Former President Donald Trump is preparing to sue the BBC as soon as next week. This announcement follows a public apology from the British broadcaster for a tendentious edit of one of his talks. Trump expressed his dissatisfaction with the situation during a press conference aboard Air Force One, emphasizing his commitment to holding the corporation accountable.
The source of the outrage is a highly-edited extended clip that the BBC played on its Panorama show. This segment aired only one week before the US election. The spliced footage suggested that Trump had urged his supporters by saying, “We’re going to walk down to the capitol and I’ll be there with you, and we fight.” These terms, however, were drawn from two unrelated passages of his speech. Because they were spoken almost an hour apart, their purpose and meaning had been completely inverted.
Trump didn’t stop there After the BBC retracted the edit that mislead so many viewers, Trump decided to go for broke. He made headlines with his plan to sue the company for up to $5 billion in damages. He stated, “I made a beautiful statement, and they made it into a not beautiful statement.” The lawsuit comes at a very turbulent time for the BBC. The BBC is in the midst of sweeping leadership shifts following the departures of Tim Davie, its director general, and Deborah Turness, head of BBC News.
Trump’s lawyers threatened BBC with lawsuit unless the BBC issued a retraction and publicly apologized. They threatened to sue if their deal wasn’t fulfilled. The BBC has since denied these additional demands, leading Trump to decide to take the matter up a notch by suing them.
In order to justify these oppressive censorship tactics, in his remarks, Trump described the phenomenon as something much worse than mere misinformation. He stated, “Fake news was a great term, except it’s not strong enough. This is beyond fake, this is corrupt.” His choice of phrases shows his personal commitment to make this courtroom fight their big last stand. He considers it a battle against what he views as media malpractice.
Trump made it clear that he hadn’t spoken with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer since the incident. He intends to contact them this weekend, either way, with or without a protracted argument with the BBC.
According to Lisa Nandy, one of the UK’s leading Labour politicians, the break has been catastrophic. She welcomed the BBC’s apology, calling it “right and necessary.” So much is still uncertain about how this legal fight might play out, and what it could mean for the future of media practices.