{"id":174230,"date":"2025-11-11T02:50:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T02:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/174230\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T02:50:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T02:50:12","slug":"trump-threatens-1bn-legal-action-against-bbc-over-edit-of-speech-on-day-of-capitol-riots-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/174230\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump threatens $1bn legal action against BBC over edit of speech on day of Capitol riots \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

US president Donald Trump<\/a> has threatened legal action against the BBC<\/a> for its editing of a speech he made in 2021, on the day his supporters overran the Capitol Building in Washington. <\/p>\n

The BBC admitted on Monday that the editing of the speech was an \u201cerror of judgment\u201d.<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s lawyers said the BBC must retract its documentary by November 14th or face a lawsuit for \u201cno less\u201d than $1 billion, according to a letter sent on Sunday. <\/p>\n

The documentary on the BBC\u2019s flagship Panorama programme spliced together two separate excerpts from one of Mr Trump\u2019s speeches, creating the impression that he was inciting the January 6th, 2021 riot, which the lawyers said was \u201cfalse and defamatory\u201d. <\/p>\n

The revelation about the speech and wider criticism of BBC News has plunged the broadcaster into crisis, resulting in the resignation of its top two bosses<\/a>, director general Tim Davie<\/a> and chief executive of news Deborah Turness, on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Its chair Samir Shah on Monday apologised for the editing of the footage, but he rejected claims of systemic bias in the broadcaster\u2019s news reporting. He said the BBC was considering how to respond to the legal threat.<\/p>\n

The crisis was sparked by the leaking of an internal report that raised concerns about the BBC\u2019s coverage, including the edit of the Trump speech in a programme broadcast shortly before the November 2024 US presidential election.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0BBC director general Tim Davie resigns following criticism over Trump documentary editOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\"BBCBBC chair Samir Shah has rejected claims of systemic bias in the broadcaster\u2019s news reporting. Photograph: Danny Lawson\/ PA Wire <\/p>\n

Mr Trump\u2019s supporters overran the Capitol on that day, when Congress was due to certify Democrat Joe Biden\u2019s win over Mr Trump in the November 2020 election.<\/p>\n

The editing was included in a dossier leaked to the Daily Telegraph newspaper, which also included criticism of the BBC\u2019s coverage of the Israel-Gaza<\/a> war and transgender issues.<\/p>\n

Mr Shah said the BBC accepted that the way the speech was edited gave the impression of a direct call for violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe BBC would like to apologise for that error of judgement,\u201d he said in a letter to lawmakers.<\/p>\n

The letter by Mr Trump\u2019s lawyers said the BBC violated Florida defamation law by deliberately omitting facts and deceptively juxtaposing them to create a false impression of what Mr Trump said.<\/p>\n

It is typically difficult for public figures like Mr Trump to win defamation cases under US law because they must prove defendants knew or should have known information was false but published it anyway.<\/p>\n

Several US media companies, including CBS and ABC News, have recently settled lawsuits filed by the US president.<\/p>\n

While Mr Shah accepted criticism of the Trump edit, he hit back at suggestions the BBC had sought to bury any of the allegations around bias, or failed to tackle any problems. Asked if the charges of systemic bias were wrong, he said \u201cyes\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"RiotersRioters attempt to storm the US Capitol building on January 6th 2021. Photograph: John Minchillo\/ AP <\/p>\n

He said there were cases of individual errors and there were issues that pointed to underlying problems, but the notion of systemic or institutional bias did not hold true.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Why is the BBC set to apologise over a Donald Trump speech edit?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve worked in BBC News,\u201d he told the BBC. \u201cI know that BBC News\u2019 DNA and culture is to be impartial. It\u2019s to provide the best news we can and the most trustworthy news.\u201d<\/p>\n

He told lawmakers that the BBC was committed to restoring public trust and ensuring its journalism meets the highest standards of fairness.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for UK prime minister Keir Starmer denied the BBC was institutionally biased or corrupt, and said the government supported the corporation.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly mistakes have been made in this case and the director general and Deborah Turness have taken responsibility for those mistakes,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is important here is that the BBC maintains the high standards for which it is rightfully recognised internationally, and that\u2019s very much our focus.\u201d – Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US president Donald Trump has threatened legal action against the BBC for its editing of a speech he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174231,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,7734,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-174230","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-latestnews","15":"tag-main-news","16":"tag-mainnews","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-panorama","19":"tag-top-stories","20":"tag-topstories","21":"tag-world","22":"tag-world-news","23":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115528796123880688","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}