WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has said he feels an “obligation” to sue the BBC, accusing the British broadcaster of misleading viewers by editing a section of his 6 January 2021 speech in a way that, he claims, distorted its meaning.
Speaking in a Fox News interview aired late on Tuesday, Trump said the BBC’s Panorama documentary had “butchered” his address to supporters before the Capitol riot. “They defrauded the public,” he told host Laura Ingraham. “They actually changed my January 6 speech, which was a beautiful, calming speech, and they made it sound radical. What they did was rather incredible.”
His comments come days after Trump’s lawyers sent a formal letter to the BBC demanding a retraction, an apology, and $1 billion (£759 million) in damages. The letter, received by the corporation on Sunday, gave the broadcaster until Friday night to respond.
The BBC has acknowledged an “error of judgment” in the edit and said it will issue a response “in due course.” BBC chair Samir Shah previously apologised for the mistake, calling it a lapse in editorial oversight. However, the controversy has deepened amid leadership upheaval and political scrutiny of the broadcaster’s independence.
The Edit That Sparked the Storm
The disputed edit appeared in a Panorama documentary aired shortly before the 2024 US presidential election. In the original speech, Trump told supporters: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.”
But the BBC version spliced two segments of the speech nearly an hour apart, presenting Trump 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 altered sequence appeared to suggest Trump was directly urging supporters to take aggressive action, a sensitive implication given the violent events that followed at the Capitol.
The issue only surfaced publicly last week after the Daily Telegraph published a leaked internal BBC memo. The memo, written by a former external adviser to the broadcaster’s editorial standards committee, warned that the edit risked misrepresenting the speech’s intent.
Fallout at the BBC
The fallout has been swift. BBC Director General Tim Davie and Head of News Deborah Turness have both resigned, acknowledging “mistakes that have cost us.” Speaking to staff on Tuesday, Davie urged employees to “fight for our narrative,” saying the BBC’s record of public service journalism “speaks louder than any weaponisation.”
Neither Davie nor Shah addressed Trump’s legal threat directly during internal meetings. Downing Street has declined to comment, calling it “a matter for the BBC.”
The timing is awkward for the corporation. Its royal charter which governs its funding and editorial independence expires at the end of 2027. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told Parliament this week that upcoming negotiations would aim to create “a genuinely accountable” BBC fit for the modern age.
“There’s a fundamental difference between raising serious concerns over editorial failings and launching a sustained attack on the institution itself,” Nandy said. “The BBC belongs to us all.”
Wider Political Ripples
Since returning to office, Trump has repeatedly clashed with major media outlets. He has reached financial settlements with CBS News and ABC News, and pursued action against The New York Times over coverage he described as “defamatory.”
The latest dispute adds to those tensions. Reform UK, a right-wing British political party, announced it would withdraw from a BBC documentary about its rise, citing the controversy over the Trump edit. In an internal email, party officials said they no longer had confidence that the broadcaster would treat them fairly.
As for Trump, he maintains that his lawsuit against the BBC is a matter of principle, not politics. “You can’t let people do that,” he said on Fox News. “I think I have an obligation to do it.”
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