BBC
apologises to Trump over edited speech but rejects compensation claim
‘We
strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim’, reads statement
expressing ‘sincere regrets’ over Panorama episode
Tara
Conlan and Michael Savage
Thu 13
Nov 2025 22.57 GMT
The BBC
has apologised to Donald Trump over the editing of a Panorama documentary that
led to the resignation of its director general, Tim Davie, and the BBC News
chief, Deborah Turness.
However,
the corporation has rejected his demands for compensation, after lawyers for
Trump threatened to sue for $1bn (£760m) in damages unless the BBC issued a
retraction, apologised and settled with him.
The BBC
has also agreed not to show the edition of Panorama again.
“Lawyers
for the BBC have written to President Trump’s legal team in response to a
letter received on Sunday,” a BBC spokesperson said. “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
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 BBC
has been considering how to respond to the legal threat since Trump’s angry
reaction to the editing of the programme.
However,
it is thought that the BBC has also been advised that it has a strong legal
case. It remains to be seen how Trump will now respond.
It comes
after the BBC concluded there was no reason not to apologise more personally to
President Trump, given Shah had already said sorry for the edit and described
it as giving the impression “of a direct call for violent action”.
The
corporation is already reeling from the resignations of Davie and Turness,
which followed the splicing together of the Trump speech in an edition of
Panorama last year.
The
programme was broadcast a week before the US election. The spliced clip
suggested that Trump told the crowd: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol
and I’ll be there with you, and we fight. We fight like hell.” The words were
taken from sections of his speech almost an hour apart.
Concerns
about the Panorama cut were raised in a memo by Michael Prescott, a former
independent external adviser to the BBC’s editorial guidelines and standards
committee. He left the role in the summer. The memo drew on instances Prescott
said showed a systemic bias at the BBC, which the corporation has denied.
Some in
the BBC argue the Panorama edit did not change the meaning of the speech
significantly, but others disagree. Shah has since apologised, while Davie said
responsibility had to be taken for errors revealed in the Prescott memo.
It has
been suggested Trump would file the case in a Florida court. Legal experts have
questioned his chances of victory, given Florida’s liberal libel laws and the
fact the Panorama episode was not available in the state.
The
broadcast was too long ago to take legal action in the UK. Trump would have to
prove he was damaged by the programme.
Since the
Panorama edit was revealed, BBC’s Newsnight was also accused of editing the
same Trump speech in a way that made it appear he made a more explicit call for
violent protest before the Capitol riots.
The
Telegraph said it had found an edition of Newsnight from 2022 that contained a
splicing together of the speech in a similar way. It did not appear that the
edit alerted viewers to the cut.
It
spliced together a section of Trump’s speech on the day of the riots, in which
he urged supporters to walk to the Capitol building, with a later segment of
the address in which he urged them to “fight like hell”.
A former
White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, criticised the BBC on air at the
time for splicing together the footage. “Your video actually spliced together
the presentation,” he said. “That line about ‘and we fight and fight like hell’
is actually later in the speech.”
A BBC
spokesperson said: “The BBC holds itself to the highest editorial standards.
This matter has been brought to our attention and we are now looking into it.”
On
Thursday, the Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, said his party had written to
the prime minister, Keir Starmer, calling on him to demand that Trump “drop his
ludicrous $1bn lawsuit against the BBC”. Trump has not yet filed a lawsuit,
despite previous reports.
In
another post on X, Davey said Trump “wants to destroy the BBC” and urged people
to join his campaign, calling on the corporation to “fairly balance its
political news coverage all year round, not just at election time”.
He also
said the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, who accused the BBC of being “infected
with leftwing bias”, is “egging [Trump] on”.
There
have been reports that Reform has pulled out of a BBC documentary about the
party because of the controversy over the edited speech.
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