US president calls for ‘full and honest’ retraction of BBC documentary that prompted resignation of two prime executives.
Revealed On 11 Nov 2025
US President Donald Trump has threatened to sue the BBC for $1bn over an edited clip that has plunged the broadcaster right into a public relations disaster and prompted the resignations of two prime executives.
In a letter despatched to the BBC, Trump’s authorized workforce has demanded the retraction of “false, defamatory, disparaging, deceptive, and inflammatory statements” contained in a Panorama documentary aired every week earlier than the 2024 US presidential election.
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The letter, written by Trump lawyer Alejandro Brito, provides the BBC till Friday to offer a “full and honest” retraction of the documentary and “appropriately compensate President Trump for the hurt precipitated”, or face authorized motion within the US state of Florida.
“The BBC is on discover. PLEASE GOVERN YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY,” says the letter, which was broadly circulated on social media.
The BBC didn’t instantly reply to Al Jazeera’s request for remark.
The documentary, titled Trump: A Second Probability?, has been mired in controversy because the leak of an inside memo that criticised producers for enhancing Trump’s remarks to make it seem that he had straight inspired the January 6, 2021, riot on the US Capitol.
Within the documentary, Trump is proven saying, “We struggle like hell”, straight after telling supporters, “We’re going to stroll right down to the Capitol”.
Trump had really adopted his feedback about going to the Capitol with a comment about cheering on “our courageous senators and congressmen and girls”, and made his “struggle like hell” remark almost an hour later.
The memo, written by Michael Prescott, a former adviser to the BBC’s requirements committee, additionally accused the broadcaster of suppressing vital protection of transgender points and displaying anti-Israel bias throughout the BBC Arabic service.
The BBC’s director-general, Tim Davie, and its head of reports, Deborah Turness, stepped down on Sunday amid the fallout of the controversy.
Trump welcomed the resignations in a submit on Fact Social, accusing the BBC executives of being “corrupt” and “very dishonest individuals”.
BBC chair Samir Shah on Monday acknowledged that the clip was deceptive and apologised for the “error of judgement”, however rejected claims that the broadcaster is institutionally biased.
Shah additionally stated that the memo didn’t current “a full image of the discussions, choices and actions that had been taken” by the requirements board in response to issues raised internally earlier than the leak.
Trump’s authorized risk is the newest in a flurry of actions he has taken to punish vital media.
These strikes embrace defamation claims towards shops together with The New York Instances, the Wall Road Journal and ABC Information, funding cuts at NPR and PBS, and the elimination of Related Press journalists from the White Home press pool.
