The BBC asked a Miami judge to end Trump’s $10 billion case. He said its edit was “not trimming around the edges”

Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the BBC will go ahead after US District Judge Jeffrey Kuntz, of the Southern District of Florida, denied most of the broadcaster’s motion to dismiss on Tuesday, US time.

In a 40-page order, the judge found Trump had plausibly alleged that the BBC harmed his reputation and that it knew or should have known the edited clip was misleading. He wrote that the editing was “not trimming around the edges” but created something different from what Trump had said. Whether Trump can prove his claims, and whether he suffered damage, was “left for another day”.

The judge did throw out the second count of the complaint, which accused the BBC of breaching Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. Citing an earlier appeals court ruling, he found that a news organisation’s commercial purpose does not turn an individual documentary into commercial speech.

What was the edit?

The Panorama documentary Trump: A Second Chance? aired in Britain in late October 2024, about a week before the US presidential election. It joined two passages of Trump’s speech near the Capitol on 6 January 2021, delivered nearly an hour apart, so that his call to march to the Capitol appeared to run straight into the words “fight like hell”. Trump says the cut left out his call for supporters to protest peacefully. The BBC argued it had condensed a speech of about 70 minutes.

The edit became public in November 2025 through a leaked internal BBC memo that cited it as evidence of potential bias. The broadcaster’s director-general, Tim Davie, and its head of news, Deborah Turness, resigned, and the BBC apologised on 13 November 2025 while rejecting any legal claim. Trump sued in federal court in Miami in December 2025, seeking at least US$5 billion on each of his two claims.

What did each side say?

A BBC spokesperson said the broadcaster was surprised by the decision but respected the court’s authority. “We remain confident in our position and will continue to respond through the proper legal process,” the spokesperson said.

Trump called the ruling a “Huge Victory against Fake News BBC” in a post on Truth Social.

Why does a British broadcaster face a Florida court?

The documentary was made for British viewers, but the judge noted the BBC had emailed commenters based in the US and Florida directing them to watch it. For now, the case stays in Miami.

What does this mean beyond the BBC?

The case is a test of how far a US president can use American courts against foreign public broadcasters. US defamation law is among the hardest in the world for public figures: Trump must show “actual malice”, meaning the BBC knew the edit was false or recklessly disregarded the truth. Getting past a motion to dismiss is a lower bar than winning, but it opens the BBC to discovery and the cost of a trial.

It is one of several suits Trump has brought against the media. A US$10 billion case against The Wall Street Journal was dismissed on 31 October and he is appealing; a US$15 billion suit against The New York Times and Penguin Random House is pending.

For public broadcasters everywhere, including Australia’s, whose programs are sold and streamed abroad, the ruling is a reminder that a British-made documentary can end up answering to a court in Florida.