Trump says he has "obligation" to sue BBC over January 6 speech edit amid Epstein scandal

U.S. President Donald Trump has said he has an "obligation" to sue the BBC, claiming a documentary misrepresented his role in the January 6, 2021 attacks.

The documentary in question was a BBC Panorama film titled Trump: A Second Chance? which aired ahead of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, featuring sections from his speech on January 6, 2021.

In a letter sent to the BBC this week, Trump's lawyers claim the broadcaster edited clips of the speech to make it look as if he urged supporters to conduct violence immediately after directing them to march on the Capitol building.

The documentary showed Trump saying, "We're going to walk down to the Capitol" in one clip, immediately followed by "and I'll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell" in another clip.

While Trump's speech frequently used violent rhetoric and he did encourage his supporters to march to the Capitol, the two clips which were spliced together consecutively in the documentary were over 50 minutes apart in the actual speech.

Trump's legal team demanded the BBC retract the documentary, issue an apology and "appropriately compensate President Trump for the harm caused" by November 14.

If the BBC does not comply, the lawyers said, they will be faced with a lawsuit for "no less" than $1 billion (€864 million).

A spokesperson for the BBC said, "We are reviewing the letter and will respond directly in due course."

Speaking on the Fox News programme The Ingraham Angle yesterday, Trump claimed the speech was "butchered" and "defrauded" viewers by the way it was edited.

It was the first time Trump has spoken publicly about the matter since his legal team sent their letter.

When asked if he would go ahead with the lawsuit, Trump said, "Well, I guess I have to, you know, why not, because they defrauded the public, and they've admitted it."

"This has been one of our great allies, you know. This is supposedly our great ally, BBC. The government has a chunk of that one, I guess," Trump said.

"They actually changed my January 6 speech, which was a beautiful speech, which was a very calming speech and they made it sound radical."

The office of the UK prime minister has said the ordeal is a "matter for the BBC".

"It is clearly not for the government to comment on any ongoing legal matters," the prime minister's official spokesperson said on Tuesday.

On Monday, BBC chairman Samir Shah published a letter in which he apologised for an "error of judgement" over the edit.

"We accept that the way the speech was edited did give the impression of a direct call for violent action," Shah said.

Shah said more than 500 complaints had been made about the documentary since The Telegraph published an allegedly leaked letter to the BBC Board from Michael Prescott, a former advisor to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee (EGSC).

The leaked memo showed Prescott criticising the edits as well as accusing the BBC of bias on issues including Gaza, migration, LGBTQ+ issues and more.

"It is worth stating at the outset that some of the coverage of Mr Prescott's memo has implied that he has 'uncovered' a list of stories and issues that the BBC have sought to 'bury,'" Shah said.

"That interpretation is simply not true...There is another view that has gained currency in the coverage that the BBC has done nothing to tackle these problems. That is also simply not true.

"Over the three years Mr Prescott was an advisor to the EGSC, the BBC has: published corrections where we have got things wrong; changed editorial guidance to make the BBC's position on issues clearer; made changes to leadership where the problems point to underlying issues; and carried out formal disciplinary measures."

The apology came one day after BBC director general Tim Davie and CEO of BBC News Deborah Turness announced their resignations in the fallout from the leaked memo.

In posts on social media, Trump welcomed the resignations and The Telegraph for "exposing" what he described as "corrupt journalists."

According to reporting from BBC News, if Trump were to sue in his home state of Florida, he would need to prove that the documentary was available there. However, there is no evidence to suggest it has been shown anywhere in the US.

Throughout Trump's second term, he has taken legal action against multiple media sources over their coverage of him. He settled with CBS News and ABC News after receiving large payouts and has sought legal action against the New York Times.

Trump and his supporters have also pushed conspiracy theories about the January 6 attacks, including claiming the rioters were "hostages" and the victims of political persecution.

On the first day of his second term as president, Trump issued a proclamation pardoning approximately 1,200 individuals convicted for their involvement in the Capitol riots. He also dismissed the cases of the remaining approximately 300 charged individuals.The pardoned and dismissed individuals include members of far-right militant groups who assaulted police officers.

Following the pardons, Trump ordered the Department of Justice to purge previously published press releases about the arrests and convictions related to the attacks. Soon after, video evidence of the attack was wiped from government databases.

While Trump did not explicitly tell his supporters to use violence or enter the Capitol building during his speech, his speech and social media posts ahead of the speech were full of violent rhetoric and accusations that Biden was an illegitimate president and should be removed.

Trump called for his supporters to "walk down to the Capitol" 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," adding, "If you don't fight like Hell, you're not going to have a country anymore."

He also attacked elected representatives, saying former Vice President Mike Pence put himself at risk for accepting Biden's victory and threatening, "we've got to get rid of the weak Congresspeople, the ones that aren't any good, the Liz Cheneys of the world."

The mob who would go on to storm the Capitol — injuring at least 174 police officers and physically attacking journalists along the way — chanted "hang Mike Pence" and threatened to kill congresspeople.

The news of Trump's BBC lawsuit threats came before today's news that US Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have released new emails provided by the Jeffrey Epstein estate.

The documents, of which there are reportedly over 23,000 pages, appear to show Epstein mentioning Trump several times in correspondence.

The House Democrats said one document shows a private correspondence between Epstein and his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell in 2011, wherein Epstein appears to say Trump "spent hours at my house" with a victim of sex trafficking (whose name was redacted), referring to Trump as "dog that hasn't barked."

Another document, an email exchange between Epstein and author Michael Wolff in 2019, appears to show Epstein stating Trump "knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop".

Yet another, from March 2011, is an email request from BBC Radio 4's Today programme to Epstein's attorney Jack Goldberger for an interview with Epstein about "stories which are circulating, however inaccurately, about both him and Prince Andrew."

The documents show Goldberger forwarded the email to Epstein who then forwarded it to Peter Mandelson, a British former politician who was sacked earlier this year over his links to Epstein.

Mandelson replies to the email request with, "No!!!"

MORE DOCUMENTS obtained by Oversight’s subpoena of Jeffrey Epstein’s estate include communications between Epstein and Steve Bannon, Larry Summers, and others. Take a look: https://t.co/QrcevTJA6N https://t.co/7LWcuQ9PsK

— Oversight Dems (@OversightDems) November 12, 2025

Trump has strongly denied knowing about Epstein's sex trafficking and other illegal activities for years.

However, reports from the New York Times suggested Trump was told in May by his attorney general that his name appeared in Epstein files.

The White House responded to the documents' release this afternoon, accusing the democrats of "selectively leaking emails" as a "smear" campaign.

"The Democrats selectively leaked emails to the liberal media to create a fake narrative to smear President Trump," said Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.

"The unnamed victim referenced in these emails is the late Virginia Giuffre, who repeatedly said President Trump was not involved in any wrongdoing whatsoever and couldn’t have been friendlier to her in their limited interactions.  The fact remains that President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club decades ago for being a creep to his female employees, including Giuffre.

"These stories are nothing more than bad-faith efforts to distract from President Trump’s historic accomplishments, and any American with common sense sees right through this hoax and clear distraction from the government opening back up again."

The name of the victim, again, was redacted in the documents.

The Epstein Estate has confirmed this afternoon that it handed over 2,900 documents - comprised of 23,124 pages - to the House Oversight Committee yesterday.

"On behalf of the Epstein Estate, we confirm that the Estate produced these documents yesterday in its continuing compliance with the subpoena issued in late August by the House Oversight Committee," a spokesperson said today.

This story is developing.