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Donald Trump has said he would sue the BBC next week for up to $5bn, days after the UK public service broadcaster rejected the US president’s demand for compensation over a misleading edit of a 2021 speech.
“We’ll sue them for anywhere between $1bn and $5bn, probably sometime next week,” Trump said on Air Force One on Friday evening.
“They even admitted that they cheated . . . they changed the words coming out of my mouth. That’s worse than what CBS did with Kamala [Harris].”
The BBC apologised to Trump on Thursday evening after the president threatened to sue the public service broadcaster — originally for more than $1bn — over a Panorama documentary which suggested he had encouraged his supporters to storm the Capitol building as lawmakers ratified his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 US presidential election.
Trump has taken legal action against US media outlets including CBS over claims the broadcaster edited footage of an interview with Harris, his Democratic rival in the 2024 election race, to make her appear more coherent.
CBS owner Paramount and ABC have agreed to pay $16mn and $15mn respectively to settle the president’s defamation lawsuits.
The BBC could not immediately be reached for comment.
The BBC on Thursday said that, while it “sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited, we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim”.
The broadcaster said chair Samir Shah had sent a letter to the White House to apologise for the edit.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said a day earlier that she expected Trump to continue to pursue legal action, whether or not the BBC apologised.
The documentary spliced together parts of the speech in which Trump told supporters on January 6 2021 to “walk down to the Capitol” and then to “fight like hell”.
The US president had originally said “we’re going to walk down to the Capitol and cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women”.
The controversy over the misleading edit of Trump’s speech led to the resignations of BBC director-general Tim Davie and news chief Deborah Turness.
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