How a British News Brand Called Trump’s Billion Dollar Bluff

The BBC, Britain’s public broadcaster, became a rare case: a major media outlet taking a stand against Trump’s relentless attacks. In October 2024, the BBC aired a one-hour documentary about Trump, combining two excerpts from his January 6, 2021, speech to supporters gathered in Washington, D.C., into a single, continuous call to march on the Capitol and “fight hard.” (The portion where he urged them to demonstrate “peacefully and patriotically” was omitted.) Trump’s lawyers demanded an apology, a retraction, and damages, threatening to sue for $1 billion. The BBC apologized but refused to pay any compensation. Trump then filed his own lawsuit, claiming the program had harmed his “brand, assets, and business.” He received $86.5 million in damages from Disney, Paramount Global, and the parent companies of YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, despite losing all their defamation lawsuits. The octogenarian president must have thought the BBC would eventually cave and pay up as well. Instead, the broadcaster demanded that Trump prove the documentary caused it financial harm by releasing documents from the family trust fund, which encompasses his entire empire, and attempted to subpoena Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner. As a Briton who grew up watching the BBC (and later worked there in various roles), I can’t help but feel proud of how it’s tackling Trump’s worst excesses, and I look forward to what happens next.