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The BBC has apologized to President Donald Trump for misleading edits to his January 6, 2021 speech, but rejected claims of defamation.
British Public Broadcasting featured the president’s speech that day in an episode of its current affairs series Panorama, titled “Trump: A Second Chance?”, which aired days before the 2024 US presidential election.
According to NBC News, the episode included various clips spliced together intermittently to give the impression that the 79-year-old President Trump was telling his supporters to incite violence. The episode included footage of President Trump telling his supporters to march with him and “fight like hell.” However, the program did not include footage of the president urging his supporters to demonstrate peacefully.
Trump’s lawyers then sent a letter to the BBC demanding an apology and threatening a $1 billion defamation lawsuit. Additionally, they called for a “full and fair” retraction of “Trump: A Second Chance?” It also claimed that Trump had made “false, defamatory, derogatory, misleading, or inflammatory statements” about Trump.
On Thursday, November 13, the BBC reported that Chairman Sameer Shah had sent a personal letter to the White House. “We acknowledge that our editing unintentionally created the impression that we were displaying a single, contiguous section of the speech rather than excerpts from various parts of the speech, which falsely created the impression that President Trump directly called for violence,” Shah wrote.
Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty
BBC News director Tim Davie and CEO Deborah Turnes have resigned. In a statement to staff, Davey acknowledged the mistake and also expressed support for the BBC’s defense, according to NPR.
However, the BBC does not accept President Trump’s defamation claims. “The BBC deeply regrets the way the video clip was edited, but strongly disagrees that the defamation claim has merit,” the letter said.
Trump has reached settlements with US media companies in recent years, but it remains unclear whether he can bring the case in the UK.Defamation damages in the UK rarely exceed $132,000. The deadline for defamation lawsuits had expired more than a year ago.
The latest dispute with the BBC comes after Trump and Paramount reached a $16 million settlement in July. In October 2024, the president sued CBS News over a 60 Minutes interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris, his opponent in the presidential race.
The settlement comes as President Trump’s appointee to head the Federal Communications Commission is investigating and threatening to disapprove the Paramount-Skydance Media merger. The merger was approved several weeks after the settlement was announced.
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In December 2024, ABC News agreed to pay $15 million in charitable donations to the Trump Presidential Library after the news station and anchor George Stephanopoulos settled a defamation lawsuit. President Trump accused the journalist and ABC News of defaming Stephanopoulos when they falsely said Trump was civilly liable for raping author E. Jean Carroll. In fact, Trump was convicted of a separate crime: sexual abuse.
Mehta agreed in January 2025 to pay $25 million to settle Trump’s 2021 lawsuit over his past deplatforming following the January 6 Capitol riot.
