BBC says Trump has threatened to sue over edited speech that sparked resignations by news bosses

LONDON (AP) — US President Donald Trump has threatened legal action against the BBC over the way a speech he made was edited in a documentary aired by Britain's national broadcaster.

BBC chairman Samir Shah on Monday apologised for the "error of judgment," which triggered the resignations of the BBC's top executive and its head of news.

Director-General Tim Davie and news chief Deborah Turness quit Sunday over accusations of bias and misleading editing of a speech Trump delivered on January 6, 2021, before a crowd of his supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington.

The hourlong documentary — titled "Trump: A Second Chance?" — was broadcast as part of the BBC's "Panorama" series days before the 2024 US presidential election. It spliced together three quotes from two sections of the 2021 speech, delivered almost an hour apart, into what appeared to be one quote in which Trump urged supporters to march with him and "fight like hell." Among the parts cut out was a section where Trump said he wanted supporters to demonstrate peacefully.

Shah said the broadcaster accepted "that the way the speech was edited did give the impression of a direct call for violent action."

A letter from Trump attorney Alejandro Brito demands the BBC "retract the false, defamatory, disparaging, and inflammatory statements," apologise and "appropriately compensate President Trump for the harm caused," or face legal action for $1 billion in damages.

The BBC said it would review the letter "and respond directly in due course."

Trump had earlier welcomed the resignations of the two BBC executives. He posted a link to a Daily Telegraph story about the speech-editing on his Truth Social network, thanking the newspaper "for exposing these Corrupt 'Journalists.' These are very dishonest people who tried to step on the scales of a Presidential Election." He called that "a terrible thing for Democracy!"

In a resignation letter to staff, Davie said: "There have been some mistakes made and as director-general I have to take ultimate responsibility."

Turness said the controversy was damaging the BBC, and she quit "because the buck stops with me." She defended the organisation's journalists against allegations of bias.

"Our journalists are hardworking people who strive for impartiality, and I will stand by their journalism," she said Monday. "There is no institutional bias. Mistakes are made, but there's no institutional bias."

Pressure on the broadcaster's top executives has been growing since the right-leaning Daily Telegraph published parts of a dossier compiled by Michael Prescott, who had been hired to advise the BBC on standards and guidelines.

As well as the Trump edit, it criticised the BBC's coverage of transgender issues and raised concerns of anti-Israel bias in the BBC's Arabic service.

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