U.S. law requires public officials to meet a higher burden of proving defamation, by showing actual knowledge of the falsity of the statements or a “reckless disregard” for the truth.
The judge found, “For purposes of the defamation test, ill-will is different from actual malice. An intention to portray a public figure in a negative light, even when motivated by ill-will or evil intent, is not sufficient to show actual malice unless the publisher intended to inflict harm through knowing or reckless falsehood. However, ill-will or motive, when combined with other evidence, may be taken into account for actual malice….”
The judge cites other “examples” of BBC “playing fast and loose with the factual accuracy of their media content. … Such examples can be said to be probative of BBC’s state of mind as it pertains to recklessness in light of BBC’s non-action toward false statements about Trump.”
Trump has charged that the BBC’s actions were “malicious” in that it would have been impossible “for BBC’s journalists and producers to splice together two distinct parts of the speech from nearly 55 minutes apart unless they were acting intentionally.”
The judge noted editing often is needed, but, “This was not trimming around the edges but creating something different than what was stated in the speech.”
He found, “BBC did not just alter the quote but created a new quote by splicing two statements together and passing them off as a single continuous sentence.”
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