BBC apologises to Donald Trump over edit of his speech on Panorama

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The BBC has issued an apology Donald Trump over the editing of his speech which made it appear like he was encouraging his supporters to riot.

The episode, Trump: A Second Chance? has also been taken down from the BBC website.

A retraction was published on the webpage on Thursday evening.

The BBC’s actions come after Trump’s lawyer threatened to sue it for $1bn (£759m) in damages unless it issued a retraction, apologises and compensates him.

The BBC said in a statement: “This programme was reviewed after criticism of how President Donald Trump’s 6th January 2021 speech was edited.

“During that sequence, we showed excerpts taken from different parts of the speech.

“However, we accept that our edit unintentionally created the impression that we were showing a single continuous section of the speech, rather than excerpts from different points in the speech, and that this gave the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action.

“The BBC would like to apologise to President Trump for that error of judgement.

“This programme was not scheduled to be re-broadcast and will not be broadcast again in this form on any BBC platforms.”

The corporation said chairman Samir Shah has sent a personal letter to the White House to apologise for the editing of the speech.

It said while it sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited, it strongly disagree there is a “basis for a defamation claim”.

Earlier in the week Trump said he had an “obligation” to launch a billion-dollar lawsuit against the corporation.

He told Fox News that the BBC had “defrauded the public” over the editing of the speech, which suggested he was explicitly urging people to attack the US Capitol on 6, January 2021.

The BBC’s apology comes as it faces new claims that it misled viewers about Trump’s US Capitol speech in an episode of Newsnight more than two years before the controversial Panorama edit aired, The Telegraph reported.

In an episode broadcast in June 2022, Newsnight reportedly played an edit of the US president’s speech similar to the one used in a Panorama programme in October 2024.

Both made it appear as if he was explicitly urging people to attack the Capitol on January 6 2021.

A BBC spokesperson said in response to the fresh claims: “The BBC holds itself to the highest editorial standards. This matter has been brought to our attention and we are now looking into it.”

After the scandal emerged, two of the BBC’s most senior executives, its director-general Tim Davie and news chief Deborah Turness – both quit.

A legal letter, from Trump’s counsel Alejandro Brito, demanded that “false, defamatory, disparaging and inflammatory statements” made about Mr Trump be retracted immediately.

On Monday, Mr Shah issued an apology from the corporation over the “error of judgment” in the editing of the speech for the Panorama episode.

Responding to a letter from the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Mr Shah said that there had been more than 500 complaints since the publication of Mr Prescott’s memo, adding: “We accept that the way the speech was edited did give the impression of a direct call for violent action.”

Mr Davie and Ms Turness announced their departure from the BBC after concerns were raised in Michael Prescott’s report that the Panorama speech had been selectively edited.

The Prescott memo, first reported by The Telegraph, raised concerns about the way clips of Mr Trump’s speech on January 6 2021 were spliced together to make it appear he had told supporters he was going to walk to the US Capitol with them to “fight like hell”.

On Thursday, Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said Mr Trump “wants to destroy the BBC”, in a post on X, 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”.

In another post  Davey said the party has written to Sir Keir Starmer and asked him to demand that Trump “drop his ludicrous one billion dollar lawsuit against the BBC”.

He also said that Reform leader Nigel Farage, who accused the BBC of being “infected with left-wing bias”, “is egging him on”.

There have been reports that Reform pulled out of a BBC documentary about it because of the controversy over the edited speech of Mr Trump.

According to reports, Reform has pulled out of a BBC documentary about the political party because of the controversy over the edited speech.

Additional reporting by Press Association.