BBC owes Trump nothing, ex-director says

The BBC has apologized to the US President for the episode of Panorama that showed excerpts from his January 6, 2021, speech, but has rejected his demand for compensation.

Following the BBC's retraction, Trump has indicated that he may continue legal action and increase the amount of the lawsuit to between $1 billion (£759 million) and $5 billion.

Asked if he could ever conceive of licence fee payers' money being used to pay Trump off, Lord Hall told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: "No, [it] should not happen. You're talking about public money. It would not be appropriate."

Lord Hall stepped down in 2020 after seven years as Director General.

The controversy surrounding the editing of Trump's speech led to the resignations of BBC Director General Tim Davie and Head of News Deborah Turness.

The video edit was a "serious error", Lord Hall told the BBC, adding that it should have "been recognised as such much earlier in the whole process".

Lord Hall also said he was concerned that the debate might have misplaced "faith in the hard work, dedication, and impartiality" of BBC journalists.

He further stated that the resignation of two senior officials at the start of the BBC's charter renewal had made the process more difficult at "a crucial time for its future."

On Thursday evening, the BBC published a statement on its corrections and clarifications page stating that the Panorama program, which was only broadcast on October 28, 2024, had been reviewed following criticism of the editing of Trump's speech.

"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 statement said.

A BBC spokesperson said this week that BBC lawyers had written to Trump's legal team.

But in an interview with GB News on Saturday, Trump said he had an "obligation" to sue the BBC. He added: "If you don't do this, you can't stop this from happening to other people."

He called the edits "egregious" and "worse than the Kamala case," a reference to his dispute with the US news agency CBS over an interview with his 2024 election rival, Kamala Harris, on the program 60 Minutes.