Judge Roy K. Altman, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, set a provisional Feb. 15, 2027 start date for a two-week trial in President Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the BBC after rejecting the broadcaster’s effort to postpone proceedings.
The judge’s Wednesday ruling came after the BBC asked the court to delay the case while it pursued a motion aimed at ending the lawsuit. The BBC had sought a stay of discovery, the pretrial process in which parties exchange documents and other information, ahead of its planned motion to dismiss.
Trump sued in December, alleging that the BBC defamed him through edits to a speech he delivered on Jan. 6, 2021, according to the lawsuit described in the court proceedings. The complaint also includes claims that the BBC engaged in unfair trade practices, seeking $5 billion in damages for each set of claims—$5 billion for defamation and $5 billion for unfair trade practices—amounting to a $10 billion total request.
In the dispute, the speech was used in a BBC documentary titled “Trump: A Second Chance?” that aired days before the 2024 U.S. presidential election. The BBC’s edited presentation, according to the allegations described in the case, spliced together three quotes from two separate sections of Trump’s 2021 speech—delivered almost an hour apart—so that they appeared as one continuous quote in which Trump urged supporters to march with him and “fight like hell.”
The edited version, as described in the filing and the reporting, excluded a portion in which Trump said he wanted supporters to demonstrate peacefully. Trump and his legal team argued the resulting broadcast was misleading and harmful.
The controversy surrounding the documentary led to internal shake-ups at the BBC, including the resignations of the broadcaster’s top executive and its head of news. The BBC later apologized to Trump over the edit of the Jan. 6 speech, while still disputing that it defamed him.
In its upcoming legal efforts, papers filed last month said the BBC plans to file a motion to dismiss the case on the basis that the court lacks jurisdiction—among other arguments, including that the program was not broadcast in Florida—and that Trump failed to state a claim. Before the motion was decided, the BBC asked the court to postpone discovery so that information-gathering would wait for the jurisdiction question to be resolved.
Altman rejected that approach, saying the BBC’s request was “premature” because it was too early in the legal process for the broadcaster to seek a stay of discovery. The judge’s scheduling of the trial means the case will continue moving through pretrial steps rather than pausing entirely while the dismissal bid is litigated.
The BBC said it would continue defending the lawsuit and that it would not make further comment on ongoing legal proceedings.