BBC Chair Samir Shah asserted that the network will fight President Trump’s moves to take legal action against it after the BBC was found to have edited one of the president’s speeches.
An internal email from Shah, obtained by Sky News, asserted that the BBC’s “position has not changed. There is no basis for a defamation case and we are determined to fight this.”
Shah wrote, “There is a lot being written, said and speculated upon about the possibility of legal action, including potential costs or settlements, adding, “In all this we are, of course, acutely aware of the privilege of our funding and the need to protect our licence fee payers, the British public.”
The statement comes as former BBC Director-General Lord Tony Hall has similarly urged the network to fight against a potential lawsuit. “I don’t think we should agree to any money being paid to Donald Trump. You’re talking about license fee payers’ money, you’re talking about public money. It would not be appropriate,” he said in an interview with the BBC.
President Trump threatened to sue the BBC for $1 billion over its deceptive editing of his speech.
“Failure to comply will leave President Trump with no choice but to pursue any and all legal rights and remedies available to recover damages for the overwhelming financial and reputational harm that the BBC has caused him to suffer, with all rights and remedies being expressly reserved by President Trump,” Trump attorney Alejandro Brito wrote to the broadcaster.
“In the Panorama documentary, titled ‘Trump: A Second Chance,’ which was first broadcast on October 28, 2024—a week before the 2024 United States presidential election—the BBC intentionally sought to completely mislead its viewers by splicing together three separate parts of President Trump’s speech to supporters,” the letter reads. “The documentary showed President Trump telling supporters: ‘We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol, and I’ll be there with you and we fight. We fight like [removed] and if you don’t fight like [removed], you’re not going to have a country anymore.’”
Instead, President Trump directed protesters to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
