Donald Trump confirms he will sue the BBC for between $1bn and $5bn

'We'll sue them.'

Speaking on Air Force One, the US President said: "We'll sue them. We'll sue them for anywhere between a billion (£792m) and five billion dollars (£3.79bn), probably sometime next week.

"Well, I think I have to do it. They've even admitted that they cheated, I mean, not that they couldn't have not done that. They cheated. They changed the words coming out of my mouth."

Trump added that he would be discussing the matter with Prime Minister Keir Starmer over the weekend, adding: "The people of the UK are very angry about what happened, as you can imagine, because it shows the BBC is fake news."

The President also spoke with GB News, saying: "I'm not looking to get into lawsuits, but I think I have an obligation to do it.

"This was so egregious. If you don't do it, you don't stop it from happening again with other people."

Earlier this week, the BBC apologised to Trump for a Panorama episode that edited a speech made by Trump on January 6 2021, just before a mob rioted at the US Capitol building. However, they have rejected his demands for compensation.

The broadcaster claimed the edit had given "the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action" and said it would not show the 2024 programme again.

The scandal eventually led to the resignations of BBC director general Tim Davie and head of News Deborah Turness on Sunday.

The apology follows a second similarly edited clip, which was broadcast on Newsnight in 2022, as revealed by the Daily Telegraph.

In a Corrections and Clarifications notice released on Thursday evening (13 November), the BBC stated that the Panorama episode had been reviewed following criticism of the editing of President 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.

According to a BBC spokesperson, lawyers for the BBC have written to President Trump's legal team in response to a letter received on Sunday.

The spokesperson said: "BBC chair Samir Shah has separately sent a personal letter to the White House making clear to President Trump that he and the corporation are sorry for the edit of the president's speech on 6 January 2021, which featured in the programme.

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