Yesterday
Left Foot Forward
Someone should remind Trump that Truss has no credibility in the UK.
U.S. President Donald Trump has claimed that disgraced former Prime Minister Liz Truss is a ‘voice of authority’ as part of his defamation lawsuit against the BBC.
Trump wants to sue the BBC after Panorama broadcast a misleading edit of a speech he made before the Capitol riots on January 6, 2021.
During the speech, before a riot at the US Capitol, Trump told a crowd: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.”
More than 50 minutes later in the speech, he said: “And we fight. We fight like hell.”
In the edited Panorama clip, it showed him as saying: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol… and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.”
The BBC has apologised with two of its top figures, including the director-general, resigning amid concerns about impartiality.
Truss, an ally of Trump, accused the BBC of peddling ‘fake news’ and of being ‘left leaning’.
Legal experts have said that Trump’s lawsuit is unlikely to succeed, given the high bar Trump would have to meet to prove that there was intentional malice, and given that the Panorama documentary is not available in the U.S., Trump would also have a difficult time proving reputational harm.
Nonetheless, Trump has followed through on his legal threat and on Monday evening filed a lawsuit against the BBC totalling up to $10bn (£7.5bn).
Trump reckons the voice of Britain’s shortest serving prime minister, Truss, is proof that the BBC needs to be ‘held accountable.’ The same Liz Truss whose disastrous mini-budget led to market turmoil and the pound collapsing, resulting in her being booted from office after just 45 days.
The lawsuit states: “No less an authority than the United Kingdom’s former Prime Minister, Liz Truss, discussed this bias, the need to hold the BBC accountable, and the BBC’s pattern of actual malice.”
Someone should remind Trump that Truss has no credibility in the UK.
Left Foot Forward
Someone should remind Trump that Truss has no credibility in the UK.
U.S. President Donald Trump has claimed that disgraced former Prime Minister Liz Truss is a ‘voice of authority’ as part of his defamation lawsuit against the BBC.
Trump wants to sue the BBC after Panorama broadcast a misleading edit of a speech he made before the Capitol riots on January 6, 2021.
During the speech, before a riot at the US Capitol, Trump told a crowd: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.”
More than 50 minutes later in the speech, he said: “And we fight. We fight like hell.”
In the edited Panorama clip, it showed him as saying: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol… and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.”
The BBC has apologised with two of its top figures, including the director-general, resigning amid concerns about impartiality.
Truss, an ally of Trump, accused the BBC of peddling ‘fake news’ and of being ‘left leaning’.
Legal experts have said that Trump’s lawsuit is unlikely to succeed, given the high bar Trump would have to meet to prove that there was intentional malice, and given that the Panorama documentary is not available in the U.S., Trump would also have a difficult time proving reputational harm.
Nonetheless, Trump has followed through on his legal threat and on Monday evening filed a lawsuit against the BBC totalling up to $10bn (£7.5bn).
Trump reckons the voice of Britain’s shortest serving prime minister, Truss, is proof that the BBC needs to be ‘held accountable.’ The same Liz Truss whose disastrous mini-budget led to market turmoil and the pound collapsing, resulting in her being booted from office after just 45 days.
The lawsuit states: “No less an authority than the United Kingdom’s former Prime Minister, Liz Truss, discussed this bias, the need to hold the BBC accountable, and the BBC’s pattern of actual malice.”
Someone should remind Trump that Truss has no credibility in the UK.
What we know about Trump’s $10 billion BBC lawsuit
ByAFP
December 16, 2025
Image: - © AFP/File Justin TALLIS
Akshata Kapoor and Chris Lefkow in Washington
US President Donald Trump has filed a defamation lawsuit against the BBC, seeking $10 billion in damages over a misleading edit of his 2021 speech before the US Capitol riot.
Here’s what we know about the row:
– Why Florida? –
Trump filed the lawsuit in a federal court in Miami, Florida, the state where he is a legal resident and where he has filed previous lawsuits against US media outlets.
His lawyers argue that many of the scenes in the Panorama documentary — which aired in Britain in October 2024 — were shot in Florida, including around Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
He was too late to file a libel claim in the UK, which generally has a one-year time limit to bring such cases.
– What are the arguments? –
The documentary spliced together two separate sections of Trump’s speech on January 6, 2021 in a way that made it appear he explicitly urged supporters to attack the Capitol, where lawmakers were certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 election win.
The lawsuit alleges that the edit was a deliberate attempt to give a “false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction” of Trump to try to “interfere and influence” the 2024 presidential election.
They say it harmed Trump’s reputation as a “politician, leader, and businessman”, even though he went on to win the election and his team was apparently unaware of the broadcast for about a year.
– Can Trump win? –
While the BBC has previously apologised for its “mistake”, it insists there is no basis for a defamation case and said on Tuesday it would fight the lawsuit.
The broadcaster contends that the documentary did not air in the United States and its streaming platform cannot be accessed outside the UK.
Trump is arguing that people in Florida would have been able to view the documentary through the use of VPNs and the broadcaster’s US distributor.
But Canadian company Blue Ant, which owns the rights to the documentary outside the UK, told AFP on Tuesday that “none” of its buyers “have aired it in the US”.
Legal experts say the BBC has a strong case.
“Defamation cases are difficult to win,” University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias told AFP, noting a 1964 Supreme Court ruling that “requires plaintiffs to prove actual malice, which is an onerous proof burden”.
Trump has launched several recent legal actions against media companies, including CNN and The New York Times, but these have not yet gone to court.
The BBC could choose to settle, but Mark Damazer, a former BBC Radio 4 controller, said it would be “damaging” to the BBC’s reputation not to fight the case.
– Could it cost the British public? –
British taxpayers largely fund the cash-strapped broadcaster through an annual licence fee that is mandatory for anyone in the country who watches television.
Some commentators in the UK have speculated that the legal costs of fighting or settling the defamation case could result in an increase to the £174.50 pound ($234) annual license.
In December 2024, ABC News agreed to pay $15 million in a defamation case brought by Trump. In July, CBS forked out $16 million to settle another case.
– Why it’s bad timing for the BBC –
The lawsuit coincides with the launch in the UK of a politically sensitive review of the BBC’s Royal Charter, which outlines the corporation’s governance.
The current charter ends in 2027 and will need to be renewed, with the BBC’s funding model and editorial priorities up for debate.
It also comes as the broadcaster seeks a replacement for outgoing director general Tim Davie who announced his resignation over the edit.
In the decade to 2020, the BBC’s income overall fell by about 30 percent in real terms, Davie said last year.
Last month, lawmakers revealed that the BBC is losing more than £1 billion a year from households evading the licence fee.
ByAFP
December 16, 2025
Image: - © AFP/File Justin TALLIS
Akshata Kapoor and Chris Lefkow in Washington
US President Donald Trump has filed a defamation lawsuit against the BBC, seeking $10 billion in damages over a misleading edit of his 2021 speech before the US Capitol riot.
Here’s what we know about the row:
– Why Florida? –
Trump filed the lawsuit in a federal court in Miami, Florida, the state where he is a legal resident and where he has filed previous lawsuits against US media outlets.
His lawyers argue that many of the scenes in the Panorama documentary — which aired in Britain in October 2024 — were shot in Florida, including around Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
He was too late to file a libel claim in the UK, which generally has a one-year time limit to bring such cases.
– What are the arguments? –
The documentary spliced together two separate sections of Trump’s speech on January 6, 2021 in a way that made it appear he explicitly urged supporters to attack the Capitol, where lawmakers were certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 election win.
The lawsuit alleges that the edit was a deliberate attempt to give a “false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction” of Trump to try to “interfere and influence” the 2024 presidential election.
They say it harmed Trump’s reputation as a “politician, leader, and businessman”, even though he went on to win the election and his team was apparently unaware of the broadcast for about a year.
– Can Trump win? –
While the BBC has previously apologised for its “mistake”, it insists there is no basis for a defamation case and said on Tuesday it would fight the lawsuit.
The broadcaster contends that the documentary did not air in the United States and its streaming platform cannot be accessed outside the UK.
Trump is arguing that people in Florida would have been able to view the documentary through the use of VPNs and the broadcaster’s US distributor.
But Canadian company Blue Ant, which owns the rights to the documentary outside the UK, told AFP on Tuesday that “none” of its buyers “have aired it in the US”.
Legal experts say the BBC has a strong case.
“Defamation cases are difficult to win,” University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias told AFP, noting a 1964 Supreme Court ruling that “requires plaintiffs to prove actual malice, which is an onerous proof burden”.
Trump has launched several recent legal actions against media companies, including CNN and The New York Times, but these have not yet gone to court.
The BBC could choose to settle, but Mark Damazer, a former BBC Radio 4 controller, said it would be “damaging” to the BBC’s reputation not to fight the case.
– Could it cost the British public? –
British taxpayers largely fund the cash-strapped broadcaster through an annual licence fee that is mandatory for anyone in the country who watches television.
Some commentators in the UK have speculated that the legal costs of fighting or settling the defamation case could result in an increase to the £174.50 pound ($234) annual license.
In December 2024, ABC News agreed to pay $15 million in a defamation case brought by Trump. In July, CBS forked out $16 million to settle another case.
– Why it’s bad timing for the BBC –
The lawsuit coincides with the launch in the UK of a politically sensitive review of the BBC’s Royal Charter, which outlines the corporation’s governance.
The current charter ends in 2027 and will need to be renewed, with the BBC’s funding model and editorial priorities up for debate.
It also comes as the broadcaster seeks a replacement for outgoing director general Tim Davie who announced his resignation over the edit.
In the decade to 2020, the BBC’s income overall fell by about 30 percent in real terms, Davie said last year.
Last month, lawmakers revealed that the BBC is losing more than £1 billion a year from households evading the licence fee.
Liz Truss claims that living in the UK is now like ‘East Germany’ in latest bizarre rant
15 December, 2025
Truss is totally deluded
.
Liz Truss could do with some quiet self-reflection after her disastrous time in office that resulted in her being booted out after just 45 days, yet the disgraced former Prime Minister continues to make bizarre and ludicrous claims.
After repeatedly claiming that her premiership fell apart because of the ‘deep state’ rather than her own disastrous policies contained in the mini-budget, which sent mortgage bills soaring and the pound collapsing, Truss now says that living in the UK is like living in East Germany with free-speech under attack.
Despite the fact that Truss was able to reach the highest office in the land, say what she liked and push her flawed policies which ultimately resulted in her downfall, Truss claims that free speech has been eroded and that you can now be arrested for “expressing perfectly normal views online”.
In the latest instalment of the weekly ‘The Liz Truss Show’ on Youtube, the former Tory leader claimed that foreigners were “afraid to step onto our shores for fear of being arrested”, and that “hate crime cases and cracking down on free speech” was being prioritised by police “over burglary and rape”.
She was joined on her latest episode by three guests, Allison Pearson, Graham Linehan, and Lucy Connelly.
Connolly was sentenced in October 2024 to two and a half years behind bars after admitting to inciting racial hatred. She took to X to urge people to “set fire” to hotels housing asylum seekers during the Southport riots last summer. She pleaded guilty to the offence of distributing material with the intention of stirring up racial hatred.
Yet despite her breaking the law and pleading guilty, Truss and others have sought to portray her as a free speech martyr.
Truss says in her video: “It does feel like we’re living in East Germany.”
“Laws have been passed which are now being used against ordinary citizens expressing perfectly normal views online.”
Truss’ latest bizarre rant, will only add to the feeling that she’s completely out of touch with reality.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
Liz Truss could do with some quiet self-reflection after her disastrous time in office that resulted in her being booted out after just 45 days, yet the disgraced former Prime Minister continues to make bizarre and ludicrous claims.
After repeatedly claiming that her premiership fell apart because of the ‘deep state’ rather than her own disastrous policies contained in the mini-budget, which sent mortgage bills soaring and the pound collapsing, Truss now says that living in the UK is like living in East Germany with free-speech under attack.
Despite the fact that Truss was able to reach the highest office in the land, say what she liked and push her flawed policies which ultimately resulted in her downfall, Truss claims that free speech has been eroded and that you can now be arrested for “expressing perfectly normal views online”.
In the latest instalment of the weekly ‘The Liz Truss Show’ on Youtube, the former Tory leader claimed that foreigners were “afraid to step onto our shores for fear of being arrested”, and that “hate crime cases and cracking down on free speech” was being prioritised by police “over burglary and rape”.
She was joined on her latest episode by three guests, Allison Pearson, Graham Linehan, and Lucy Connelly.
Connolly was sentenced in October 2024 to two and a half years behind bars after admitting to inciting racial hatred. She took to X to urge people to “set fire” to hotels housing asylum seekers during the Southport riots last summer. She pleaded guilty to the offence of distributing material with the intention of stirring up racial hatred.
Yet despite her breaking the law and pleading guilty, Truss and others have sought to portray her as a free speech martyr.
Truss says in her video: “It does feel like we’re living in East Germany.”
“Laws have been passed which are now being used against ordinary citizens expressing perfectly normal views online.”
Truss’ latest bizarre rant, will only add to the feeling that she’s completely out of touch with reality.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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