BBC Apologies For Trump Edit But Rejects Financial Compensation
The BBC did something pretty rare on Thursday. It apologized to President Donald Trump for making him look bad in a documentary, in a recent article.
The network admitted it edited Trump's January 6 speech in a way that made it seem like he was calling for violence at the Capitol , But here's the kicker they're still not paying him the $1 billion he's demanding.
What Actually Happened
Last October, right before the presidential election the BBC aired a documentary called "Trump: A Second Chance" In it they showed a clip of Trump's January 6, 2021 speech that seemed pretty damning.
The way they edited it, Trump appeared to say: "We're gonna walk down to the Capitol and I'll be there with you and we fight. We fight like hell, and if you don't fight like hell, you're not gonna have a country anymore.
Except that's not how Trump actually said it. Those words were from different parts of his speech, separated by nearly an hour.
And here's what the BBC left out :Trump also told the crowd to protest "peacefully and patriotically." By cutting that part, they completely changed what his speech meant.
The BBC Finally Admits It Screwed Up
BBC Chair Samir Shah wrote a personal letter to Trump. He admitted the edit "did give the impression of a direct call for violent action."
The network said they won't show that version of the documentary ever again. They've pulled it from their website and replaced it with an apology and correction.
Over 500 people complained once the news got out. Apparently, someone inside the BBC had been raising red flags about this for months, but nobody listened.
Trump Wants His Money
Trump's lawyers didn't just ask for a sorry. They sent the BBC a letter demanding $1 billion.
His legal team gave them a Friday deadline to apologize, retract the story, and pay up. Trump told Fox News the BBC "butchered" his speech and "defrauded" viewers.
His press secretary Karoline Leavitt called it "purposefully dishonest." She said the BBC is "total, fake news."
Trump's lawyer, Alejandro Brito, claims the edit caused "overwhelming financial and reputational harm." Which is an interesting argument considering what happened next.
Why BBC Says Trump Won't Get a Penny
The BBC's lawyers laid out a pretty straightforward defense. First off, the documentary never aired in America on BBC channels.
If American voters couldn't even watch it, how could it have hurt Trump's reputation? And get this Trump won the election a few weeks after the documentary aired anyway.
Kind of hard to claim your reputation was destroyed when you just became president, The BBC also says the edit wasn't meant to be malicious. They were just trying to shorten a long speech for TV.
Plus, political commentary gets a lot of protection under US defamation law. And in Britain, where damages are way lower the deadline to sue passed over a year ago.
Top BBC Executives Quit Over This
This scandal cost two people their jobs. BBC Director General Tim Davie and News Chief Deborah Turness both resigned on Sunday.
Turness said "the buck stops with me." Both of them were on the committee that first heard complaints about the edit but decided not to fix it.
That decision is looking really stupid now. An internal whistleblower named Michael Prescott had been trying to get them to correct the documentary for months before this blew up publicly.
Wait, They Did This Before?
Just when you thought it couldn't get worse for the BBC, someone found another edited Trump clip. The Daily Telegraph discovered the network did almost the exact same thing in 2022.
A show called Newsnight spliced together Trump's January 6 speech in a similar way. The host then said "and fight they did" while showing footage of the Capitol riots.
Even Mick Mulvaney, who's not a Trump fan pointed out on that show that they "spliced together" the speech. Now Trump's lawyers are saying this proves the BBC has a pattern of lying about him.
The BBC is investigating that 2022 clip too. This is turning into a much bigger problem than just one bad edit.
What's Going to Happen Now
Trump told reporters he feels obligated to sue the BBC, But legal experts don't think he's got much of a case.
The BBC seems pretty confident they'll win if it goes to court. Someone inside the network told reporters they're not worried about losing.
Still, they're doing a big review of how they make editorial decisions. This scandal has shown their oversight system failed pretty badly.
For Trump, this is perfect ammunition for his usual complaints about fake news and media bias. Whether he'll actually follow through with a lawsuit is anyone's guess.
The BBC apologized, but that was clearly not enough for Trump. This fight is probably just getting started.
