Donald Trump says he feels ‘obligated’ to sue BBC after Panorama ‘butchered’ speech edit

Donald Trump has never shied away from threats to sue or a court stoush but, in the case of the BBC, the US President claims the broadcaster left him no choice but to take action.

Mr Trump has appeared on Fox News and discussed his next move after the BBC’s Panorama producers were found to have included “malicious, disparaging” edits to a speech Mr Trump delivered on January 6, 2021 within a documentary it produced and aired.

The head of the BBC, Tim Davie, and the CEO of BBC News, Deborah Turness, resigned on Sunday after growing pressure over the controversy.

Speaking publicly about it for the first time, Mr Trump said he had an “obligation” to take legal action after the speech was “butchered”.

Lawyers acting for the president have written to the BBC explaining his intent to sue for $1.5 billion (£759m) in damages unless the corporation issues a retraction, apologises and compensates him.

The BBC chair Samir Shah has apologised for the “error of judgement”, but during his appearance on The Ingraham Angle, Mr Trump said “well I guess I have to, you know, why not, because they defrauded the public, and they’ve admitted it”, when asked if he was moving forward with his legal threat.

“They actually changed my January 6 speech, which was a beautiful speech, which was a very calming speech, and they made it sound radical.

“And they actually changed it. What they did was rather incredible.

“I think I have an obligation to do it, because you can’t get people, you can’t allow people to do that,” Mr Trump responded when pressed to confirm his intentions.

BBC representatives have confirmed the letter from Mr Trump’s lawyers demands a “full and fair retraction” of the documentary, an apology, and that the BBC “appropriately compensate President Trump for the harm caused”.

The letter sets out a Friday deadline for the corporation to respond, with the BBC saying it “will respond in due course”.

The BBC documentary aired days before the US presidential election in November 2024, but only generated significant public scrutiny after a leaked internal BBC memo was published by the Daily Telegraph last week.

A former independent external adviser to the BBC’s editorial standards committee raised concerns in the memo that a section of the speech had been edited in a way that suggested the president explicitly encouraged the Capitol riot of January 2021.

“We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women,” were the actual words used by Mr Trump.

In the Panorama edit, he was shown saying: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol ... and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.”

Former BBC head Mr Davie said on Tuesday, “We have made some mistakes that have cost us, but we need to fight. This narrative will not just be given by our enemies, it’s our narrative.”