Donald Trump has said he will sue the BBC for between $1bn and $5bn over the editing of his speech on Panorama.

The US president confirmed he would be taking legal action against the broadcaster while on Air Force One overnight on Saturday.

“We’ll sue them. We’ll sue them for anywhere between a billion (£792m) and five billion dollars (£3.79bn), probably sometime next week,” he told reporters.

“We have to do it, they’ve even admitted that they cheated. Not that they couldn’t have not done that. They cheated. They changed the words coming out of my mouth.”

Mr Trump then told reporters he would discuss the matter with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer over the weekend, and claimed “the people of the UK are very angry about what happened… because it shows the BBC is fake news”.

Separately, Mr Trump told GB News: “I’m not looking to get into lawsuits, but I think I have an obligation to do it.

“This was so egregious. If you don’t do it, you don’t stop it from happening again with other people.”

The Daily Telegraph reported earlier this month that an internal memo raised concerns about the BBC’s editing of a speech made by Mr Trump on 6 January 2021, just before a mob rioted at the US Capitol building, on the news programme.

The concerns regard clips spliced together from sections of the president’s speech to make it appear he told supporters he was going to walk to the US Capitol with them to “fight like hell” in the documentary Trump: A Second Chance?, which was broadcast by the BBC the week before last year’s US election.

Following a backlash, both BBC director-general Tim Davie and BBC News chief executive Deborah Turness resigned from their roles.

‘No basis for defamation claim’

On Thursday, the broadcaster officially apologised to the president and added that it was an “error of judgement” and the programme will “not be broadcast again in this form on any BBC platforms”.

A spokesperson said that “the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited,” but they also added that “we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim”.

Earlier this week, Mr Trump’s lawyers threatened to sue the BBC for $1bn unless it apologised, retracted the clip, and compensated him.

Legal challenges

But legal experts have said that Mr Trump would face challenges taking the case to court in the UK or the US.

The deadline to bring the case to UK courts, where defamation damages rarely exceed £100,000 ($132,000), has already expired because the documentary aired in October 2024, which is more than one year.

Also because the documentary was not shown in the US, it would be hard to show that Americans thought less of the president because of a programme they could not watch.

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Newsnight allegations

The BBC has said it was looking into fresh allegations, published in The Telegraph, that its Newsnight show also selectively edited footage of the same speech in a report broadcast in June 2022.

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

Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has said she is ready to mend relations with Donald Trump after a high-profile row between the pair.

The former MAGA ally had said the US president was “coming after me hard” to prevent her efforts to release more files about Jeffrey Epstein.

But writing on X on Sunday, she said forgiveness was a “major part” of her Christian faith.

“I’m here to show how it’s possible to settle our differences and move forward as Americans,” she wrote. “That’s why I’m always willing to go on shows with different viewpoints.

“I truly believe in forgiveness and I am open to moving forward with the President.”

A day earlier, Ms Greene claimed she was facing threats after a barrage of personal criticism from Mr Trump.

She said she’d received warnings about her safety and that “a hotbed of threats” were “being fuelled and egged on by the most powerful man in the world”.

“As a woman, I take threats from men seriously,” Ms Greene added.

“I now have a small understanding of the fear and pressure the women, who are victims of Jeffrey Epstein and his cabal, must feel.”

The congresswoman said Mr Trump’s “aggression against me” – considering she was a staunch supporter of his policies – was “completely shocking to everyone”.

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Trump goes to war with the BBC

The fight began when a petition to vote on the full release of the Epstein files received enough signatures – including Ms Greene’s – to bring it to a vote in the House of Representatives.

Mr Trump rescinded his support for Ms Greene, dubbed her a “RINO” (Republican In Name Only), and suggested he could support a challenge against her.

Ms Greene claimed text messages she sent to the president about the Epstein files had “sent him over the edge”.

She wrote on social media: “Of course he’s coming after me hard to make an example to scare all the other Republicans before next week’s vote to release the Epstein files.”

High-profile figures, including Mr Trump, have been referenced in some of the documents.

The White House has said the “selectively leaked emails” were an attempt to “create a fake narrative to smear President Trump”, who has consistently denied any involvement or knowledge about Epstein’s sex trafficking operation.

Mr Trump has called the Epstein files a “hoax” created by the Democrats to “deflect” from the US government shutdown.

Epstein took his own life in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking charges.

Prison staff who leaked details about Ghislaine Maxwell’s favourable conditions in a minimum-security facility have been sacked, according to a lawyer for the disgraced British socialite.

Leah Saffian said employees at Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Texas were “terminated for improper, unauthorised access” to an email system which allows “inmates to communicate with the outside world”.

It comes after Maxwell‘s “privileged client-attorney email correspondence” was allegedly shared.

The co-conspirator of the late billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein was sentenced to 20 years in jail in 2022 for sex trafficking after recruiting young girls for her financier ex-boyfriend during the 1990s and early 2000s.

She was moved from a low-security facility in Tallahassee, Florida, to Federal Prison Camp Bryan in August, a week after she met deputy attorney general Todd Blanche and Maxwell’s lawyer David Oscar Markus.

Within days of arriving, Maxwell, 63, gushed in emails to her family and friends about her new surroundings.

The prison camp is an all-female institution where inmates convicted of non-violent or white-collar crimes sleep in dormitory-style quarters.

She has reportedly had perks such as meals sent to her dormitory room, late-night workouts and permission to shower when other inmates are in bed, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“The food is legions better, the place is clean, the staff responsive and polite,” she wrote in an email seen by Sky’s US partner NBC News. The messages were obtained by the House Judiciary Committee.

‘Much happier here’

“I feel like I have dropped through Alice in Wonderland’s looking glass,” Maxwell wrote to a relative, adding, “I am much, much happier here and more importantly safe.”

She also said: “The institution is run in an orderly fashion, which makes for a safer, more comfortable environment for all people concerned, inmates and guards alike.”

Maxwell is planning to appeal to US President Donald Trump to commute her 20-year prison sentence, a whistleblower told House Democrats.

But Ms Saffian claimed Maxwell “has not requested a commutation – or made a pardon – application to the second Trump administration”.

Maxwell was convicted on five sex trafficking-related counts in 2021.

She appealed the conviction, but the Supreme Court rejected her challenge in early October.

Sky News has contacted Federal Prison Camp Bryan for comment.