BBC apologizes to Trump, but says it sees no reason to compensate US president for speech editing

President Donald Trump speaks to the press aboard Air Force One on November 2, 2025 REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz The British TV network BBC apologized to US President Donald Trump this Thursday (13) for editing a speech to give the impression that he had incited violent actions by his supporters before the invasion of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The broadcaster rejected, however, the request for compensation from the Republican, who threatened to ask for US$ 1 billion in financial compensation. ✅ Follow the g1 international news channel on WhatsApp The broadcaster said in a statement that it will not show the program again. Two BBC bosses resigned earlier this week over the episode. “While the BBC sincerely regrets the way the video was edited, we strongly disagree that there are grounds for a defamation claim,” the BBC said. See the videos that are trending on g1 The BBC was the target of criticism due to the documentary on the program “Panorama”, which was shown a week before the 2024 presidential elections. The attraction featured a speech by Trump made shortly before Congress officially declared Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 elections. Understand the case: At the time, Trump refused to accept defeat and questioned the re✅ Follow g1’s international news channel on WhatsAppafter the elections. On January 6, 2021, his supporters invaded the Capitol to protest the election results. Shortly before, Trump spoke and said: “Let’s walk to the Capitol and let’s applaud our brave senators and congressmen.” However, the BBC documentary changed the excerpt to: “We will walk to the Capitol… and I will be there with you. And we will fight. We will fight with all our might.” The two excerpts of Trump’s speech were edited, giving the impression that it was just one sentence. But each excerpt was spoken more than 50 minutes apart. The case gained repercussion after the British newspaper “The Telegraph” revealed an internal BBC document that pointed out distortions in the editing. According to the report, the station’s directors denied that the edition had violated the company’s standards. In a letter sent to the BBC, Trump’s lawyers demanded that the company publish a full retraction of the documentary and “any other false, defamatory, derogatory, misleading and inflammatory statements” about Trump. The president’s defense also demanded that the company give the same emphasis to the retraction as it did to the screening of the documentary, in addition to making a public apology. Finally, the lawyers demand that the company compensate Trump for the damages caused by November 14, under penalty of filing a lawsuit worth US$1 billion. Apologies to Parliament On Monday (10), the president of the BBC, Samir Shah, apologized for the episode in a letter sent to the president of the UK Parliamentary Committee on Culture, Media and Sport. “We recognize that the way the speech was edited gave the impression of a direct call for violence. The BBC wishes to apologize for this error of judgement,” he wrote. The station’s president also promised to strengthen supervision of the group’s editorial guidelines. On Sunday (9), the director general of the BBC, Tim Davie, and the head of BBC News, Deborah Turness, announced that they had resigned. The British government said it supports the BBC, stating that the broadcaster has an important role against disinformation, but demanded that the company “maintain high quality” and correct its errors quickly.

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