(Washington) American President Donald Trump has “an obligation” to sue the BBC which has “misled the public”, he said Tuesday evening, justifying his threat to claim a billion dollars in damages from the British channel.
“I think I have an obligation to do it because we cannot allow people to do that,” insisted the American president on the American channel Fox News.
The BBC “edited my speech on January 6 (2021), which was a beautiful speech, a very calming speech, and made it sound radical, they actually changed it. What they did is quite incredible,” he said.
The British public channel “butchered” the speech, “it was very dishonest”, he added.
The BBC, a public institution long beloved by the British, but shaken by several controversies in recent years, is in turmoil for having distorted the words of Donald Trump in a documentary in its flagship news magazine, Panoramabroadcast in October 2024 just before the American presidential election.
He is accused of having edited sentences spoken at different moments of a speech dating from January 6, 2021, the day of the assault on the Capitol in Washington by supporters of Mr. Trump. The excerpt broadcast gave the impression that the outgoing president was encouraging his supporters to go to Congress to “fight like hell.”
In his full sentence, Mr. Trump declared: “We will march to the Capitol and we will cheer on our courageous senators and representatives in Congress.” The expression “fight like hell” corresponds to another passage in the speech.
According to a survey by the Yougov institute of more than 5,000 adults and published on Tuesday, 57% of British people believe that the BBC should apologize to the American president.
Only 25% of those surveyed said they were opposed to such an apology.
In a letter to the British audiovisual group, Donald Trump’s lawyers gave the BBC until Friday 5 p.m. (Eastern time) to apologize and withdraw the documentary including the misleading montage broadcast at the end of October 2024. Failing that, they will seek one billion dollars in damages in court, according to the letter they sent to the BBC.
The controversy pushed the director general of the BBC, Tim Davie, and the boss of the group’s news channel, Deborah Turness, to resign on Sunday.
On Tuesday, Mr. Davie recognized “a breach of (the) editorial rules” of the British group in front of employees, while calling for them to “fight” to defend BBC journalism.
The American president, in open war against the press, has increased threats and legal actions against American media, some of which have agreed to pay him millions of dollars so that he withdraws his complaints.
