US President Donald Trump has said he has an “obligation” to sue the over the way a section of his speech was edited in a Panorama documentary.
Speaking to Fox News, he said his 6 January 2021 speech had been “butchered” and the way it was presented had “defrauded” viewers.
It is the first time Trump has spoken publicly since his lawyers wrote to the and said he would sue for $1bn (£759m) in damages unless the corporation issues a retraction, apologises and compensates him.
chair Samir Shah has previously apologised for an “error of judgement” over the edit.
Appearing on Fox News’s The Ingraham Angle, the president was asked if he would go ahead with the lawsuit, responding “well I guess I have to, you know, why not, because they defrauded the public, and they’ve admitted it”.
Trump continued: “They actually changed my January 6 speech, which was a beautiful speech, which was a very calming speech, and they made it sound radical.
“And they actually changed it. What they did was rather incredible.”
Asked again if he would proceed with the legal action, he said: “Well I think I have an obligation to do it, because you can’t get people, you can’t allow people to do that.”
The received the letter from Trump’s lawyers on Sunday. It demands a “full and fair retraction” of the documentary, an apology, and that the “appropriately compensate President Trump for the harm caused”.
It sets a deadline of 22:00 GMT (17:00 EST) on Friday for the corporation to respond.
The has said it will respond in due course.
News has contacted the for comment on the president’s latest remarks.
Since returning to the White House, Trump has made legal threats against other media outlets over their coverage of him. He settled with both CBS News and ABC News after receiving large payouts, and has sought to take legal action against the New York Times.
The edit appeared in a Panorama documentary which aired days before the US presidential election in November 2024, but only generated significant public scrutiny after a leaked internal memo was published by the Daily Telegraph newspaper last week.
In the memo, a former independent external adviser to the ‘s editorial standards committee raised concerns that a section of the speech had been edited in a way which suggested the president explicitly encouraged the Capitol riot of January 2021.
Trump actually said: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.”
However, in the Panorama edit, he was shown saying: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol… and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.”
In total, he used the words “fight” or “fighting” 20 times elsewhere in the address.
The fallout has led to the ‘s director general Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness resigning.
Both outgoing senior leaders have pushed back against critics who have said the episode raises wider questions about impartiality at the .
Davie told staff in a call on Tuesday: “We have made some mistakes that have cost us, but we need to fight”, adding that “this narrative will not just be given by our enemies, it’s our narrative”.
He said the went through “difficult times… but it just does good work, and that speaks louder than any newspaper, any weaponisation”.
In the staff call on Tuesday neither Davie nor the chair mentioned Trump’s legal threat.
Downing Street has said this was a “matter for the “.
“It is clearly not for the government to comment on any ongoing legal matters,” the prime minister’s official spokesperson said.
