BBC formally apologizes to Trump for editing clip of J6 speech, denies defamation

The BBC on Thursday apologized to President Donald Trump for airing a program last year that edited two clips from his speech on January 6, 2021, that appeared to indicate he was calling for violence, but denied that it was defamatory. 

Trump's attorneys threatened to sue the network for $1 billion on Sunday over its broadcast of the Panorama episode if it did not issue a retraction, apologize and compensate him for the misleading edits.

The British news corporation apologized for the editing, acknowledging that it failed to live up to the company's standards by giving a false impression and promised to never show the segment again. 

"We accept that our edit unintentionally created the impression that we were showing a single continuous section of the speech, rather than excerpts from different points in the speech, and that this gave the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action," the BBC said. 

The segment edited Trump's declaration at the White House that he and his supporters were "going to walk down to the Capitol, and we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women," and his statement nearly an hour later that Republicans "fight like hell." 

The clip instead combined the comments to have the president state: "We're going to walk down to the Capitol... and I'll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell."

Criticism of the program also prompted BBC director general Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness to resign.

"While the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited, we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim," the company said.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.