The British Broadcasting Corporation issued a personal apology to U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday but insisted there was no legal foundation for his threatened lawsuit over a documentary his legal team labelled defamatory.
The programme, broadcast on the BBC’s Panorama shortly before the 2024 U.S. presidential election, stitched together three segments of Trump’s January 6, 2021 speech, delivered as his supporters breached the Capitol. The alteration gave the impression that he had incited violence.
“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 broadcaster said in a statement.
Lawyers for the U.S. president warned on Sunday that they would sue the BBC for as much as $1 billion unless it retracted the documentary, apologised to Trump, and compensated him for “financial and reputational harm.”
By arguing that Trump’s defamation case has no legal weight, the BBC effectively indicated that it also considers his demand for monetary compensation unsustainable. However, the broadcaster did not explicitly respond to Trump’s financial request.
In its statement, the BBC said Chair Samir Shah on Thursday “sent a personal letter to the White House making clear that he and the corporation were sorry for the edit.” Shah had earlier apologised to a UK parliamentary oversight committee, calling the edit “an error of judgement.”
British Culture Minister Lisa Nandy said on Friday that the BBC was right to apologise to Trump.
“They’ve rightly accepted that they didn’t meet the highest standards and that’s the basis on which the chairman of the board has offered this apology to the President of the United States,” she told Times Radio.
The BBC added in its Thursday statement that it does not intend to broadcast the documentary again on any of its outlets.
Earlier on Thursday, the BBC said it was examining new allegations, reported by The Telegraph, concerning the editing of the same speech by its programme Newsnight.
The BBC has been plunged into one of its largest crises in decades after two senior leaders stepped down amid claims of bias, including over the editing of Trump’s speech. These accusations surfaced after a leaked review by a BBC standards officer.
Established in 1922 and funded mainly through a licence fee paid by UK households, the BBC currently lacks a permanent head as the government debates future funding arrangements.
It remains a crucial tool of Britain’s global “soft power.” Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Wednesday that he supported a “strong and independent” BBC.
