Donald Trump has threatened legal action against the BBC and welcomed the resignations of two of its most senior figures after a campaign against the broadcaster that reached fever pitch over criticism that its flagship documentary programme in 2024 used a misleading edit of a Trump speech.
Lawyers for the US president said that the BBC must retract the Panorama documentary by Friday or face a lawsuit for “no less” than $1bn (£760m), according to US media outlets who cited the letter. The BBC has confirmed it had received a letter and said it will respond in due course.
The resignations of the BBC director general, Tim Davie, and its News CEO, Deborah Turness, came after the rightwing Telegraph newspaper published a leaked internal report by a former BBC standards adviser alleging failings in the broadcaster’s coverage. The report criticised BBC coverage on transgender issues, Gaza and an edit of a Trump speech from January 6 during the Capitol Hill insurrection.
“Thank you to The Telegraph for exposing these Corrupt ‘Journalists.’ These are very dishonest people who tried to step on the scales of a Presidential Election. On top of everything else, they are from a Foreign Country, one that many consider our Number One Ally. What a terrible thing for Democracy!,” Trump said on his social media platform, Truth Social.
After Davie resigned, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, also celebrated by posting on X her Saturday interview with the Telegraph, which she captioned with “shot” and the BBC article announcing Davie’s resignation, captioned with “chaser”.
On Saturday Leavitt had described the BBC to Telegraph as “100% fake news” and a “propaganda machine”, saying that watching BBC bulletins while on trips to the UK “ruins” her day and that taxpayers were being “forced to foot the bill for a leftist propaganda machine”.
The independent and publicly funded BBC has been under mounting pressure for years. Rightwing critics accuse it of a liberal bias, while leftwing critics express frustration that its management was unduly influenced by previous Conservative governments and that it has allowed itself to be drawn into “culture wars” over issues like race, sex and gender.
A tense and unpredictable atmosphere has left BBC journalists feeling exposed when reporting on contentious issues, particularly the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.
At home and abroad, Trump has maintained a persistently antagonistic relationship with many major news organisations, frequently labelling outlets as “the enemy of the people”. This strategy has included suing news organisations, revoking press credentials for reporters, and exerting pressure on media companies and platforms.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has stated that “press freedom is no longer a given in the United States”, arguing that the Trump administration’s policies could cause irreparable harm and will probably take decades to repair.
The leaked BBC report said the current affairs Panorama documentary had “completely misled” viewers by splicing two parts of Trump’s speech together. The Panorama edit cut together quotes from sections of the speech delivered up to an hour apart, combining a line about walking to the Capitol with the instruction to “fight like hell”.
The BBC chair, Samir Shah, later on Monday apologised for the editing of the Trump speech, calling it an “error of judgment”.
Trump in fact gave conflicting advice that day to supporters, who he had called on to gather in the capital as part of his efforts to discredit his election loss based on false claims of widespread fraud. The US president was later impeached for “incitement of insurrection” related to the storming of the Capitol by rioters, but he was acquitted by the Senate after Republicans rallied around him.
