Donald Trump announced his intention to sue the BBC for up to $5 billion, stating the lawsuit would likely be filed in the United States sometime next week. This legal action stems from an edited clip of a 2021 speech that appeared in a BBC Panorama program, which Trump alleges falsely depicted him urging people to attack the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The BBC has apologized for the editing error, calling it an "error of judgment" that unintentionally created the impression of a single continuous speech rather than excerpts, and thus gave a mistaken impression of Trump calling for violent action. However, the corporation has refused to offer financial compensation to Trump, despite his lawyers threatening a $1 billion lawsuit if a retraction and apology were not published by a Friday deadline.
Trump expressed his belief that he has an obligation to take legal action to prevent such "egregious" and "fake" reporting from happening again, comparing the BBC's actions to "fraud." He has had previous success in litigating against news organizations, including a $16 million settlement with a media giant over a CBS interview. The BBC has confirmed it will not re-broadcast the specific Panorama episode, "Trump: A Second Chance?," and has published a retraction on its webpage.
The scandal surrounding the edited speech has already led to the resignations of two senior BBC executives. Separately, the BBC is also investigating accusations that it misled viewers about Trump's 2021 Capitol speech in a Newsnight episode broadcast in June 2022, which reportedly used a similar edited version of the speech.
