Which parts of Trump's speech were changed between the original and BBC transcripts?
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Executive summary
The BBC’s Panorama episode stitched at least two separate moments from Donald Trump’s 6 January 2021 Ellipse speech — notably the line directing supporters to “walk down to the Capitol” and, from a section more than 50 minutes later, the line “And we fight. We fight like hell.” — creating the appearance of a single, continuous exhortation that the broadcaster later acknowledged was misleading [1] [2] [3]. The BBC has apologised, senior leaders resigned, and Trump has sued, arguing the edit omitted nearby material urging peaceful protest and therefore materially changed the meaning [4] [1] [5].
1. What was actually spliced together
Panorama presented a clip that reads as: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol… and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.” In the original full speech those phrases did not occur back-to-back; the “walk down to the Capitol” passage and the “fight like hell” line were uttered more than 50 minutes apart, and the BBC’s edit combined them into a single 12-second sequence in the 57-minute documentary [1] [3] [6].
2. What the BBC later acknowledged and apologised for
Following criticism, the BBC admitted the edit “unintentionally created the impression that we were showing a single continuous section of the speech, rather than excerpts from different points in the speech,” and accepted that this “gave the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action,” issuing an apology but declining to pay compensation [4] [7].
3. What was omitted or context lost by the edit
Trump’s legal team and several reports point out that the Panorama clip omitted nearby material in which he told supporters to march “peacefully” to the Capitol — an omission the president’s lawyers say materially changed viewers’ understanding of the sequence and intent [5] [8]. Independent coverage notes the “fight like hell” line originally appeared in a section where Trump discussed alleged election corruption, not immediately after the call to head to the Capitol [3].
4. How critics and regulators have framed the change
Critics argued the splice made it appear Trump was exhorting violence contemporaneously with a march to the Capitol; the US broadcast regulator even wrote to the BBC to investigate whether the spliced audio or video had been distributed to regulated US broadcasters, asserting the programme “depicts President Trump voicing a sentence that, in fact, he never uttered” in that form [9] [2]. The episode’s fallout included the resignations of the BBC director-general and head of news amid internal criticism and leaked memos [1] [7].
5. BBC’s stated editorial rationale and alternative reading
The BBC and Panorama’s producers say the edit was intended to condense a long speech so audiences could “better understand how it had been received” by supporters and what was happening on the ground; they characterised the splice as an error of judgement rather than malice [1] [4]. Defenders note Trump repeatedly used “fight” language through the speech (reporting counted about 20 uses in 70 minutes), an editorial rationale PBS and others cited to explain why producers juxtaposed the moments — though that does not change the factual point that the two lines were far apart [3] [10].
6. Legal and political consequences tied to the change
Trump has filed a multibillion‑dollar defamation suit alleging the BBC “intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively” spliced together comments nearly 55 minutes apart and omitted conciliatory language, arguing the edit caused reputational and electoral harm; the BBC says it regrets the edit but disputes a legal basis for defamation claims [8] [11]. The dispute has become part of broader battles between the president and major news organisations over reporting about him [6].
7. Limits of available reporting and remaining questions
Public reporting clearly documents the two lines were taken from distinct points about 50–55 minutes apart and that Panorama’s short clip combined them; beyond the BBC’s apology and the lawsuit’s claims, available sources do not provide internal production logs or an authoritative minute‑by‑minute justification that would conclusively establish intent, so assessments of motive remain contested between the BBC’s explanation and Trump’s allegation of deliberate malice [4] [8] [6].