US President Donald Trump stated on this Monday (11) that he considers it his “obligation” to sue the BBC. According to CNN Brasil, the reason would be the alleged manipulation of his speech prior to the January 6, 2021, attacks on the Capitol.
According to the BBC, Trump threatened to sue the British broadcaster after claiming that a documentary from the public channel had manipulated one of his speeches. The Republican’s legal team gave a deadline until November 14 for the broadcaster to issue a “complete and fair retraction” or face a $1 billion lawsuit.
The BBC is experiencing one of its biggest institutional crises in decades, following the resignation of director-general Tim Davie and head of journalism Deborah Turness. The departures occurred amid accusations of bias and content manipulation.
“They changed my speech”, says Trump
“Well, I think I have the obligation to do it”, Trump said about the possible lawsuit against the broadcaster in an interview on the Fox News program The Ingraham Angle, hosted by Laura Ingraham. “They really changed my January 6 speech, which was a beautiful and very peaceful speech. They made it look radical and completely altered it. What they did was unbelievable”, Trump emphasized, according to the report.
According to Trump, the BBC itself acknowledged the manipulation. “They showed me the results afterward, the result of what they did, how they distorted it. It was a lot of dishonesty. And the boss resigned, as did many other people”, he said.
BBC admits error and faces internal crisis
The BBC acknowledged that there was an error in editing Trump’s speech, although it denies any political intent. Still, the episode triggered an unprecedented crisis, leading to the departure of top executives and criticism about the impartiality of the public broadcaster. The case reignited the international debate on the role and responsibility of the media in the face of political leaders, especially in periods of intense polarization.
Debate on immigration and labor
During the same interview, Trump also commented on H-1B work visas, granted to qualified foreigners. When asked by Ingraham if he planned to “flood the country with tens or hundreds of thousands of foreign workers”, he replied: “I agree, but we need to bring in talent”.
The host retorted that “there are many talented people here”, to which Trump responded by saying that “no, you don’t have certain talents and people need to learn. You can’t take people from the unemployment line and say: ‘I’m going to put them in a factory where we’re going to produce missiles’”.
Source: brasil247.com