The BBC has received no further communication from Donald Trump's legal team despite the president's threat to sue the broadcaster for up to five billion dollars. A BBC spokesperson said Saturday: "We have had no further contact from President Trump's lawyers at this point. Our position remains the same."
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One he would file a lawsuit "probably sometime next week" for "anywhere between one billion dollars and five billion dollars" over the Panorama documentary controversy. In an interview with GB News, he said he had an "obligation" to sue the corporation. "This was so egregious. If you don't do it, you don't stop it from happening again with other people."
The dispute centers on a Panorama episode that aired one week before the 2024 US election. The program spliced clips from Trump's January 6, 2021 speech, creating what the BBC admitted was a "mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action". The edited version showed Trump saying: "We're going to walk down to the Capitol… and I'll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell."
Leadership Fallout
The scandal led to the resignations of two senior BBC executives: director-general Tim Davie and news chief Deborah Turness. BBC chairman Samir Shah sent a personal letter of apology to the White House on Thursday. The corporation acknowledged the edit was an "error of judgment" but refused to pay financial compensation. "While the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited, we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim," the spokesperson added.
The BBC outlined five main arguments against a defamation claim in its legal response. The broadcaster argued the program did not air on US channels, was restricted to UK viewers on iPlayer, did not harm Trump as he was later re-elected, was edited without malice to shorten a long speech, and falls under protected political speech under US defamation law. Trump has a history of suing news organizations, recently settling a dispute with CBS News over a Kamala Harris interview.
Note: This article was created with Artificial Intelligence (AI).
