By Elissa Steedman, ABC
US President Donald Trump Photo: AFP / Brendan Smialowski
The BBC has become the latest media organisation to receive a legal threat from US President Donald Trump over a documentary it released last year.
An hour-long special of the public broadcaster's investigative series Panorama, which aired a week before the presidential election in November, included edits to a speech Trump gave on January 6, 2021.
A letter sent to the BBC by one of the president's lawyers demanded a full retraction of the documentary, an apology and payments that "appropriately compensate President Trump for the harm caused".
The letter said if those demands were not met, the Trump would be "left with no alternative" but to sue for $US1 billion ($1.53 billion) in damages.
BBC chair Samir Shah said in an interview with his own organisation on Monday he was not sure whether the president would sue, "but he's a litigious fellow, so we should be prepared for all outcomes".
So which other media organisations has Trump sued, and how far did the cases go?
The Chicago Tribune
- Case: Trump v Chicago Tribune Co & Others
- Filed: October 1984
- Status: Dismissed
- Damages sought: $500 million
Summary: In 1984, Trump alleged Paul Gapp, an architecture critic for The Chicago Tribune, had "virtually torpedoed" his plan to build a 150-storey skyscraper off the southern tip of Manhattan.
The build would have been the tallest building in the world at the time, according to Trump.
Gapp had penned a column for the Tribune that questioned the plan, describing it as "one of the silliest things anyone could inflict on New York or any other city".
District Judge Edward Weinfeld found Mr Gapp's column, which was based in opinion, was protected by the First Amendment and dismissed the case.
Trump accused CNN of using its influence as a news organisation to sabotage his political prospects in a lawsuit filed in 2022. Photo: 123rf
CNN
- Case: Trump v CNN Broadcasting Inc & Others
- Filed: October 3, 2022
- Status: Dismissed
- Damages sought: $475 million
Summary: Trump accused CNN of using its influence as a news organisation to sabotage his political prospects in a lawsuit filed in 2022.
The 29-page filing highlighted five instances in which CNN published articles or aired comments that referred to Trump's claims of election fraud as his "big lie".
The phrase is also associated with the Nazi regime's use of propaganda.
The filing said the wording constituted "a deliberate effort by CNN to propagate to its audience an association between the plaintiff and one of the most repugnant figures in modern history".
But Judge Raag Singhal found the comments were not defamatory because "no reasonable viewer could (or should) plausibly make that reference".
ABC
- Case: Trump v. American Broadcasting Companies, Inc
- Filed: March 18, 2024
- Status: Settled
Summary: The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and one of its anchors, George Stephanopoulos, were sued in March 2024 for comments made in an interview with Republican politician Nancy Mace.
During the segment, Mr Stephanopoulos incorrectly stated on multiple occasions that Trump had been found "liable for rape" in a civil case in New York.
The year prior, a jury had found the president liable for sexually abusing and defaming E Jean Carroll but did not find him liable for rape.
Trump accused Stephanopoulos of harming his reputation.
ABC ultimately agreed to a settlement under which it would donate $15 million to Trump's future presidential foundation and museum, pay Trump an additional $1 million in legal fees, and add an editor's note to the bottom of an article about the interview with Ms Mace.
CBS
- Case: Trump vs CBS Broadcasting Inc
- Filed: October 31, 2024
- Status: Settled
- Damages sought: $10 billion
Summary: Toward the end of last year's presidential election campaign, Trump sued CBS News for releasing two clips from a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris.
A transcript of the interview showed Harris had given a lengthy answer to a question about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The clips showed 21 seconds and seven seconds of the answer respectively.
Trump claimed they had been deceptively edited to "paper over Kamala's 'word salad' weakness" and therefore interfere with the election.
CBS' parent media group Paramount, which needed the Trump administration's approval for a planned merger, said on July 1 it had agreed to pay Trump $16 million to settle the lawsuit.
The Wall Street Journal
- Case: Trump v Dow Jones & Company et al
- Filed: July 18, 2025
- Status: Pending
- Damages sought: $10 billion
Summary: On July 17, The Wall Street Journal published an article stating that in 2003, Trump had written a sexually suggestive birthday letter to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
A day later, Trump sued the two journalists who penned the article, the Wall Street Journal, its publishing company Dow Jones & Company, its owner News Corp, and News Corp owner Rupert Murdoch.
Trump alleged the letter was "fake" and said the article was published to harm his reputation.
Dow Jones has said the Journal stands by its reporting and will vigorously fight the lawsuit.
New York Times
- Case: Trump v New York Times Co & Others
- Filed: September 15, refiled October 16
- Status: Pending
- Damages sought: $15 billion
- Status: Concerns notice sent
Summary: Trump sued The New York Times, two of its reporters, and Penguin Random House in September.
The initial complaint alleged three articles and a book, which described Trump's work as host of the television show The Apprentice, were factually incorrect because they described him as having been "discovered" for the role, when he had been famous long before the show began.
US district court judge Steven Merryday tossed the lawsuit on September 19 because the filing did not include a short and plain statement of the allegation, making it "improper and impermissible".
"Alleging only two simple counts of defamation, the complaint consumes 85 pages," he wrote at the time.
"Count one appears on page 80, and count two appears on page 83."
Trump's legal team was given 28 days to amend and refile the action, which it did on October 16.
BBC Director General Tim Davie pictured in November 2022. Photo: AFP / Oli Scarff
The BBC
Summary: A leaked memo to the BBC's ethics committee revealed that an internal review found the public broadcaster's investigative documentary series Panorama had used an edited clip of a speech given by Trump on January 6, 2021.
It appeared to show Trump, on the day his supporters stormed the US Capitol, saying: "We're gonna walk down to the Capitol, and I'll be there with you, and we fight. We fight like hell and if you don't fight like hell, you're not gonna have a country anymore."
But the clip had been created by splicing together two points of his speech that occurred almost an hour apart.
A letter to the BBC, dated November 9 and signed by one of Trump's lawyers, said the edit had caused the president "to suffer overwhelming financial and reputational harm".
It demanded the BBC immediately issue a retraction and apology, and compensate Trump by the end of the week, or risk a lawsuit.
- ABC
