Trump says he will take legal action against the BBC over edited speech

Donald Trump says he will sue the BBC next week after the corporation apologised but declined to compensate him for its edited version of a 2021 speech broadcast by Panorama.

Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One on Friday, Mr Trump said: “We’ll sue them for anywhere between 1 billion dollars (£759.8 million) and 5 billion dollars (£3.79 billion), probably sometime next week.”

The BBC apologised but said it refused to pay financial compensation.

The corporation said the splicing of the speech was an “error of judgment” but rejected his compensation demands, after Mr Trump’s lawyers threatened to sue the BBC for one billion dollars in damages unless a retraction and apology was published.

Earlier in the week Mr Trump said in an interview with Fox News that the BBC had “defrauded the public” over the edit, which made it appear as if he was explicitly urging people to attack the US Capitol on January 6 2021.

Chairman Samir Shah has sent a personal letter to the White House to apologise for the editing, and lawyers for the corporation have written to the president’s legal team, a BBC spokesperson said.

The spokesperson added: “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.”