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The BBC has officially apologized to President Donald Trump after admitting to editing and splicing sections of his January 6, 2021, speech at the U.S. Capitol in a manner that appeared deceptive.
The BBC has faced a slew of backlash following a BBC Panorama documentary about the president’s Jan. 6 speech that he delivered shortly before the attack on the U.S. Capitol Building. The documentary excluded President Trump’s comments urging supporters to “peacefully” protest, instead editing separate clips together in a manner that makes it appear he explicitly called for violence at the Capitol.
The doctored statement portrayed the president as saying, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and I’ll be there with you. And we fight, we fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
However, the documentary clips spliced together lines from two separate sections, 55 minutes apart from each other, in a manner that makes his comments appear as one single statement.
In reality, the president said, “Now it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy. And after this, we’re going to walk down—and I’ll be there with you—we’re gonna walk down, we’re gonna walk down.”
He continued, “Anyone you want, but I think right here, we’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women—and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.”
Fifty-five minutes later, President Trump added, “But I said something is wrong here, something is really wrong, can’t have happened, and we fight. We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
He added, “Our exciting adventures and boldest endeavors have not yet begun.”
Following the episode’s debut, President Trump threatened a $1 billion lawsuit if the “false, defamatory, disparaging, and inflammatory statements” were not immediately retracted, Fox News reported.
The head of the BBC later resigned on Sunday, according to RSBN, with the network releasing a statement on Thursday admitting its mistake.
“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,” a BBC spokesperson said Thursday.
Lawyers for the BBC have written to President Trump’s legal team in response to a letter received on Sunday,” the statement continued.
“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,” they added.
Despite apologizing for the edited video clips, the BBC maintains that there is no basis for a defamation suit, according to their statement.