US President Donald Trump has said he will take legal action against the BBC despite the fact that the network issued formal apologies and this caused the resignation of several senior managers.
During the exclusive television interview GB News which aired this Friday, the president described her as “corrupt” and stated that he feels the “obligation” to sue her for defamation, in an exclusive interview for television GB News which aired this Friday.
During the conversation from the White House, British journalist Bev Turner recalled that Trump was the one who popularized the term “fake news” more than ten years ago and asked him how far he would be willing to go with the lawsuit against the BBC.
Trump responded: “The term ‘fake news’ was great, but it’s not strong enough. I wish it were more powerful. The word ‘fake’ is one thing, but this goes beyond that. What they did is corrupt,” referring to what he considers malpractice by the British public broadcaster.
The president added: “Look, I’m not looking to get into lawsuits, but I think I have an obligation. This was very egregious and if you don’t do it you don’t prevent it from happening again to other people. I think I probably have an obligation. I would like to find out why they did it.”
He further added: “The positive part of litigation is that we will find out. How many more times have they done it? Maybe they did it to me enough.”
After recording the interview, but before its broadcast, Trump increased the pressure with statements to the press aboard Air Force One: “We are going to demand an amount between 1,000 million and 5,000 million dollars (between 860 and 4,300 million euros).”
“A nice letter”
Last weekend, the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph revealed the manipulation of a Trump speech from January 6, 2021, broadcast in the documentary Panorama in October 2024, in which it appeared that the former president incited the insurrection against the Capitol.
The revelation generated great controversy in the United Kingdom and led to the resignation of the BBC’s executive director, Tim Davie, and the head of news, Deborah Turness.
After, The Daily Telegraph showed another case of manipulated editing on Newsnight, a different BBC program, broadcast in June 2022, which was described by Trump’s legal team as a “pattern of defamation.”
Trump had established three conditions for not demanding the BBC: a “clear and complete retraction” of the documentary, a formal apology and “appropriate compensation” by last Friday.
On Thursday night, BBC sent an apology letter to Trump in which he “regrets” the editing of the documentary and assured that he will not broadcast it again, although he stated that they “totally disagree that there is a basis for a defamation complaint.”
In the interview with GB NewsTrump referred to that letter: “They wrote me a letter of apology, a nice letter. They apologize, but if you say it wasn’t intentional, you’re not asking for forgiveness, right? Look, I made a nice speech and they turned it into something that wasn’t nice.”
BBC response
The British network, aseptically and as if the issue were not with them, has published a response to Donald Trump’s words.