WASHINGTON (The Thursday Times) — A US federal judge has allowed President Donald Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC to go ahead, partly rejecting the British public broadcaster’s attempt to have the case thrown out.
In a 40-page ruling on Tuesday, Judge Jeffrey T Kuntz of the Southern District of Florida found that Trump had “plausibly alleged” that the BBC damaged his reputation and knew or should have known that an edited clip was misleading. The ruling does not decide whether those claims are true. The judge threw out a second claim brought under Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.
The case centres on an October 2024 Panorama documentary, Trump: A Second Chance?, which joined two parts of his January 6, 2021 speech, delivered nearly 55 minutes apart, so that he appeared to tell supporters to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell” in a single passage.
The BBC admitted the edit was misleading and apologised to Trump in November 2025, a month before he sued, but it denies defaming him. The row led to the resignations of the corporation’s two most senior executives.
A deadline for Trump
“We are surprised by this decision but respect the Court’s authority and note the case will now proceed to the next stage,” a BBC spokesperson said. “We remain confident in our position and will continue to respond through the proper legal process.”
Trump called the ruling a “huge victory against Fake News BBC” in a post on Truth Social.
Having skipped a scheduled deposition in October to campaign before the midterm elections, Trump now faces a court-ordered deadline of December 11 to testify under oath or risk having the lawsuit dismissed.
The suit, filed in Miami in December 2025, sought at least $5 billion on each of its two claims. It is one of several Trump has brought against news organisations, including claims against The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.
