{"id":136926,"date":"2025-11-14T16:16:30","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T00:16:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/11\/14\/bbc-tells-trump-to-sod-off-politely\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T16:16:30","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T00:16:30","slug":"bbc-tells-trump-to-sod-off-politely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/11\/14\/bbc-tells-trump-to-sod-off-politely\/","title":{"rendered":"BBC Tells Trump To Sod Off \u2026 Politely"},"content":{"rendered":"

Britain\u2019s national broadcaster will not be cutting a check to America\u2019s president, thankyouverymuch<\/em>. Auntie Beeb has closed the cupboard and will not be doling out biscuits to the naughty tyke in chief. After reading his lawyer\u2019s bumptious demand letter that it fork over English taxpayer dollars, the BBC told Trump to do one. <\/p>\n

The kerfuffle is the result of a documentary aired more than a year ago entitled \u201cTrump: A Second Chance?\u201d in which footage of Trump\u2019s infamous January 6 speech was edited to make it appear that he told his supporters to walk down to the Capitol and fight. Which they did! But in fact the 12-second clip was a pastiche of two parts of the speech more than 50 minutes apart.<\/p>\n

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The clip was surfaced by a conservative critic of the BBC as part of a memo listing several culture war grievances, including bias in favor of trans people and immigrants and against Israel. It ignited a feeding frenzy of right-wing attack dogs which has already claimed the scalps of the BBC\u2019s two top officers. It also summoned the American president, like Beetlejuice crossed with Paulie Walnuts.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s lawyer lightly edited his standard presidential shakedown letter and fired off a nastygram<\/a> (h\/t Politico) to BBC Chair Samir Shah demanding that he \u201cimmediately retract the false, defamatory, disparaging, and inflammatory statements made about President Trump\u201d or face litigation over the \u201coverwhelming financial and reputational harm that the BBC has caused him to suffer.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cIf the BBC does not comply with the above by November 14, 2025, at 5:00 p.m. EST, President Trump will be left with no alternative but to enforce his legal and equitable rights, all of which are expressly reserved and are not waived, including by filing legal action for no less than $1,000,000,000 (One Billion Dollars) in damages,\u201d he blustered. \u201cThe BBC is on notice. PLEASE GOVERN YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY.\u201d<\/p>\n

How Brito calculated the damages figure for a broadcast Trump never heard about until a week ago is left as an exercise for the reader. <\/p>\n

The BBC reports<\/a> that Shah sent a personal apology to the president and a letter to Brito\u2019s declining his invitation to pay tribute to America\u2019s King George. The letter laid out a non-exhaustive list of reasons the lawsuit is DOA, even if the president\u2019s home state of Florida has a two-year statute of limitations on defamation:<\/p>\n

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First it says the BBC did not have the rights to, and did not, distribute the Panorama episode on its US channels.<\/p>\n

When the documentary was available on BBC iPlayer, it was restricted to viewers in the UK.<\/p>\n

Secondly, it says the documentary did not cause Trump harm, as he was re-elected shortly after.<\/p>\n

Thirdly, it says the clip was not designed to mislead, but just to shorten a long speech, and that the edit was not done with malice.<\/p>\n

Fourthly, it says the clip was never meant to be considered in isolation. Rather, it was 12 seconds within an hour-long programme, which also contained lots of voices in support of Trump.<\/p>\n

Finally, an opinion on a matter of public concern and political speech is heavily protected under defamation laws in the US.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But other than that, well done, you!<\/p>\n

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Liz Dye<\/a>\u00a0lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos\u00a0substack<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The post BBC Tells Trump To Sod Off \u2026 Politely<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Britain\u2019s national broadcaster will not be cutting a check to America\u2019s president, thankyouverymuch<\/em>. Auntie Beeb has closed the cupboard and will not be doling out biscuits to the naughty tyke in chief. After reading his lawyer\u2019s bumptious demand letter that it fork over English taxpayer dollars, the BBC told Trump to do one. <\/p>\n

The kerfuffle is the result of a documentary aired more than a year ago entitled \u201cTrump: A Second Chance?\u201d in which footage of Trump\u2019s infamous January 6 speech was edited to make it appear that he told his supporters to walk down to the Capitol and fight. Which they did! But in fact the 12-second clip was a pastiche of two parts of the speech more than 50 minutes apart.<\/p>\n