US President Donald Trump has threatened the BBC with a $5 billion lawsuit even after the broadcaster apologised for editing one his speeches, which he said is misleading.
Why is Trump suing BBC?
Justifying his move, Trump told GB News, “This was so egregious. If you don’t do it, you don’t stop it from happening again with other people”
The potential lawsuit comes after a BBC Panorama documentary that released in October 2024 edited the excerpts from Trump’s speech on January 6, 2021, in an allegedly misleading manner. Earlier this week, the BBC apologised, saying the edited video gave the “mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action.”
BBC said the documentary would not be broadcast again. However, it ruled out paying any financial compensation, prompting Trump to threaten a lawsuit.
“We’ll sue them. We’ll sue them for anywhere between a billion and 5 billion dollars, probably sometime next week,” Trump said while speaking to reporters on Air Force One overnight on Saturday.
“We have to do it, they’ve even admitted that they cheated. Not that they couldn’t have not done that. They cheated. They changed the words coming out of my mouth,” he added.
In the original speech, Trump tells his supporters, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.” And less than an hour later, he says, “And we fight. We fight like hell.”
However, the edited speech in the BBC documentary showed both parts as a continuous sequence, wherein Trump says, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol… and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.”
The issues already led to resignations of BBC Director General Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness.
