Donald Trump has insisted he will press ahead with legal action against the BBC, despite receiving the apology he demanded for a misleading edit of one of his speeches in a Panorama episode about the 2021 Capitol riot.
The dispute centres on a Panorama broadcast from last year, which triggered accusations of bias within the BBC and ultimately led to the resignations of two senior executives: director general Tim Davie and Deborah Turness, the corporation’s chief executive of news.
Trump had previously warned that he would take legal action if an apology was not issued. However, even after receiving the BBC’s apology on Thursday, he told reporters aboard Air Force One: “We’ll sue them for anywhere between a billion and $5bn, probably sometime next week. We have to do it.”
The BBC apologised but maintained there was no legal basis for Trump’s threat of action over what his lawyers described as a defamatory documentary. The corporation rejected his demands for compensation, following threats from his legal team to sue for $1bn unless the programme was retracted and a settlement reached. The BBC has also agreed not to re-air that particular edition of Panorama.
Trump said he had not yet spoken to the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, about the matter, though he planned to do so over the weekend.
Internal turmoil unfolded within the BBC after a leaked memo resurfaced the controversial clip. The edited segment made it appear as though Trump had said: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol … and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.” In reality, the full quote had been: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.” More than 50 minutes later in the same speech, he added: “And we fight. We fight like hell.”
The Capitol attack, which resulted in five deaths including a police officer, occurred shortly after Trump spoke at the Save America rally on 6 January. A violent mob stormed the building after Trump repeated false claims that the 2020 election had been “stolen by emboldened radical-left Democrats”. Around 2,500 people entered the Capitol, with some involved in vandalism and looting. More than 1,000 individuals were sentenced for their involvement, though Trump later issued presidential pardons to all of them, including those convicted of violent offences.
The fallout from the attack also led to Trump being suspended from multiple social media platforms. In September, YouTube agreed to pay $24.5m to settle a lawsuit brought by Trump, following similar settlements with X/Twitter and Facebook. According to court documents, the YouTube settlement will fund a new ballroom at the White House, while the Facebook settlement will contribute to his presidential library.
In its letter to Trump’s legal team, the BBC outlined why it believed there was no legal basis for a lawsuit. It noted that the programme was broadcast only in the UK and that Trump had not suffered damage, having been re-elected soon after. The corporation also stressed that the edit was a 12-second section of a lengthy speech, and was never intended to be viewed in isolation. The hour-long programme, it said, included multiple contributors who supported Trump.
Speaking to GB News, Trump said the edit was “impossible to believe” and added: “I made a beautiful statement, and they made it into a not beautiful statement. Fake news was a great term, except it’s not strong enough. This is beyond fake, this is corrupt.”
BBC chair Samir Shah issued a personal apology to the White House on Thursday and told MPs the edit had been “an error of judgment”. On Friday, culture minister Lisa Nandy said the apology was “right and necessary”.
It has since emerged that a similar edit appeared in a 2022 edition of the BBC’s Newsnight programme.
