WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said he had an “obligation” to sue the BBC over a misleading speech edit, stopping short of announcing legal action in a Fox News interview aired on Tuesday.
Trump’s lawyers threatened the British broadcaster with a billion-dollar lawsuit on Monday, according to a letter seen by AFP, as the BBC apologised for giving the impression the president had urged “violent action” ahead of the 2021 assault on the US Capitol.
In the Fox News interview, which was recorded Monday, Trump was asked if he planned to sue the BBC.
“I guess I have to, why not?” said the president in his first public comments on the potential for legal action.
“I think I have an obligation to do it because you can’t allow people to do that,” Trump said, without confirming whether he had officially begun proceedings to file a defamation lawsuit.
“They defrauded the public and they’ve admitted it.”
Britain “is supposedly one of our great allies,” and “the government has a chunk of that one,” Trump added, referring to the BBC.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government has been performing a tightrope act between backing the publicly funded broadcaster’s independence without seeming to take a side against Trump.
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