BBC accused of 'setting dangerous precedent' by editing second Donald Trump speech

The BBC is alleged to have altered a second clip of Trump addressing the US on January 6, 2021 (Image: Getty)

The BBC has been caught allegedly doctoring a second Donald Trump speech as the public service broadcaster continues to face growing scrutiny. The BBC included very similar footage to an edited clip in Newsnight as they did to the Panorama programme.

The clip used two nearly two and a half years prior gives the impression that President Donald Trump said something that his defenders said he did not. Broadcast on June 9, 2022 the clip from January 6, 2021, was even called out by someone close to the president, reports The Telegraph. In the video Newsnight includes the following line by Trump: “We’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congress men and women” but then it cuts to the “fight like hell" part and says “if you don’t fight like hell we’re not going to have a country anymore”.

The US President addressed a crowd in Washington DC on January 6, 2021 (Image: Getty)

Footage then seamlessly cuts to scenes of people fighting making it seem like the “fight like hell” section came immediately after the initial statement when it in fact came 54 minutes later  in the same speech.

The seemingly spliced clip makes it appear that Mr Trump was encouraging his supporters to riot.

At the time former Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark asked Former White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney what he thought of the footage.

Ms Walk said Trump had "galvanised and stoked that crowd”.

Criticising the video Mr Mulvaney said: “Your video actually spliced together the presentations from we’re going to go down and cheer on our senators and house members and that line of ‘fight like hell’ comes later in the speech your video makes it seem like those two things came together."

A spokesperson for the BBC told The Express: “The BBC holds itself to the highest editorial standards. This matter has been brought to our attention and we are now looking into it.”

The clip resembles footage used in a Panorama documentary episode that aired in October 2024, called Trump: A Second Chance?.

A damning internal document, seen by The Telegraph, was said to have dubbed the Panorama episode a "distortion of the day's events", prompting its author to warn BBC chairman Samir Shah of a "very, very dangerous precedent" being set.

The 19-page document, compiled by a member of the broadcaster's standards committee, allegedly suggested that Mr Trump's speech had been spliced together to make him "say things [he] never actually said".