Donald Trump says he’s moving forward with legal action against the BBC next week, even though the broadcaster has already apologised for misleadingly editing one of his speeches.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday night, the US president said: “We’ll sue them for anywhere between a billion and $5bn, probably sometime next week. We have to do it.”
The BBC had sent Trump a personal apology on Thursday after a Panorama documentary used a spliced version of one of his speeches. But the broadcaster insisted there was no legal basis for a lawsuit and refused his demand for compensation. Trump’s lawyers had threatened a $1bn (£760m) claim unless the BBC retracted the programme, apologised and reached a settlement.
The BBC has agreed not to air that episode of Panorama again.
Trump said he hasn’t yet discussed the issue with UK prime minister Keir Starmer—despite what he described as a strong relationship—but plans to call him over the weekend.
In a GB News interview on Friday, Trump blasted the edit, calling it “impossible to believe.”
“I made a beautiful statement, and they made it into a not-beautiful statement,” he said. “Fake news was a great term, except it’s not strong enough. This is beyond fake—this is corrupt.”
BBC chair Samir Shah personally apologised to the White House on Thursday and told MPs the edit had been “an error of judgment.” UK culture minister Lisa Nandy said the apology was “right and necessary.”
The controversy comes at a turbulent moment for the BBC, following the resignations of director general Tim Davie and BBC News chief Deborah Turness. Both stepped down after it emerged that a Panorama episode aired a week before last year’s US election had stitched together parts of Trump’s speech from nearly an hour apart. The edit gave the impression that he had told supporters: “We’re going to walk down to the capitol and I’ll be there with you, and we fight. We fight like hell.” Photo by Alexander Svensson, Wikimedia commons.