The BBC’s director general and a top news executive at the network both resigned on Sunday after criticism of the way it edited footage of President Donald Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, speech in a documentary.
“Overall the BBC is delivering well, but there have been some mistakes made and as director-general I have to take ultimate responsibility,” Director-General Tim Davie said in a letter to staff.
The British broadcasting network has been under heavy scrutiny this week after an internal memo by a former standards adviser was reported in The Daily Telegraph. The memo cited failings in the BBC’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas war and trans issues, in addition to the edits of Trump’s speech.
According to the 19-page dossier, the BBC edited its video of Trump’s speech on Jan. 6, 2021 to make “the U.S. president ‘say things [he] never actually said’” by splicing together footage from the start of his speech with something he said nearly an hour later.
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“This created the impression that Trump said something he did not and, in doing so, materially misled viewers,” Michael Prescott, a former standards adviser, wrote in the memo.
Trump’s attorneys sent the BBC a notice of intent to bring a civil action lawsuit on Sunday, Fox News Digital first reported, demanding a full retracting of the documentary along with an apology and financial compensation.
“If the BBC does not comply with the above by November 14, 2025, at 5:00 p.m. EST, President Trump will be left with no alternative but to enforce his legal and equitable rights, all of which are expressly reserved and are not waived, including by filing legal action for no less than $1,000,000,000 (One Billion Dollars) in damages,” the letter concluded. “The BBC is on notice.”
Trump celebrated the resignations Sunday in a series of posts on Truth Social.
“Thank you to The Telegraph for exposing these Corrupt ‘Journalists.’ These are very dishonest people who tried to step on the scales of a Presidential Election,” one of Trump’s posts said. “On top of everything else, they are from a Foreign Country, one that many consider our Number One Ally. What a terrible thing for Democracy!”
Prescott also claimed senior executives, including the BBC’s chairman, had ignored and dismissed a string of complaints.
In her note to staff, Deborah Turness said that the controversy about the Trump documentary “has reached a stage where it is causing damage to the BBC — an institution that I love. As the CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs, the buck stops with me.”
“In public life leaders need to be fully accountable, and that is why I am stepping down,” she said. “While mistakes have been made, I want to be absolutely clear recent allegations that BBC News is institutionally biased are wrong.”
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt told The Telegraph on Saturday that British taxpayers were being “forced to foot the bill for a leftist propaganda machine.”
“This purposefully dishonest, selectively edited clip by the BBC is further evidence that they are total, 100% fake news,” Leavitt said. “Every time I travel to the United Kingdom with President Trump and am forced to watch the BBC in our hotel rooms, it ruins my day listening to their blatant propaganda and lies about the president of the United States and all that he’s doing to make America better and the world a safer place.”
This story has been updated with reports that Trump’s lawyers threatened legal action.
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