The US president signals legal war even as the British network apologises for an ‘error of judgement’ in editing his January 6 speech.

United States President Donald Trump says he would likely sue the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) next week for as much as $5bn after the British broadcaster admitted it wrongly edited a video of a speech he gave, but insisted there was no legal basis for his claim.

“We will sue them for anywhere between a billion and five billion dollars, probably sometime next week. I think I have to do it. They have even admitted that they cheated,” Trump told reporters on board Air Force One late on Friday.

Trump’s lawyers had sent the BBC a letter on Monday, accusing it of defaming the US president with the video of the speech before the 2021 US Capitol riot and giving it until Friday to apologise and pay compensation for what they described as “overwhelming reputational and financial harm”.

The controversy centres on the BBC’s edit of Trump’s remarks from January 6, 2021, the day his supporters stormed the US Capitol. The dispute has pushed the network into its most severe crisis in decades, triggering the resignations of two senior leaders and prompting a wave of political scrutiny.

“The people of the UK are very angry about what happened, as you can imagine, because it shows the BBC is fake news,” Trump said.

He added that he planned to raise the BBC issue with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has backed the broadcaster’s independence while avoiding taking sides against Trump.

“I’m going to call him over the weekend. He actually put a call into me. He’s very embarrassed,” Trump said.

‘Beyond fake, this is corrupt’

The documentary, aired on the BBC’s flagship Panorama programme, stitched together three separate clips of Trump’s January 6 speech. His lawyers say the sequence created the false impression he was inciting the riot, calling the edit “false and defamatory”.

In an interview with GB News, Trump accused the BBC of misconduct. He said the edit was “impossible to believe” and likened it to election interference.

“I made a beautiful statement, and they made it into a not beautiful statement,” he said. “Fake news was a great term, except it’s not strong enough. This is beyond fake, this is corrupt.”

He dismissed the BBC’s apology as insufficient, arguing that the broadcaster had spliced together remarks that were nearly an hour apart. “It’s incredible to depict the idea that I had given this aggressive speech which led to riots,” he said.

BBC chair Samir Shah issued a personal apology to the White House and told British lawmakers that the edit was “an error of judgement”. Culture Minister Lisa Nandy said on Friday the apology was “right and necessary”.

The crisis has already cost the BBC its director general, Tim Davie, and its head of news, Deborah Turness, both of whom resigned this week as accusations of bias and editing failures mounted.