Donald Trump has threatened to sue the BBC over a documentary which edited footage of a speech he gave before the January 6 riots.
The US president's threat has come in what has been a challenging week for the BBC, with the corporation's director general Tim Davie resigning.
It came amid mounting criticism from the right wing UK press of the BBC's coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict, as well as allegations of bias in coverage of transgender rights and Donald Trump.
Trump has had a historically difficult relationship with news media, including popularizing the phrase 'fake news' when referring to coverage he did not like.
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The POTUS has also previously reacted strongly even to coverage outside of the news, most notably in calling for the cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel Live! after the host accused Trump and his supporters of exploiting the death of far right activist Charlie Kirk.
Why is Trump threatening to sue the BBC?
Trump's attorney, Alejandro Brito, sent a letter threatening to sue the BBC over the editing of remarks the president made in a speech before the January 6 riots in a Panorama documentary.
In the letter, the lawyer claimed that the way the footage was edited constitutes 'false, defamatory, disparaging, and inflammatory statements'.
The documentary was called Donald Trump: A Second Chance? and was aired a week before the 2024 US presidential election.
In the program, Trump is shown saying: "We're going to walk down to the Capitol and I'll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell."
However, he actually said: "We're going to walk down to the Capitol, and we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women."
The 'fight like hell' phrase came later in his speech, where the POTUS said: "We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore."
Brito says in the letter that the BBC 'intentionally sought to completely mislead its viewers by splicing together three separate parts of President Trump's speech to supporters on January 6, 2021'.
How has the BBC responded?
BBC director general Tim Davie resigned on Sunday (November 9), while the corporation's news chief Deborah Turness also stepped down from her position.
On November 10, BBC chair Samir Shah apologized for the way that Trump's speech was edited in the Panorama documentary, calling it an 'error of judgement'.
He said: "Since the publication of Mr Prescott's memo, this issue has led to over 500 complaints. These are now being dealt with in the normal way. It has also prompted further reflection by the BBC.
"The conclusion of that deliberation is that we accept that the way the speech was edited did give the impression of a direct call for violent action. The BBC would like to apologise for that error of judgement."
Meanwhile, a BBC spokesperson said: "We will review the letter and respond directly in due course."
What happens next?
Trump's lawyers have given the BBC until Friday (November 14) to respond to the lawsuit.
In the suit, they laid out Trump's demands over the coverage.
These include a 'full and fair retraction of the documentary and any and all other false, defamatory, disparaging, misleading, and inflammatory statements about President Trump', as well as issuing an apology.
There is also a demand to 'appropriately compensate President Trump for the harm caused'.
If the BBC does not meet these demands, the suit says he 'will be left with no alternative but to enforce his legal and equitable rights... including by filing legal action for no less than $1,000,000,000 (One Billion Dollars) in damages'.
Topics: News, US News, UK News, BBC, Donald Trump
Kit Roberts