Donald Trump has launched a blistering attack on the BBC, declaring he will sue the corporation for up to $5bn after it apologised for airing a doctored edit of his 2021 speech but refused to pay damages. The US president said he would press ahead with legal action next week, describing the broadcaster’s conduct as “beyond corrupt!” and insisting the apology was nowhere near sufficient.

He said: “We’ll sue them for between $1bn and $5bn probably sometime next week.” He added: “I think I have to do it.” The scandal erupted after Panorama spliced together two parts of his January 6 speech — nearly an hour apart — to create the impression he had encouraged supporters to storm the US Capitol. The corporation admitted its edit created a “mistaken impression,” but insisted the error was unintentional and denied any basis for defamation.

The fallout inside the BBC has been devastating. Director-general Tim Davie and news chief Deborah Turness resigned as the crisis deepened, with critics calling it the broadcaster’s worst integrity failure in more than a decade.

Mr Trump said: “They’ve even admitted that they cheated. They changed the words coming out of my mouth.”

He said: “They wrote me a nice letter saying they apologise. But when you say it’s unintentional, I guess if it’s unintentional you don’t apologise.”

He added: “I made a beautiful statement, and they made it into a not beautiful statement.”

Panorama’s now-withdrawn version showed him saying: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol… and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.”

But these lines did not appear together in reality. The programme’s edited sequence merged separate moments in the speech, creating a false narrative that he had delivered a direct call to violence.

Mr Trump said: “The people of the UK are very angry about what happened.” He said he believed Sir Keir Starmer was “very embarrassed” by the scandal and confirmed he would speak with the Prime Minister over the weekend.

The BBC has pulled the episode permanently and said it will never reappear on any of its platforms. But the corporation’s apology has done nothing to deter Mr Trump from escalating the confrontation.

He said: “This was worse than what CBS did with Kamala.” That was a reference to the 2024 incident in which CBS’s 60 Minutes edited an interview with Kamala Harris. Mr Trump sued CBS for $10bn and eventually settled for $16m. He said the BBC’s conduct was “the most egregious” media manipulation he had ever seen.

The broadcaster is also facing fresh scrutiny after reports emerged that Newsnight broadcast a similarly misleading edit of the same speech in 2022. The BBC says it is now reviewing that incident as well.

Mr Trump said: “One of the things that we’ll find out during this litigation is how many other times they’ve done it — to your Prime Minister, to Nigel, to the people in your country.”

A senior White House official has hinted that consequences may extend beyond the lawsuit, suggesting that the administration is considering restricting the BBC’s access to open press events.

Such a move would exclude the corporation from routine briefings, bilateral meetings, and major presidential announcements.

For Mr Trump, the legal fight is a matter of principle as much as personal grievance.

He said: “If you don’t do it, you don’t stop it from happening again with other people.”

He added: “They are corrupt, stupid, and beyond corrupt!”

He has made it clear that he intends to turn the lawsuit into a full-scale examination of the BBC’s editorial behaviour — and he’s determined to make the broadcaster answer for it in court.