Nigel Farage expressed that Donald Trump was deeply angered following the exposure of a leaked memo suggesting that a BBC program had manipulated footage of one of Trump’s speeches. Farage, the leader of Reform UK and a vocal critic of the BBC, revealed that Trump considered these allegations to be a significant betrayal, akin to Russia’s interference in elections.
In a conversation with LBC radio, Farage recounted his discussion with Trump, emphasizing the President’s intense displeasure with the BBC’s actions. Trump, feeling betrayed by what he perceived as a trusted ally resorting to deceit, condemned the BBC’s conduct, drawing parallels to foreign election interference.
Following the controversy, BBC’s director general Tim Davie and News chief executive Deborah Turness resigned amidst backlash over a Panorama documentary that allegedly misrepresented Trump’s speech preceding the Capitol Hill riots in January 2021. Trump’s remarks at the time, encouraging protests against the election certification, were critical to the ensuing chaos.
The Telegraph recently reported that the BBC edited segments of Trump’s speech together inaccurately, suggesting he had incited the riots. This misleading edit, featuring disparate parts of the speech, triggered condemnation from the White House, labeling the BBC as a purveyor of “fake news” and propaganda.
Trump celebrated Davie’s resignation, attributing it to the expose of the BBC’s alleged distortion of his speech. However, Turness refuted claims of institutional bias within the BBC, asserting that her resignation was a personal decision to uphold accountability while defending the corporation’s journalistic integrity and global trustworthiness.
