President Donald Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC is far from resolved, but the British Broadcasting Corporation’s victory in one early skirmish highlights Trump’s overreaching claims and the likely weakness of his case.
A federal magistrate judge ruled Tuesday that Trump must turn over business records sought by the BBC — a decision that has prompted Trump’s lawyers, loath to release his financial records, to revise their complaint and narrow their scope.
Trump has never won a defamation case in court, despite suing news organizations dozens of times over the past four decades.
Although the lawsuit remains pending, legal scholars say the judge’s ruling underscores the weaknesses in Trump’s lawsuit.
The president has a long history of legal campaigns against journalists. But Trump has never won a defamation case in court, despite suing news organizations dozens of times over the past four decades. He has succeeded in wresting settlements from news and tech companies, especially since his complaints have been abetted by the threat of presidential power.
In the BBC case, however, Trump may have made claims so grandiose that even he appears reluctant to publicly support them.
Trump sued the BBC in December over a documentary that aired in Britain in late 2024. He claimed the program, “Trump: A Second Chance?” had harmed his reputation and damaged his businesses by suggesting that he encouraged supporters to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump denies that he advocated violence in challenging Congress’ certification of Joe Biden’s victory.
A judge ruled that Trump has to turn over business records showing damages since the documentary aired — which is, of course, potentially difficult since Trump’s family businesses have raked in billions of dollars in new revenue since his re-election.
The BBC has apologized for editing together two different parts of Trump’s Jan. 6 speech that arguably suggested he was inciting violence. But the organization has contested Trump’s claim that it willfully misled viewers.
Trump’s initial complaint, filed in Miami, argued that the BBC’s portrayal of him as “a violent insurrectionist” had caused
“massive economic damage to his brand value … properties and businesses.”
Massive economic damage? The BBC insisted that Trump back up his claims of harm, and U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjolique Lett agreed that Trump must prove his assertion. She ruled Tuesday that Trump has to turn over business records showing damages since the documentary aired — which is, of course, potentially difficult since Trump’s family businesses have raked in billions of dollars in new revenue since his re-election.
Lett also granted a separate BBC motion demanding testimony from Trump’s inner circle, including family members and advisers.
In some respects, the fact that the case still exists is itself a victory for Trump. The BBC has filed for dismissal, arguing that the documentary wasn’t broadcast in the United States and therefore could not have damaged Trump. (His lawyers have countered that Americans could have seen the program via streaming services.) Still, “the BBC’s litigation strategy highlights the implausibility of the president’s assertion that he suffered billions of dollars of harm from a program that was never aired in the U.S.,” said Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky, a professor at the University of Florida’s law school who specializes in defamation and the First Amendment.
Under U.S. law, a public figure such as Trump faces steep obstacles to prove defamation. He must show that a defendant knew a statement of fact was false or ignored serious concerns about whether it was true and published it anyway — a high bar designed to protect robust debate and free speech. While Trump has never met this standard in his lawsuits, some defendants have chosen to settle rather than face potential retaliatory pressure while he is in office.
According to his 2025 federal financial disclosure, released last month, Trump has racked up $86.5 million in such settlements from lawsuits filed against Disney, Paramount Global and the parents of YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.
The BBC appears to be in a more advantageous position than many American media outlets because its operations aren’t subject to federal regulation, a key point of leverage for Trump in his suits against Paramount-owned CBS News and Disney-owned ABC News.
The BBC suit is one of several Trump has pending against news organizations for reporting he has disputed. Others include The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and the Des Moines Register.
Lett’s ruling and the Trump team’s backpedaling indicate Trump went too far in his claims of injury, said attorney Ted Boutrous Jr., who has defended CNN and other media companies against defamation and executive action. “Here his lawyers now seem to be trying to slither out of the consequences of their own baseless allegations by amending the complaint,” he told me. “But it may be too late for that. … This turn of events demonstrates how asserting wild allegations to try to chill freedom of the press can come at a steep cost, exposing the plaintiff to invasive discovery on sensitive and embarrassing matters.”
Boutrous said he expects the lawsuit to be dismissed, “and that would be the right result.”
Whether a dismissal would change Trump’s litigious behavior is, of course, unclear.
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