The BBC is facing a $1 billion lawsuit from U.S. President Donald Trump and a major leadership crisis after its top two news executives resigned, triggered by a scandal over the misleading editing of a Trump speech in a documentary.
U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to sue the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) for "no less" than $1 billion, with his lawyers sending a formal letter to the corporation on November 9, 2025 . The letter accuses the BBC of defamation and sets a deadline of 10 PM GMT on Friday, November 14, for the broadcaster to comply with three demands: issue a full retraction of the documentary in question, offer a formal apology, and provide appropriate compensation to the president . Trump's legal team states that the BBC's actions have caused him "overwhelming financial and reputational harm" .
This legal threat was followed swiftly by the resignations of the BBC's two most senior leaders. Director-General Tim Davie and CEO of News and Current Affairs Deborah Turness both stepped down on Sunday, November 9 . Davie stated that while his departure was his own decision, he took "ultimate responsibility" for mistakes made . Turness similarly stated that "the buck stops with me" and that the controversy was "causing damage to the BBC – an institution that I love" .
The crisis stems from a documentary titled "Trump: A Second Chance?" aired by the BBC's flagship Panorama program on October 28, 2024, just days before the U.S. presidential election . The program was investigating the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
The controversy involves the editing of President Trump's speech from that day. The documentary spliced together two segments from different parts of the speech, making it appear as a single, continuous statement . In the edited clip, Trump 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 reality, these phrases were spoken nearly an hour apart and in different contexts . The original, unedited speech included the line, "We're going to walk down to the Capitol, and we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women," between the two parts that were joined together .
Following the leak of an internal memo criticizing this edit, BBC Chair Samir Shah apologized on November 10, 2025. He stated that the corporation accepted "that the way the speech was edited did give the impression of a direct call for violent action" and called it an "error of judgement" .
This is not President Trump's first major legal action against a media organization. Earlier in 2025, his accounts were reinstated on major social media platforms after settlements were reached . YouTube's parent company, Alphabet, agreed to pay a $24.5 million settlement, with a large portion directed to the Trust for the National Mall . Similarly, Meta (Facebook's parent company) settled for $25 million, and X (formerly Twitter) settled for a reported $10 million . Trump has also previously filed lawsuits against other U.S. media outlets, including ABC, CBS, and The New York Times .
The leaked memo that exposed the Trump speech edit also leveled broader criticism at the BBC, accusing it of "serious and systemic problems" with impartiality in other areas . The memo raised concerns about the corporation's coverage of transgender issues and, notably, its reporting on the Israel-Gaza war by its BBC Arabic service . The BBC has faced external pressure on these issues; U.K. media regulator Ofcom ruled in October that a different BBC documentary about Gaza broke broadcasting rules due to an impartiality breach .
The scandal has ignited a political firestorm in the U.K. and raised questions about the BBC's future. A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer denied that the BBC is "institutionally biased or corrupt" and affirmed government support for the corporation, while acknowledging that "mistakes have been made" . However, Conservative MP Nigel Huddleston, the shadow culture secretary, accused the BBC of being "out of touch" and stated that the incident shows a "whole series of consistent abuses of impartiality rules" .
The resignations and lawsuit threat come at a sensitive time for the BBC, with the British government set to review the corporation's Royal Charter before the current term expires in 2027 . The Royal Charter fundamentally defines the BBC's purpose and funding model. The chair of the parliamentary Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Dame Caroline Dinenage, stated that the BBC under Davie's leadership had been "slow to react" to the issues and had "dropped the ball at every opportunity" .