President Donald Trump is once again at odds with media outlets, this time taking legal action against the BBC. Trump has filed a lawsuit claiming defamation and deceptive trade practices, seeking $10 billion in damages from the British broadcaster.
The legal complaint, submitted on Monday, alleges that the BBC manipulated footage from Trump’s January 6, 2021, speech. According to the lawsuit, the broadcaster “spliced together two separate parts of the speech” to “deliberately misrepresent” Trump’s words. It accuses the BBC of attempting to influence the upcoming 2024 U.S. presidential election through this “false” portrayal.
Last month, the BBC issued an apology to Trump over the editing of the January 6 speech. However, the broadcaster, which is funded by the public, has denied any allegations of defamation.
As Trump continues his battles with the media during his second term, there have been several notable incidents.
On September 22, ABC made headlines by reinstating “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” The network had initially suspended the show indefinitely after host Jimmy Kimmel faced backlash for comments regarding the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Remarkably, the show returned to the airwaves less than a week later.
ABC indefinitely suspended the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” show in September following criticism of comments the host made over the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. It then returned the show to the air less than a week later.
Trump celebrated the suspension of the veteran late-night comic and his frequent critic, calling it “great news for America.”
The network pulled Kimmel after his monologue included a reference to the Kirk’s shooting and compared Trump’s grief to “how a 4-year-old mourns a goldfish.”
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee, said his agency had a strong case for holding Kimmel, ABC and its parent company Walt Disney Co., accountable for spreading misinformation.
Late-night hosts Jon Stewart, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers and Stephen Colbert all expressed solidarity with Kimmel. Hundreds of other entertainment luminaries signed a letter circulated by the American Civil Liberties Union that called ABC’s move “a dark moment for freedom of speech in our nation.”
Sept. 15: Trump sues the New York Times
Trump filed a $15 billion defamation lawsuit against the New York Times that targets four journalists for a book and three articles published within a two-month period before the 2024 election.
A Florida federal judge tossed the suit, saying it was overly long and was full of “tedious and burdensome” language that had no bearing on the legal case, but he gave Trump’s legal team 28 days to file an amended complaint. The revised lawsuit was filed in October.
The Times called the lawsuit meritless and an attempt to discourage independent reporting.
July 18: Trump sues The Wall Street Journal
Trump filed a $10 billion lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and media mogul Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp owns the paper. The move came a day after the Journal published a story reporting on his ties to financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The article described a sexually suggestive letter that the newspaper says bore Trump’s name and was included in a 2003 album compiled for Epstein’s 50th birthday.
The Justice Department had earlier asked a federal court to unseal grand jury transcripts in Epstein’s sex trafficking case. The Trump administration had announced it would not be releasing additional files from the case.
July 18: Colbert’s show is canceled
CBS announced it would cancel “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” next May. Colbert is one of Trump’s most prominent and persistent late-night critics. CBS said the show was canceled for financial reasons, not for content. However, the announcement came three days after Colbert criticized a settlement between Trump and CBS parent company Paramount Global over a “60 Minutes” story.
July 2: CBS owner agrees to settlement
Paramount Global decided to pay Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit regarding editing of a CBS’ “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris in October 2024. At the time Harris was the Democratic candidate for president.
Trump’s lawyers claimed he suffered “mental anguish” following the interview and sued for $20 billion. The company was hoping to put the issue to rest as it sought administration approval of a merger. Paramount, which owns CBS, said the money will go to Trump’s future presidential library and to pay his legal fees.
May 1: Trump slashes funding for PBS and NPR
Trump signed an executive order aimed at slashing public subsidies to PBS and NPR and alleged “bias” in the broadcasters’ reporting. His order instructed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other federal agencies “to cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS” and further requires that they work to root out indirect sources of public financing for the news organizations.
Later that month, NPR and three of its local stations sued Trump, arguing that the order violated their free speech and relies on an authority that he does not have. This summer, Congress approved eliminating $1.1 billion allocated to public broadcasting.
Feb. 12: Trump removes the AP from White House press pool
Trump decided to remove the AP from the White House press pool. That meant AP journalists no longer would have access to the Oval Office, Air Force One and other events not open to a full press corps. The move was in retaliation for AP’s decision not to follow his lead in changing the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America in all instances.
The AP Stylebook calls for referring to the body of water by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump chose. The reasoning is that AP disseminates news around the world and must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences.
The wire service later sued Trump and a district court sided with the AP in April, affirming on First Amendment grounds that the government cannot punish the news organization for the content of its speech. A federal appeals court in June stayed that decision.
December 2024: ABC agrees to settle defamation lawsuit
ABC News agreed to pay $15 million toward Trump’s presidential library as part of a defamation lawsuit settlement over anchor George Stephanopoulos’ inaccurate on-air assertion that the president-elect had been found civilly liable of raping writer E. Jean Carroll. The network also agreed to pay $1 million in legal fees.
The settlement agreement described ABC’s presidential library payment as a “charitable contribution.”
Trump sued ABC and Stephanopoulos in a Miami federal court in March 2024 after the network aired the segment in which Stephanopoulos repeatedly misstated the verdicts in Carroll’s two lawsuits against Trump. Neither verdict involved a finding of rape as defined under New York law.
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