By Rob Crilly

 

WASHINGTON, 08 Nov. - (ANA) - Donald Trump’s White House has accused the BBC of “purposeful dishonesty” amid a row over bias at the broadcaster.

 

It launched its attack over the way the corporation selectively edited a speech made by the president, dismissing it as “100 per cent fake news”.

 

British taxpayers were being “forced to foot the bill for a Leftist propaganda machine”, said Karoline Leavitt, Mr Trump’s press secretary.

 

She delivered the verdict after The Telegraph disclosed that a Panorama documentary had spliced together different parts of a speech by Mr Trump and made it seem as though he had told supporters to go to the Capitol and “fight like hell” on the day of the 2021 riot.

 

Ms Leavitt, the president’s principal spokesman, told The Telegraph: “This purposefully dishonest, selectively edited clip by the BBC is further evidence that they are total, 100 per cent fake news that should no longer be worth the time on the television screens of the great people of the United Kingdom.

 

“Every time I travel to the United Kingdom with President Trump and am forced to watch the BBC in our hotel rooms, it ruins my day listening to their blatant propaganda and lies about the president of the United States and all that he’s doing to make America better and the world a safer place.”

 

However, she stopped short of demanding an end to the BBC licence fee.

 

A whistleblower’s dossier described how the Panorama programme, broadcast just before last year’s US election, “completely misled” viewers by showing the president telling a crowd that he was going to walk with them to the Capitol to “fight like hell”.

 

His words were taken from his address on Jan 6 2021, before some of his supporters attacked the US Capitol building.

 

It omitted a section from his speech, when he urged them to make their voices heard “peacefully”.

 

 

 

 

Mr Trump and his allies have often railed at what they see as bias among major news outlets and it is not the first time the White House has criticised the BBC. In June, Ms Leavitt accused the corporation of bias in its coverage of Gaza, and of putting too much trust in the word of Hamas.

 

“Unfortunately, unlike some in the media, we don’t take the word of Hamas as total truth,” Ms Leavitt told a White House briefing. “We like to look into it when they speak … unlike the BBC.”

 

She brandished a printout of stories published on the BBC website a day earlier, and described how headlines about deaths at a food distribution site had changed from claiming an Israeli tank had killed 26 people, to 21 people, to gunfire killing 31.

 

It came as Boris Johnson said he would stop paying the BBC licence fee unless Tim Davie, the director-general, resigned or explained the bias engulfing the broadcaster.

 

The former prime minister urged others to join him and not pay the annual levy unless Mr Davie came up with a “convincing explanation” after a week of Telegraph disclosures of one-sided reporting over Gaza, censorship of the trans debate, as well as the doctoring of Mr Trump’s speech.

 

The examples were contained in a leaked 8,000-word letter sent to members of the BBC board by Michael Prescott, a former standards adviser, who wrote of his “despair at inaction by the BBC executive” over widespread evidence of bias.

 

 

 

 

Writing on Friday, Mr Johnson said: “It is time for reporters to stand outside Davie’s house, in the time-honoured way, and shout at him: What is your response to the Prescott report? When did you first know that Panorama lied? Why did you do nothing about it?

 

“A few days of that and Davie should eventually emerge from his foxhole, and when he does, he should either give a convincing explanation for the Left-wing bias at the BBC, or else resign in favour of someone who will stop the rot.

 

“Unless he does so, I am simply going to stop paying my licence fee and suggest you do the same.”

 

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, told The Telegraph he would be raising the revelations in a meeting with Mr Davie later this month.

 

“I will be meeting Tim Davie in the next few days, at which I will be expressing my grave concern over the levels of institutional bias as revealed by these reports,” he said.

 

Mr Prescott’s letter also accused the corporation of “effective censorship” of its reporting on transgender issues, and expressed concerns that BBC Arabic was downplaying the suffering of Israelis in the war with Hamas to paint their country as the aggressor.

 

He will also give evidence in Parliament about the bias he says he became aware of during three years on the BBC’s editorial guidelines and standards committee.

 

Sir John Whittingdale, the former culture secretary, said Mr Davie’s future was hanging in the balance.

 

“There needs to be an immediate inquiry and whoever is directly responsible should go. Tim Davie’s position is certainly in question,” he said.

 

“In order to restore confidence, he needs to react and be seen to be reacting and I haven’t seen that.

 

“I would imagine that questions will be asked in Parliament when we get back.”

 

Baroness Morgan, another former culture secretary, said: “Really, at what point are the BBC going to get a grip on this? People pay a lot for the licence fee and this is not what they expect.”

 

Liz Truss, the former prime minister, added: “The Telegraph’s work over recent days has exposed the damning truth about the BBC: it has been captured by the woke, globalist Left, which despises Britain and everything that made us great.”

 

“The BBC shares a large part of the blame for why this country is a mess. I have come to the conclusion that the organisation is unreformable and needs to be put out of its misery.”

 

The BBC has said it does not comment on leaks and that it considers feedback carefully.   - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/08 November 2025 - - -