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LAST UPDATE | 11 Nov
OUTGOING BBC DIRECTOR-GENERAL Tim Davie has said he is “very, very proud” of BBC journalists ahead of an address to staff.
It comes a day after US President Donald Trump threatened legal action if the corporation does not retract “false” and “defamatory” statements made about him in a documentary.
Arriving at Broadcasting House, Davie told waiting reporters that he was there to “lead and support” the BBC.
“I’m very, very proud of our journalists in this building, they’re doing work I think is incredibly important,” Davie said.
“I want to thank every one of them. They’re doing a wonderful job.”
Davie added: “The BBC is going to be thriving, and I support every one of the team. I’m very proud of them.”
Davie, who announced his resignation on Sunday after five years in the post, will today do a video call where staff will also be able to ask him questions.
Later in the day, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy is expected to make a statement in the Commons on the issues facing the BBC.
Nandy is expected to speak about the corporation’s leadership and Trump’s legal threat, which he plans to issue under Florida law.
The controversy comes as the UK government is set to begin a review of the BBC’s Royal Charter, which sets out the corporation’s governance and public mission.
Trump has given the BBC a deadline of Friday to retract statements made about him in a Panorama documentary, despite the BBC having already apologised and admitting the error.
The US president threatened legal action after a report from Michael Prescott, a former external adviser to the BBC’s editorial standards committee, raised concerns that a speech Trump had made before the attack on the US Capitol on January 6 2021 had been selectively edited by the BBC.
BBC chairman Samir Shah has apologised for an “error of judgment”. As well as Davie, another of the corporation’s most senior figures – chief executive of BBC News Deborah Turness – resigned from her position over the weekend.
The Prescott memo raised concerns about the way clips of Trump’s speech were spliced together to make it appear he had told supporters he was going to walk to the US Capitol with them to “fight like hell”.
The letter, from Trump counsel Alejandro Brito, demands that “false, defamatory, disparaging, and inflammatory statements” made about Trump must be retracted immediately.
A BBC spokesperson said: “We will review the letter and respond directly in due course.”
Trump’s legal counsel’s letter says if the BBC “does not comply” Trump will be “left with no alternative but to enforce his legal and equitable rights, all of which are expressly reserved and are not waived, including by filing legal action for no less than 1,000,000,000 dollars in damages.”
The White House may also consider restricting the corporation’s access to “open press events” as a result of the edit, according to a senior official quoted in the Telegraph.
The controversy has seen questions raised over the independence of the BBC and whether the Trump row is part of a longer-running politically motivated dispute in the UK.
Former Question Time host David Dimbleby described the controversy as “one of the most violent assaults on the BBC’s independence” in an interview with Channel 4 News.
Elsewhere, in an article for the Guardian, leader of the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey called for the removal of former Tory political adviser Robbie Gibb from the board to ensure “independence, impartiality and trust”.
The broadcaster has been rocked by numerous controversies this year. Among them are the broadcasting of Bob Vylan’s controversial Glastonbury set, misconduct allegations against MasterChef presenter Gregg Wallace, and its airing of a documentary on Israel’s onslaught in Gaza that was narrated by the son of a Hamas official without disclosing the information.
Trump has a history of suing news organisations in the US. He previously settled a defamation case against ABC News after star anchor George Stephanopoulos falsely said he had been found “liable for rape”, and more recently against CBS.
He is currently engaged in legal action with the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and took action against the Associated Press after the wire service refused to call the Gulf of Mexico the ‘Gulf of America’.
The White House press secretary Karoline Levvitt has used the controversy to blast the BBC as “fake news” and promote the station’s rival GB News.
.@BBCNews is dying because they are anti-Trump Fake News.
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) November 9, 2025
Everyone should watch @GBNEWS! pic.twitter.com/bZFFkSATud
Responding to a letter from the Culture, Media and Sport Committee (CMS), Shah said there have been more than 500 complaints since the publication of Prescott’s memo raising concerns about the editing of Panorama.
He said: “We accept that the way the speech was edited did give the impression of a direct call for violent action.”
However, he said it is “simply not true” that Prescott “uncovered” issues that the BBC has sought to “bury”.
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