Legal Analyst Breaks Down Trump's Potential Lawsuit Against BBC, Violence at University Protest

President Trump says he'll likely sue the BBC for the way they ended his edited his January 6th speech, taking two parts from the speech an hour apart, making it appear that he called for violence. After much criticism, two heads of the company then stepped down to dive into the legal avenues. We welcome on Jim Trusty, former federal prosecutor and former attorney for President Trump. Jim, thank you for joining us. In the BBC case, what would President Trump have to prove here? Well, good to see you, Jack. I mean, it's like any typical defamation case with a public figure because he would be filing suit in South Florida, apparently. So, that means actual malice, which is a high standard. But I have to tell you, he's he's been on a roll recently with these types of cases against journalist outlets that doctor, you know, I'd say this is more doctoring a video than editing a video. And so when you knowingly splice together things to make it sound like he's calling for physical violence on January 6, uh, you've got your work cut out in defending it. The only issue that they really have is that it was a British aired show that doesn't air independently in the US. So Trump's lawyers, if you got to the point of fighting motions and going to trial, you'd have to be able to show that there was some impact in Florida. There was some republishing of it online or some people making comments about it. So it's not quite as easy as if it was an American outlet, but I think that's a a technicality he could probably overcome. Sure, the BBC has a huge reach in the US and we and that documentary came out right before the 2024 election, but Trump's already sued several other media outlets for liel uh this year. And last, ABC and Paramount paid Trump about $15 million each to settle two separate cases. Is Trump waging war on media that that covered him negatively, or is this more about stopping defamation and discouraging others? Yeah, look, I'm sure whatever uh letter you subscribe to, D or R, probably answers that question. But the reality is these are not frivolous lawsuits. You would not have Paramount for CBS settling on the 60 Minutes doctoring of uh Kla Harris's Word Salad for$6 million or George Stephanopoulos causing ABC to cough up 15 million for claiming repeatedly that Eugene Carol was raped by President Trump. I mean, that's the thing. When they take a very finite clear fact and distort it, something that they would know from being reporters, they put themselves in harm's way. So, look, I I think the president has every right to pursue these cases. And unlike some other litigation we see in the world of defamation, this stuff has some potential. This is something where he could actually collect millions. And I think BBC is posturing itself like they're ready to settle. And Jim, President Trump this week is floating the idea of $2,000 checks to Americans funded by tariff revenue with any remaining surplus going to pay down the national debt. What are the legal pathways for Trump to make this happen? >> Yeah. I mean there there's really kind of a host of issues here that come together to make it pretty hard. I mean on the pure legal side, this has to come from Congress. I mean, Congress are the ones that have the right to spend and, you know, allocate expenditures to either raise taxes or to give rebates for taxes or whatever you want to call it. The the problem is there's been one bill introduced along these lines for the tariffs. Josh Howie has one. It's been bottled up in the uh subcommittee and has never seen daylight since the summer. So, they'd have to find some common ground at Congress to push for these things. And it's a little bit like the COVID stimulus checks. It's certainly possible, but a lot of people were also pointing to the math not really adding up in a country of whatever we are, 360 million. You know, 2,000 ahead doesn't exactly add up in terms of what they've collected from the tariffs. So, that's a problem. And then you also have, frankly, the problem with the Supreme Court right now pondering the legitimacy of the president's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to do these tariffs in the first place. So, you have a lot of really tricky practical and legal things coming together at the same time to make this a real challenge. >> That's right. If they rule against President Trump using those tariffs, they may also require the Trump administration to pay back uh the importers. Um the DOJ also is investigating violence at a UC Berkeley protest where a turning point event was taking place. Some of the protesters arrested weren't even affiliated with the school in any way. Now, federal authorities are looking into whether the mob violated the Turning Point attendees first and 14th amendment rights. Do they have a case? >> Yeah, I think what they're looking at is primarily the school at Berkeley, which has kind of a rich history of uh of treating protests differently depending on whose ox is being gored. You know, the the crazy overlap here is that Harmy Dylan, the assistant attorney general for the Trump administration civil rights uh division, she actually in her private capacity as a lawyer, her firm sued Berkeley back in 2016, 2017 about their inability or their unwillingness to protect conservative speakers from mob violence and mob intimidation. So they got a settlement out of Berkeley back in like 2017, maybe 2018. And now she's in a position where she brings the whole weight of the federal government into the picture. And she says this is the same old problem with Berkeley. One thing Berkeley does that's really going to be problematic for them is they continuously insist on a higher fee, a security fee for conservative speakers. And I think that's where you're going to have some real first amendment issues. They have an obligation to reasonably protect free speech and any speaker that comes and they seem to be kind of choosing favorites when it comes to conservative speakers daring to show up at Berkeley. And Jim, uh, we jumped through a lot of topics here. I just want to get your thoughts on one more thing. President Trump nominated three federal district judges today, saying they've been strong on immigration enforcement, preserving oil and gas, and and tough on crime. Now throughout the year we saw a force from federal judges working to block Trump's executive orders. These cases go up to the higher courts when and then they have to define the relationship between the office of the president and the judicial branch. How do you see the dynamic if at all changing over the next few years? >> Yeah, it's a good question and you know it's probably to do it right I probably need about an hour but but the short version is this. I think that what we've seen over the last few years in terms of lawfare of aggressive challenging of everything the executive branch does usually by picking select judges in select districts uh whether that's DC or Maryland or Northern California that has bubbled up to the point where the Supreme Court is sick of it. and the Supreme Court. It's not necessarily that they're all in favor of an unlimited imperial presidency, but they're sick of things like nationwide injunctions and very activist overreaching on an emergency basis, quote unquote, by district court judges. So, no surprise President Trump's trying to get some people that have a u a more conservative view of judicial power. And no surprise that the Supreme Court is going to have to keep fighting back against district court judges and sometimes the circuits for uh being a little too activist when it comes to monitoring the executive branch. >> Jim Trusty, thank you very much for your insights as always.