US President Donald Trump has launched a fresh attack on the BBC branding it “corrupt and fraudulent” over its coverage of the Iran war.
It comes after the corporation recently filed a motion to a US judge to throw out Trump's $10 billion lawsuit over its editing of a 2021 speech in a documentary.
Trump branded the BBC’s coverage of the US war on Iran as “so inaccurate” and “unbelievable” yesterday, claiming the BBC has created the impression “it's almost like they’re fighting us to a draw”.
He initially referred to the broadcaster as delivering “fake news”, but then strengthened his attack and said “it’s not just fake, but beyond fake”.
“It really is corrupt, fraudulent news. It really is – it’s fraudulent,” he said.
The BBC came under fire last year after a clip from a 2024 Panorama documentary resurfaced, which critics argued gave the misleading impression that Trump incited the US Capitol riots by splicing together two separate portions of his January 6, 2021 speech.
The BBC’s Director-General, Tim Davie, resigned in the wake of the controversy, while the US President initiated defamation proceedings.
The broadcaster apologised for an "error of judgement" and accepted the edit gave a "mistaken impression of a direct call for violent action".
But the BBC maintains there is no basis for defamation, arguing Trump suffered no harm as he was successfully re-elected and that the edit lacks "actual malice".
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office about his lawsuit on Tuesday, Trump claimed that AI had been used to generate the clips.
“They put words in my mouth, and they said I said some pretty bad things, and I didn’t say them, it was AI-generated,” he said.
“And I said, ‘I never said that’. Some of my people said, ‘Wow, that was pretty bad stuff you said’, I said, ‘What did I say?’
“I’m pretty good at this stuff. I mean, if you can go through years of these press conferences and you’re the popular president of the United States that won in a landslide, that won all seven swing states, that got record numbers of votes – I guess I’m OK at this stuff.
“I said, ‘I never said that’, and then we found out it was AI-generated.”
The BBC has been contacted by The Standard for comment.
