Donald Trump has been floating the idea of legal action against the BBC after it edited one of his speeches in a Panorama documentary – and there’s three things he wants.
The POTUS’ threat to the British Broadcasting Corporation came after it was found it had edited a speech he made before the infamous US Capitol riots on 6 January 2021.
Trump: A Second Chance? was shown on the BBC a week before last year’s presidential election and appeared to show Trump encouraging the attacks using spliced-up clips.
“We’re going to walk down to the Capitol… and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell,” the president said in the clips aired duirng the doc.
But what the Republican president said, in full, was: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.”
The ‘fight like hell’ line was taken from a section where Trump discussed how ‘corrupt’ US elections were.
After the Telegraph detailed how the BBC edited the clip, director general Tim Davie and CEO of News Deborah Turness announced that they had stepped down from their roles.
In a letter, legal counsel Alejandro Brito criticized the organisation for sharing ‘false, defamatory, disparaging, and inflammatory statements’ about Trump and made clear three demands the Trump administration wants from the BBC.
The three demands made in the letter are:
• Issue a ‘full and fair retraction’ of Trump: A Second Chance?
• Apologise immediately
• ‘Appropriately compensate’ Trump
Trump has given the BBC until Friday (November 14) to meet the demands.
“Failure to comply will leave President Trump with no choice but to pursue any and all legal rights and remedies available to recover damages for the overwhelming financial and reputational harm that the BBC has caused him to suffer, with all rights and remedies being expressly reserved by President Trump,” Brito added in a letter addressed to BBC bosses.
A BBC spokesperson said: “We will review the letter and respond directly in due course.”
Speaking outside the BBC building in London, Turness dismissed Trump’s comments about the BBC being ‘institutionally biased’.
“I would like to say it has been the privilege of my career to serve as the CEO of BBC News and to work with our brilliant team of journalists,” she began.
“I stepped down over the weekend because the buck stops with me. But I’d like to make one thing very clear, BBC News is not institutionally biased. That’s why it’s the world’s most trusted news provider.”