Americanswers on 5 Live! Why is Donald Trump threatening to sue the BBC for $1 billion?

Americast

BBC

Politics, Government, News

4.2 • 2.8K Ratings

🗓️ 10 November 2025

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

President Donald Trump has threatened to sue the BBC for $1 billion over how the editing of his speech in a Panorama documentary, calling it "false and defamatory". The BBC chair Samir Shah has apologised for an "error of judgement" over the edit, and said the BBC was considering how to respond to Trump.

Matt Chorley, Justin, Anthony and Marianna discuss what Trump actually said in his January 6th speech, Trump’s long battle with the mainstream media, and what this could mean for the BBC.

We also look at the US government shutdown, Elon Musk launching a rival to Wikipedia, and whether a return of Barack Obama to politics could be possible.

HOSTS: * Justin Webb, Radio 4 presenter * Anthony Zurcher, North America correspondent * Marianna Spring, Social Media Investigations correspondent

GET IN TOUCH: * Join our online community: https://discord.gg/qSrxqNcmRB * Send us a message or voice note via WhatsApp to +44 330 123 9480 * Email [email protected] * Or use #Americast

This episode was made by Rufus Gray with Alix Pickles and Grace Reeve. The technical producer was Ben Andrews. The series producer is Purvee Pattni. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:07.0	On Newscast, we are not in the business of telling you how to think.
0:11.5	We get the brightest minds from across the BBC to chat through the biggest stories.
0:16.1	You should leave feeling smarter about all the bonkers things in the news.
0:19.7	Listen to Newscast every day on BBC Sounds.
0:22.9	Welcome back to another Monday Q&A session.
0:25.9	The big stories today, well, the coming end of the US government shutdown is huge in America.
0:31.4	But of course, Donald Trump and the BBC, that's pretty huge too.
0:35.5	Just after we recorded with Matt Chorley, we had breaking news,
0:38.7	the US media reporting that Donald Trump is threatening to sue the BBC for a billion dollars.
0:44.0	And we also talk about Elon Musk, which we do often, but it's worth doing this time round in
0:48.1	particular because he's launching a rival to Wikipedia. We also discuss whether Barack Obama
0:53.4	might return to politics. When we got going,
0:56.0	though, Matt wasn't even in the studio. He was on his way back from interviewing the Chancellor
1:00.0	down the road at number 11 Downing Street. The Chancellor, by the way, if you're not living in Britain,
1:05.0	is the Treasury Minister in Britain. So we start this edition with me filling in live on the radio until he got into the
1:14.2	studio. Here's our episode with me, Marianna and Anthony as well. Welcome to American answers.
1:33.0	This is the most exciting moment in my broadcasting licence.
1:38.1	Justin Webb here from AmeriCast. Matt, as you know, has just been interviewing the Chancellor.
1:46.1	There was a very dramatic exit from Number 11. He is somewhere currently between Number 11 Downing Street and the BBC's offices in Westminster. There's a video feed of the interview that he was conducting here in the
1:52.0	studio. I'm just looking up on it now and it says rather worrying me, no active connection.
1:57.1	Oh, Matt, there is an active connection.
	...

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