What next as Donald Trump says he will take legal action against the BBC
Anyone who thought that the BBC’s apology to Donald Trump would remove his threat to sue was clearly wrong.
BBC chief Samir Shah maybe He summarized it in the interview he gave me. The day after the resignation of the News’ managing director and CEO. He called the president “a litigious man.”
That’s an understatement, as evidenced by the number of lawsuits Trump has filed against various US media companies.
According to the GB News interview, the president was clearly hurt by what he saw as a “terrible” regulation and apparently increased the amount he said he would sue the company for.
While aboard Air Force One on Friday, Trump told reporters that figure “will be somewhere between $1 billion.” [£759m] and $5 billion”.
To put this into context, the BBC’s annual income from the license fee was £3.8bn last year.
On Friday, Trump said: “They changed the words that came out of my mouth.” He wants to know why Panorama put together two clips of his speech in a way that gave a “completely different meaning”.
Does not accept BBC’s answer what happened was unintentional.
This is a very serious moment in BBC history. As a source of trust in a world where trust in institutions is diminishing, they stand or fall by being seen as impartial.
Instead, the company is accused of the opposite and faces an expensive and public battle with the world’s most powerful man.
So where does it go from here?
Ever since the president first threatened legal action, it had been clear that the company had no intention of offering him compensation. He believes there’s a case to be made that no matter what mistakes were made, the Panorama program did no harm to Trump.
He was elected President shortly after it aired, and anyway, according to the BBC, the program was not broadcast on any US channels, so how could it have harmed him?
I think there was a certain consensus inside and outside the company that the idea of using license fee payers’ money to compromise with Trump was a non-starter.
As one former senior BBC executive told me after the BBC rejected the compensation offer, “they made the right decision”. But the person also said that if the president decides to sue, the BBC “will have to hire the best lawyers in Florida.”
The reason for the settlement may have been to reduce costs in the long run.
Now the BBC looks set to enter a protracted, costly court battle at a time when it should be 100% focused on the escalating debate over charter renewal.
Those at the top of the BBC need to concentrate fully on what in normal times is a fundamental moment for the corporation – what it is for, its scope, how it will be financed, the details of its existence will be worked out in time for a new contract between the government and the BBC at the beginning of 2028.
We’re already losing the man who’s supposed to run this – Tim Davie, Managing Director.
Now the BBC’s top minds will be directed to plan their next move, which could lead to a very damaging, even existential, fight with Donald Trump. Legal fees alone can be very expensive.
All of this could have been avoided if the BBC had been open about the mistake and corrected it much earlier. Instead he faces a long road.
But there may be other ways.
Could the BBC ask the UK government to intervene through back channels? Will a phone call from Prime Minister Keir Starmer persuade Trump to change his mind? Would Starmer want to get involved and spend his own political capital on the US president?
A positive development for the BBC this week culture secretary Lisa Nandy’s strong defense of the company.
He spoke of the widespread trust in BBC News and described the company as “a light on the hill for people in dark times”, bringing the country together, whether through coverage of Celebrity Traitors or VE Day.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, described the BBC as “worse than fake news”. He claims that the company and its journalists are corrupt.
The fight is well and truly on.
