U.S. President Donald Trump departs the White House on Tuesday for a Veteran’s Day wreath laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. He later told Fox News that he was presing ahead with plans to sue the British Broadacasting Corporation. Photo by Samuel Corum/UPI | License Photo
U.S. President Donald Trump signaled his intention to push ahead with a $1 billion lawsuit against the BBC, saying he had an obligation due to the “fraudulent” way it had edited a speech he made right before the Capitol Hill riots in 2021.
Speaking to Fox News on Tuesday night, Trump said he had to take legal action because the public service broadcaster “butchered up” the speech he gave to supporters outside the White House on Jan. 6 and had deceived viewers.
The speech formed part of a documentary, Trump: A Second Chance, that went out on the BBC network just before the Nov. 4 U.S. elections, although the BBC maintains that it was not available to view outside of the United Kingdom.
“They defrauded the public and they’ve admitted it. They actually changed my Jan. 6 speech which was a beautiful speech, which was a very calming speech, and made it sound radical. It was very dishonest,” Trump said.
Trump said he had a duty to go ahead and file a defamation lawsuit against the BBC because he “can’t allow people to do that,” in the same way he had been forced to pursue CBS over an interview with Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris that aired four weeks before the election on Nov. 4.
CBS settled Trump’s $20 billion claim out of court for $16 million in July.
The BBC has acknowledged receipt of a letter from Trump’s legal team demanding a “full and fair retraction” of the documentary, an immediate apology, and that the BBC “appropriately compensate President Trump for the harm caused.”
It said the BBC must comply by 5 p.m. EST on Friday, to which the corporation has said it would respond “directly in due course.”
The director-general and the head of news both resigned Sunday after it was revealed the corporation’s Panorama program spliced together two sections of Trump’s speech 53 minutes apart without telling viewers it had done so.
The edited version made it sound as if Trump was inciting his supporters to march on the Capitol and “fight” when what he actually said was that they should all walk down to the Capitol “peacefully and patriotically” and “we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.”
No complaint was raised at the time the documentary aired but the incident has reignited a furious domestic debate about the BBC’s editorial impartiality and the internal culture of the institution which is funded by a $229 annual license that households with a TV must pay.
If the BBC chose to fight the case, which Trump’s lawyer intends to file in the state of Florida, significant obstacles mean long odds on Trump’s chances of prevailing.
For his lawsuit to succeed, his team would have to convince a court that Trump had “suffered overwhelming financial and reputational harm” as a result of the program, as stated in the letter to the BBC.
BBC Chairman Samir Shah has already apologized for what he said was an “error of judgment.”
“We accept that the way the speech was edited did give the impression of a direct call for violent action. The BBC would like to apologize for that error of judgment,” Shah told a parliamentary committee Monday.
However, while that could go against the corporation, as an apparent admission of liability, the case would still have to overcome major challenges.
Legal expert Joshua Rozenberg KC called for the BBC to go further and “draft a retraction and apology in terms that the president’s lawyer finds acceptable” and for the retraction to feature as prominently as the original broadcast.
Writing on his blog post Tuesday, Rozenburg said the BBC would have to pay compensation but suggested that, based on previous legal claims brought by Trump, it would be an out-of-court settlement.
“It won’t be cheap. But it will be cheaper than a billion dollars,” he said.
