Trump to sue BBC over wrongly edited speech despite broadcaster's apology

US President Donald Trump has announced he will sue the BBC for up to $5 billion next week, following the broadcaster’s admission that it wrongly edited a video of a speech he gave on January 6, 2021.

Trump said the error caused “overwhelming reputational and financial harm” and insisted the BBC’s apology was insufficient.

Trump’s lawyers had set a Friday deadline for the BBC to retract the documentary, apologise, and pay compensation, or face a lawsuit of no less than $1 billion. The BBC admitted the editing was an “error of judgement” and issued a personal apology to Trump on Thursday, but rejected any claim of defamation and said it would not rebroadcast the programme.

Speaking aboard Air Force One, Trump told reporters, “We'll sue them for anywhere between $1 billion and $5 billion, probably sometime next week. I think I have to do that, I mean they've even admitted that they cheated. They changed the words coming out of my



mouth.”

The disputed documentary, part of the BBC’s flagship Panorama programme, spliced three excerpts from Trump’s speech to create the impression he was inciting the Capitol riot. His lawyers described this as “false and defamatory.”

In an interview with GB News, Trump said the edit was “impossible to believe” and compared it to election interference, “Fake news was a great term, except it's not strong enough. This is beyond fake, this is corrupt. They clipped together two parts of the speech that were nearly an hour apart. One was making me into a bad guy, and the other was a very calming statement.”

BBC Chair Samir Shah sent a personal apology to the White House, calling the editing a “mistake.” British Culture Minister Lisa Nandy described the apology as “right and necessary.”

The broadcaster has no plans to rebroadcast the documentary and is investigating additional allegations of editing on other programmes, including Newsnight.