LONDON — President Donald Trump has said he will sue the BBC for billions of dollars after the British public broadcaster published a misleading edit of one of his speeches.
The BBC has apologized to Trump for the edit but said it had not defamed him and would not pay financial compensation. The broadcaster’s director-general and head of news both resigned in the wake of the incident.
“We’ll sue them for anywhere between $1 billion and $5 billion, probably sometime next week,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday evening.
“I think I have to do it,” he added. “They cheated. They changed the words coming out of my mouth.”
The controversy centers on the BBC show “Panorama,” which edited together two distant moments from Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, speech — his call to supporters to walk to the Capitol and, over 50 minutes later, his line “We fight. We fight like hell”— creating the impression they were spoken consecutively.
Trump’s lawyers had given the corporation a deadline of Friday to issue a retraction and an apology, and to agree to pay compensation.
The BBC did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment following Trump’s latest remarks.
The BBC published a correction Thursday evening, saying it accepted the edit “gave the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action,” and that it would not be broadcast again.
BBC Chair Samir Shah sent a personal letter to the White House saying that he and the corporation were sorry for the edit, a spokesperson said, adding that while the broadcaster “sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited, we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim.”
Tony Hall, director-general of the BBC from 2013 to 2020, said Saturday that the corporation should never agree to pay any money to Trump.
“You’re talking about public money,” he said in an interview with the BBC. “It would not be appropriate.”
Trump said in an interview earlier Friday that he had an “obligation” to sue the corporation.
“This is beyond fake. This is corrupt,” he told rival British broadcaster GB News.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Wednesday that the BBC must “get their house in order” when mistakes are made, but expressed his support for the broadcaster.
“The BBC must uphold the highest standards, be accountable and correct errors quickly,” he told the House of Commons. “But I will always stand up for a strong, independent BBC.”
Trump said Friday that he had not raised the issue with Starmer but that the prime minister had asked to speak to him, and that he would call the British leader over the weekend.
Director-General Tim Davie, along with news chief Deborah Turness, quit the BBC last week, saying the scandal was damaging the BBC and “as the CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs, the buck stops with me.”
U.K. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said Friday there was a “real concern” that political appointments to the BBC’s board had damaged trust in the corporation after a series of scandals, adding she would be examining the issue as part of the corporation’s next charter review.
Trump has won lucrative settlements against U.S. media companies.
In July, Paramount announced it had settled a lawsuit brought by Trump that had accused CBS News’ “60 Minutes” of airing an edited clip of an interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris that Trump said unduly affected the 2024 election.
