The 8 people Donald Trump has sued - to become £24m richer - as he issues ultimatum to BBC

President Donald Trump is certainly a litigious figure when it comes to the media. He has sued eight different media outlets and is bearing down on a ninth in the BBC. He has threatened the BBC with a $1 billion (£761 million) ultimatum after it was discovered that the broadcaster had edited a Panorama documentary to make it seem that Trump had explicitly urged people to attack the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. If the BBC does not apologise by this Friday, November 14, the president has said he will sue them for $1 billion in damages.

Trump has varied success with his legal pursuits against the media, but he has won $31 million (£23.5 million) in damages from the eight challenges he has made. It's a substantial figure, but he initially demanded a total of $39.805 billion (£30.280 billion) when suing these eight outlets. His winnings are 0.08% of his initial demands.

This is the latest in a long series of legal battles Trump has had with the media. The first was 41 years ago, long before he became president for the first time in 2016.

An enraged Trump sought $500 million (£380.3 million) in damages after Chicago Tribune architecture critic Paul Gapp had questioned the would be president's plan to build a 150 storey skyscraper in southern Manhattan.

Gapp's column described the plans as "one of the silliest things anyone could inflict on New York or any other city". The comments "virtually torpedoed" the project, Trump said.

District Judge Edward Weinfeld threw the case out as it was based in opinion, protected by the first amendment right.

After Trump's claims of election fraud when he was beaten by Joe Biden in 2021, CNN reported his position as his "big lie". This phrase is also associated with Nazi propaganda.

Trump demanded $475 million (£361.3 million) from the media outlet in a 29 page filing the case was dismissed by Judge Raag Singhal, who found the comments were not defamatory because "no reasonable viewer could (or should) plausibly make that reference".

Trump sued Simon & Schuster book publishers for copyright infringement. He said there was "systematic usurpation, manipulation, and exploitation" of audio recordings which the defendants illegally profited from in their audiobook The Trump Tapes.

Trump's conversations with journalist Bob Woodward were recorded during interviews but he said they painted him in a bad light. He demanded $50 million (£38 million) in damages but the case was finally dismissed in July 2025.

Trump demanded $3.78 billion (£2.88 billion) in damages from the Washington Post following an article written with a former Truth Social employee. Trump claimed the article "fabricated facts" and there were accusations of "securities fraud and other wrongdoing" at Trump's media company TMTG, First Amendment Watch reported.

This case is still ongoing.

This is the first case that Trump won, and he was awarded $15 million (£11.4 million) from the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) in December 2024. It came after he sued them for comments made in an interview with Republican politician Nancy Mace.

News anchor George Stephanopoulos incorrectly said Trump had been found "liable for rape" in a civil case in New York several times during the segment. In fact, he had been found liable for sexually abusing and defaming E Jean Carroll but not rape.

ABC settled for $15 million, donated to his future presidential fund, and an additional $1 million in legal fees, as well as an editors note on the article with Mace.

Here is another case won by Trump. CBS released edited clips of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris when she was questioned on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Trump claimed that they had deceptively edited to "paper over Kamala's 'word salad' weakness" and therefore interfere with the election. CBS's parent company Paramount agreed to settle, paying $16 million (£12.1 million) to Trump.

The Wall Street Journal published an article in 2003 claiming Trump had written a sexually suggestive birthday letter to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Trump said the letter was fake and sued the two journalists who published the article, Wall Street Journal, its publishing company Dow Jones & Company, its owner News Corp, and News Corp owner Rupert Murdoch. He demands $10 billion (£7.71 billion).

The case is still pending and Dow Jones has said it stands by its reporting.

Trump claims that the New York Times asserting that he was "discovered" for his role on TV show The Apprentice was factually incorrect as he had been famous long before the show began.

The case was initially thrown out in September on clerical grounds but it was resubmitted in October and is currently pending.