The US President threatened to drag Keir Starmer into the row over accusations the BBC edited a speech of his in a way that was misleading
Donald Trump says he will sue the BBC for between one and five billion dollars.
It comes after the BBC apologised over accusations that they edited his speech shortly before the January 6th attempted coup at the US Capitol in a way that was misleading.
But the broadcaster indicated it would not pay him damages over the programme, which did not air in the US.
“We’ll sue them for anywhere between a billion and five billion dollars, probably sometime next week,” Trump told a reporter on Air Force One on his way to Florida tonight.
“I think I have to do it, they even admit that they cheated. Not that they wouldn’t not have done that. They changed the words coming out of my mouth. That’s worse than what CBS did with Kamala.”
This is untrue. None of the speech elements the BBC broadcast were fabricated. All of them were complete sentences spoken by the President during his January 6th 2021 speech.
Countless courts, plus the US House of Representative agreed that Trump’s speech played a role in inciting violence on what became a bloody insurrection at the US capitol shortly after the speech.
CBS settled a much derided and meritless lawsuit without including a statement of apology or regret, after being accused by Trump of “maliciously” editing an interview with his opponent to her benefit on the 60 Minutes programme.
“They changed her answer but at least they didn’t show it coming out of her mouth,” Trump said today.
He went on: “The people of the UK are very angry about what happened, as you can imagine, because it shows the BBC is fake news.”
Asked if he’d raised the issue with Keir Starmer, he said: “I haven’t but I’ll call him. He actually put a call in to me, because he’s very embarrassed.”