Donald Trump has spoken about the BBC Panorama scandal - and he is clearly in no mood to back down, telling GB News that he believes he has an "obligation" to sue the corporation for $1billion.
"This is beyond fake, this is corrupt, what they did," the US President told GB News' Bev Turner when asked to describe his reaction to the wrongful BBC editing of his Jan 6 2021 speech on Capitol Hill.
Trump's comments are a disaster for the BBC which had spent much of Thursday and Friday trying to defuse the row over the BBC's edits to Trump's speech, broadcast on the eve of last November's US Presidential election.
The Panorama broadcast had showed the president telling supporters he was going to walk to the Capitol with them to “fight like hell”, when in fact he said he would walk with them “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.
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Apology letters had been written to Trump by corporation chairman Samir Shah, and by the BBC's lawyers attempting to defuse the row. The BBC's director general and its chief executive of News had resigned. But the BBC felt there were no grounds for a defamation case. And then matters were clouded when it emerged the BBC's Newsnight had carried out a similar edit of his speech in 2022.
Trump was pressed by Bev Turner whether he would continue with his threat of a $1billion law suit against the corporation.
He said: "I have an obligation to do it. I am not looking to get into law suits. But I think I have an obligation to do it. This was so egregious. If you don't do it you don't stop it from happening again with other people."
Trump clearly believes that he can use the disclosure process in any court case to find out how many times the BBC might have edited his words and those of others, including Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.
Donald Trump was pressed by Bev Turner whether he would continue with his threat of a $1billion law suit against the corporation
|GB NEWS
He added: "One of the nice parts about litigation is we will find out how many times they have done it to other people."
Trump said that the BBC's doctoring was "worse" than a scandal involving CBS which had led to the US broadcaster paying $16million in damages to Trump over a Kamal Harris documentary.
He said: "The lawyers walked in and said 'sir you are not going to believe this'. I said 'what is it?' And they showed me the one, and they showed me the other. And it is not even close, it is different words."
After a long interview which ranged across his hatred for windfarms, his puzzlement over the Labour government's rejection of North Sea oil and gas and his suspicion of London Mayor Sadiq Khan, he returned to the BBC.
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Donald Trump said that the BBC's doctoring was "worse" than a scandal involving CBS which had led to the US broadcaster paying $16million
|GB NEWS
Trump said: "We have notified them by writing. After we wait a week... we will sue them my lawyers say for a billion dollars or more, and we will see how it all works out. I can't imagine they will do very well in that law suit."
He added: "I think I have an obligation to bring a major lawsuit against the BBC because what they did is impossible to believe."
He continued: "One of the things we will find out during this litigation through depositions is how many other times. Have they done it to your Prime Minister? Have they done it to Nigel [Farage]?"
Lawyers in the UK believe Trump's case has little chance of succeeding. But that does not bother Trump who appears to want to teach the corporation a lesson. Get ready for what could be one of the legal cases of the decade: Donald Trump vs the BBC.
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