Breaking the BBC

Donald Trump is taking his legal war on the press global.

On Friday night, somewhere above the clouds on Air Force One, Trump told reporters he intends to sue the BBC for “anywhere between $1 billion and $5 billion,” saying legal action could be filed as soon as next week. “I think I have to do it,” he said, accusing the British broadcaster of having “cheated” by “chang[ing] the words coming out of my mouth” in a now-infamous “Panorama” documentary.

It’s the latest escalation in a years-long, ever-expanding campaign by the president to weaponize the legal system against news organizations—one that has now jumped across the Atlantic. And while U.S. media companies have learned to brace for Trump’s litigation salvos, Britain’s national broadcaster is now confronting a uniquely high-stakes test: navigating a U.S. president’s threats to extract billions of dollars from British citizens over a documentary clip that didn’t even air in the United States.

At issue is the BBC’s “Panorama” episode examining Trump’s conduct surrounding the January 6 insurrection. The program included an edited clip of Trump’s 2021 speech that the broadcaster has since conceded amounted to an “error of judgment,” leading to sweeping fallout. The BBC’s two most senior leaders—Director General Tim Davie and BBC News chief Deborah Turness—resigned under intense pressure this week as the scandal ballooned, triggering the most significant leadership crisis at the network in more than a decade.

While the BBC has tried to contain the damage, Trump has seized the moment. His plan to make good on a multibillion-dollar threat marks a dramatic escalation aimed not only at the broadcaster but at the core of how media institutions hold power to account.

"I think I have an obligation to do it," he told reporters. "If you don't do it, you don't stop it from happening again with other people."

In London, the BBC is bracing. Lawyers for the organization have already written to Trump’s legal team in response to a letter the broadcaster received on Sunday, a spokesperson said. And BBC chair Samir Shah, in an extraordinary gesture, sent a personal letter to the White House apologizing directly to Trump for the edit featured in the program. In the spokesperson’s words: “While the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited, we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim.”

Still, Trump said he will move forward with his lawsuit. While his threats should be taken seriously, and will almost certainly trigger an expensive legal fight, First Amendment lawyers view the case as an aggressive intimidation tactic with little merit.

“This is yet another frivolous shake down threat by President Trump’s legal team meant to intimidate the press,” veteran First Amendment attorney Ted Boutrous told me. “It’s very doubtful such a case could even proceed in the United States and, if it did, it would run right into the First Amendment and almost certainly will be dismissed. Hopefully the BBC will stand strong.”

And Trump’s accusations face another significant hurdle. While the president’s lawyers have suggested they would file the lawsuit in Florida, legal experts say U.S. courts likely lack jurisdiction over a case involving a broadcast that never aired in the country.

“In America, you can always sue!” Rebecca Tushnet, the Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment at Harvard Law School, told me. “If the documentary didn’t air in the U.S., it will be difficult, verging on impossible, to successfully bring the BBC into U.S. court (before even getting to the merits).”

But Trump’s efforts are not solely about courtroom victories. They are part of a broader authoritarian campaign to intimidate and punish news outlets that investigate or scrutinize him.

In recent months, Trump has mounted an unprecedented legal assault on American media companies. He sued ABC News over comments made by George Stephanopoulos in an interview last year. He filed suit against CBS after “60 Minutes” aired an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris that he claimed was designed to help his rival. And he launched a $20 billion lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal over its reporting on his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. While Rupert Murdoch’s Journal has vowed to fight Trump’s absurd litigation, the others have coughed up eight-figure settlements, propelling his legal assault and sending a clear message that they would prefer to appease him.

For the BBC, the threat comes at a precarious moment. The broadcaster is already reeling from internal turmoil and a rabid online ecosystem eager to paint it as a corrupt, left-wing monolith. And right-wing forces in both the U.K. and the U.S. are seizing on the “Panorama” error as evidence that the institution is fundamentally biased.

Trump has long branded the press an “enemy of the American people.” Now he’s bringing that war to the shores of Britain. The question facing the BBC is whether it will stand up to Trump’s assault, or further embolden his campaign against institutions central to the pursuit of the truth.