Trump threatens to sue BBC

LONDON (AP):

US President Donald Trump has threatened legal action against the BBC over the way a speech he made was edited in a documentary aired by Britain's national broadcaster.

BBC chairman Samir Shah on Monday apologised for the "error of judgement," which triggered the resignations of the BBC's top executive and its head of news. Director-General Tim Davie and news chief Deborah Turness quit on Sunday over accusations of bias and misleading editing of a speech Trump delivered on January 6, 2021, before a crowd of his supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington.

The hourlong documentary - titled Trump: A Second Chance? - was broadcast as part of the BBC's Panorama series days before the 2024 US presidential election. It spliced together three quotes from two sections of the 2021 speech, delivered almost an hour apart, into what appeared to be one quote in which Trump urged supporters to march with him and "fight like hell". Among the parts cut out was a section where Trump said he wanted supporters to demonstrate peacefully. Shah said the broadcaster accepted "that the way the speech was edited did give the impression of a direct call for violent action."

A letter from Trump attorney Alejandro Brito demands the BBC "retract the false, defamatory, disparaging, and inflammatory statements", apologise and "appropriately compensate President Trump for the harm caused", or face legal action for US$1 billion in damages. The BBC said it would review the letter "and respond directly in due course."

Trump had earlier welcomed the resignations of the two BBC executives. He posted a link to a Daily Telegraph story about the speech-editing on his Truth Social network, thanking the newspaper "for exposing these corrupt journalists. These are very dishonest people who tried to step on the scales of a presidential election".

In a resignation letter to staff, Davie said: "There have been some mistakes made and as director-general I have to take ultimate responsibility."

Turness said the controversy was damaging the BBC, and she quit "because the buck stops with me". She defended the organisation's journalists against allegations of bias.

"Our journalists are hardworking people who strive for impartiality, and I will stand by their journalism," she said on Monday.