The US president calls for a “full and fair” retraction of a BBC documentary that urged the resignation of two executives.
Published November 11, 2025
US President Donald Trump has threatened to sue the BBC for $1 billion over edited footage that plunged the organization into a public relations crisis and prompted the resignation of two executives.
In a letter to the BBC, Mr Trump’s lawyers requested the retraction of “false, defamatory, derogatory, misleading and inflammatory statements” contained in the Panorama documentary, which aired a week before the 2024 US presidential election.
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The letter, written by President Trump’s lawyer Alejandro Brito, asks the BBC by Friday to withdraw the documentary “fully and fairly” and “adequately compensate President Trump for the harm caused” or face a lawsuit in the US state of Florida.
“The BBC warns you. Please follow and take care of yourself,” said the letter, which was widely circulated on social media.
The BBC did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.
The documentary, titled “Trump: A Second Chance?,” has been controversial since an internal memo was leaked criticizing the producers for editing President Trump’s remarks to appear as if he directly incited the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
In the documentary, President Trump is shown telling his supporters that he will “walk to the Capitol” and then saying, “We will fight like hell.”
In fact, President Trump followed up his statement that he would go to the Capitol by saying he would support “brave senators, congressmen and women,” and nearly an hour later made comments about “fighting like hell.”
The memo, written by Michael Prescott, a former adviser to the BBC Standards Board, accused the broadcaster of suppressing critical coverage of transgender issues and displaying anti-Israel bias within the BBC Arabic service.
The BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, and news director, Deborah Turness, resigned on Sunday in the aftermath of the controversy.
President Trump welcomed the resignation in a post on Truth Social, accusing BBC executives of being “corrupt” and “very dishonest people”.
BBC chairman Sameer Shah admitted on Monday that the footage was misleading and apologized for the “error in judgment”, but rejected claims that the broadcaster was institutionally biased.
Mr Shah also said the memo did not provide a “full picture of the discussions, decisions and actions taken” by the standards committee in response to concerns raised internally before the breach.
Trump’s legal threats are the latest in a series of actions he has taken to punish critical media outlets.
These moves include defamation claims against news outlets such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and ABC News, funding cuts to NPR and PBS, and the removal of Associated Press reporters from the White House press pool.
