US President Donald Trump said in an interview with Fox News that he has a duty to sue the British public broadcaster BBC for editing his speech on January 6, 2021. The White House chief described his speech as reassuring and beautiful and said that the BBC had massacred it with its intervention. Trump is threatening the BBC with a lawsuit for more than a billion dollars (over CZK 21 billion) if the station does not apologize and compensate him. BBC Director-General Tim Davie and News Director Deborah Turness resigned over the incident.
“They butchered it,” Trump said of his speech.
“I have to,” Trump replied when asked about the threat of legal action. “They deceived the public and admitted it,” he said. “It’s a very sad event. My speech on January 6, which was a very beautiful speech, a very calming speech, was changed to make it sound radical,” he said, adding that the whole thing is unbelievable. “They massacred it,” he added.
Trump’s interview with Fox News was the president’s first public statement to the BBC since last weekend, when his lawyers sent a pre-litigation letter to the British media corporation. In the letter, they want the BBC to respond by this Friday.
The BBC is facing pressure after the publication of an internal report.
Trump delivered a speech on January 6, 2021, shortly before his supporters in Washington stormed the Capitol, the seat of the U.S. Congress. This happened at a time when lawmakers were gathered there to confirm Joe Biden’s victory in the November 2020 presidential election.
In a 2024 documentary program, Panorama, the BBC edited the speech in such a way that, according to critics, it gave the impression that the president had called on his supporters to attack the Capitol. An internal audit by the station drew attention to the discrepancies, and its report was leaked to the media a week ago. Since then, the BBC has been under considerable pressure. Among other things, critics accuse the station of failing to correct the error and punish those responsible for about a year.
“We’re going to go to the Capitol, and I’ll be with you, and we’re going to fight. We will fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you will never have the country again,” was the edited part of Trump’s speech. In fact, however, the internal report stated that the call to march on the Capitol came 15 minutes into the speech, and the part about fighting like hell followed 54 minutes later.
Source: ÄŒTK
