Former U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss is throwing her support behind President Donald Trump’s threat to sue the BBC, accusing the broadcaster of deliberately manipulating video from his Jan. 6, 2021, speech and arguing that an apology isn’t enough.
The BBC is facing intense backlash after being accused of splicing together two separate moments from Trump’s remarks on January 6. Critics say the documentary removed his call for supporters to march “peacefully and patriotically” and replaced it with the phrase “fight like hell,” which came nearly an hour later in the speech.
“There are lots of people in Britain who are cheering President Trump on and who want him to sue the BBC because they’re a huge problem,” Truss said Saturday during an appearance on “Fox & Friends Weekend.”
Trump has said he feels “obligated” to take legal action and has floated seeking $1 billion in damages, claiming the broadcaster tampered with footage in a way that misrepresented his message.
The BBC has since apologized and said it will not rebroadcast the Panorama documentary, “Trump: A Second Chance?” Two senior executives — Director-General Tim Davie and BBC News CEO Deborah Turness — stepped down following the controversy. In a separate statement, a BBC spokesperson said chair Samir Shah sent a personal letter to the White House expressing regret for the edit and apologizing directly to Trump.
Even so, the network has rejected Trump’s calls for compensation, and Truss believes that should only strengthen his case.
“I want to see him progress with this legal suit because I don’t think they’ve been held to account,” she said. Truss also argued that the BBC routinely spreads misinformation about Trump, the MAGA movement, and broader political shifts, claiming many people in Britain want similar changes at home.
She went further, accusing the broadcaster of long-standing ideological bias against conservatives in both the U.K. and the U.S., and called for it to be “defunded.”
“The BBC used to be the paragon of journalism across the world. It was respected. It’s now become a laughingstock, and it needs to be put out of its misery,” Truss said.
Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett echoed her stance, arguing that the apology does not erase alleged harm caused by the broadcast.
“This was clearly defamatory under British law. The BBC knows that, which is why the network apologized [and] removed the story,” Jarrett said. “That does not, however, erase the past damages that Trump sustained, which are considerable.”
Trump said he plans to discuss the issue with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer this weekend before formally filing a lawsuit.
