US President Donald Trump has vowed to take legal action against the BBC over an episode of Panorama that featured a misleading edit of one of his speeches about the January 6th Capitol riot.
The controversy began when leaked internal memo highlighted the edit in question, which had been deemed defamatory by Trump's lawyers and resulted in demands for compensation and a retraction from the BBC. The corporation rejected these demands after agreeing to issue an apology and not show the episode of Panorama again.
According to reports, Trump has threatened to sue the BBC for damages ranging from $1 billion to $5 billion. He believes that the edit was "impossible to believe" and that it was a deliberate attempt by the BBC to mislead viewers. Trump also claimed that he had not spoken to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer about the issue, despite having a generally good relationship with him.
The BBC has maintained that there is no legal basis for Trump's lawsuit, citing that the programme was only shown in the UK and did not cause any damage to the US president. The corporation also emphasized that it was not designed to mislead, but rather presented a balanced view of events following the Capitol riot.
It remains to be seen whether Trump will ultimately pursue his threat to take legal action against the BBC.
The controversy began when leaked internal memo highlighted the edit in question, which had been deemed defamatory by Trump's lawyers and resulted in demands for compensation and a retraction from the BBC. The corporation rejected these demands after agreeing to issue an apology and not show the episode of Panorama again.
According to reports, Trump has threatened to sue the BBC for damages ranging from $1 billion to $5 billion. He believes that the edit was "impossible to believe" and that it was a deliberate attempt by the BBC to mislead viewers. Trump also claimed that he had not spoken to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer about the issue, despite having a generally good relationship with him.
The BBC has maintained that there is no legal basis for Trump's lawsuit, citing that the programme was only shown in the UK and did not cause any damage to the US president. The corporation also emphasized that it was not designed to mislead, but rather presented a balanced view of events following the Capitol riot.
It remains to be seen whether Trump will ultimately pursue his threat to take legal action against the BBC.
he's all bent outta shape over some edited video and now he's threatening to sue the BBC for 1-5 billion bucks?! 
i mean, come on dude, it's just a little editing job gone wrong. can't take a joke? i get why he's upset though - any politician would be annoyed if their words were taken out of context like that. but 1 billion dollars? that's crazy talk! 
and btw, what's with the denial about talking to Keir Starmer? either he did or he didn't, just own it already! 
the BBC did apologize and removed it from the air so i dont see why he's making such a big deal out of this... and btw if it was that serious how come trump himself said there was no discussion with starmer lol seems like just another case of trump being salty about something not going his way 
Anyway, I guess we'll have to wait and see if Trump actually goes through with it.
I don't think this is the right move for Trump to make... wait, no... 
I mean, who are we kidding? He's gonna sue them anyway and it'll be a huge PR disaster for him. But on the other hand, the BBC did mess up with that edit... 
I don't know what's going on anymore! 
.
this is getting outta hand! $1-5 billion? c'mon man 
. The BBC did the right thing by standing firm on their apology, but come on, $1 billion? That's just crazy 
. Can't he just calm down and let people make up their own minds about what happened? 
and now he's all like "I'm gonna sue them for a billion bucks 
? 
The BBC was just trying to show the truth about what happened on January 6th 
and if Trump can't handle that, then maybe he shouldn't have said those things in the first place 
. Plus, it's not like they showed the whole speech or anything 
, just a tiny bit that was edited to make him look bad 
. I'm all for transparency and accountability 
, but come on Trump, let's get real 
. I'm curious to see how this whole thing plays out, though... will Trump actually take the BBC to court? 
$1 billion to $5 billion is a lot of money! 
Wouldn't there be more consequences? It just seems like Trump is trying to make himself look bad and get attention again... which, tbh, he did last time he was in office 
about the jan 6th riot all along 
. Trump's lawyers should really focus on finding actual proof of wrongdoing instead of just trying to squeeze some cash out of the BBC