The BBC confirmed on Thursday night (13/10/25) that he had formally apologized to Donald Trump for the documentary “Trump: A Second Chance?” (“Trump: A Second Chance?”) aired by Panorama in October 2024.
The BBC has pledged not to air the Donald Trump program in question again on any of its platforms, but is refusing to pay compensation.
A spokesman for the organization said: “The BBC’s lawyers have responded to the letter from President Trump’s legal team which they received on Sunday.” At the same time, it is emphasized that the president of the BBC “separately sent a personal letter to the White House, telling President Trump that both he and the company regret the editing of his speech on January 6, 2021, which was presented on the show.”
The documentary in question had spliced together two parts of Donald Trump’s speech in a way that made it appear he was urging his supporters to attack the Capitol in January 2021.
Earlier this week, Trump’s legal team asked the BBC to retract the story, apologize and compensate the US president. Otherwise, as the four-page letter concluded, he would go to court seeking more than $1 billion in damages.
Now the case is in the hands of the American president on whether he will go to court asking for compensation or whether he will put an end to this story, after the “apology” of the BBC.
In the meantime, the limelight sees one new complaint about edited speech by Donald Trump on another BBC show, Newsnight, in 2022.