The BBC has issued an apology to President Trump over editing of a speech he gave on Jan. 6, 2021, that aired in its documentary “Trump: A Second Chance.” Mr. Trump had threatened to sue the British broadcaster for $1 billion over the program about the Capitol riot, and the BBC noted in a statement Thursday that it “strongly disagree[s]” that there’s a basis for a defamation claim.
BBC lawyers wrote to Mr. Trump’s legal team in response to a letter they received Sunday, the BBC Press Office said. In that letter, lawyers working for Mr. Trump alleged that the Oct. 28, 2024, episode of the network’s “Panorama” documentary program, which was produced by an external production company, sought to mislead viewers by editing together three separate sections of the speech made by Mr. Trump.
“BBC Chair Samir Shah has separately sent a personal letter to the White House making clear to President Trump that he and the Corporation are sorry for the edit of the President’s speech on 6 January 2021, which featured in the programme,” the BBC Press Office said in its statement Thursday. “The BBC has no plans to rebroadcast the documentary ‘Trump: A Second Chance?’ on any BBC platforms.”
“While the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited, we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim,” the press office added.
The White House and Mr. Trump did not immediately comment on the BBC’s apology.
The BBC’s response to Mr. Trump’s legal team laid out five main arguments why the organization believes there is no legitimate case against it, BBC News reported. CBS News has not seen the letter sent by the BBC in reply to Mr. Trump’s legal team.
According to BBC News’ report, those arguments include that the episode in question did not air in the U.S.; that it did not cause Mr. Trump harm, as he won the election a week later; and that the edits made were intended to shorten a long speech rather than to mislead. It also said that the clip was not meant to be taken in isolation, and that matters of public concern and political speech are protected under U.S. law.
An expert on international media law told CBS News that the BBC’s response appears to be “careful and considered.”
“President Trump was clearly owed a fulsome apology and he’s had that,” U.K.-based attorney Mark Stephens told CBS News. “I don’t think he was entitled to damages, and so as a consequence, they’ve rightly hung tough on that particular issue. But, of course, this has been a massive PR victory for the president. He can now call the BBC ‘fake news’ … pointing to some credible background for that.”
The letter over the weekend from Mr. Trump’s lawyers claimed that the program “has caused President Trump to suffer overwhelming financial and reputational harm,” and that it was defamatory under Florida law. It outlined demands by Mr. Trump that the BBC retract the documentary, issue an apology and “appropriately compensate President Trump for the harm caused.”
The letter did not clarify what would be considered appropriate compensation, but it warned that if the BBC failed to comply with Mr. Trump’s demands by Friday at 5 p.m. ET, Mr. Trump would file “legal action for no less than $1,000,000,000 (One Billion Dollars) in damages.”
Stephens told CBS News that while it would be possible for Mr. Trump to pursue a lawsuit against the BBC in the U.S., “it’s got a number of legal impediments and tripwires.”
First, Stephens said, was that the program which included the clip was not shown in the U.S.
“You can’t be lowered in the estimation of right-thinking people by a program that wasn’t seen by an American audience. So you can’t sue, there’s no jurisdiction to sue, in America,” he said.
He also said that because Mr. Trump is “the president, the ultimate public figure,” criticism of him would likely be protected under the First Amendment.
Even if the case got past those hurdles, which he doubted, Stephens said, “lawyers would be looking at whether or not the sting of this was true. And they can point to all sorts of previous judicial findings which have said that there was some measure of incitement in which the president was involved.”
The head of the BBC and its CEO of news resigned in the wake of the criticism of the broadcaster’s editing of the speech. The BBC said Director-General Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness both announced their resignations on Sunday.
In a letter to staff, Davie said quitting the job after five years “is entirely my decision.”
“Overall, the BBC is delivering well, but there have been some mistakes made and as director-general I have to take ultimate responsibility,” Davie said, adding that he was “working through exact timings with the Board to allow for an orderly transition to a successor over the coming months.”
Turness said that the controversy about the Trump documentary “has reached a stage where it is causing damage to the BBC — an institution that I love. As the CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs, the buck stops with me.”
“While mistakes have been made, I want to be absolutely clear recent allegations that BBC News is institutionally biased are wrong,” she added.
