President Trump has accused the BBC of broadcasting “corrupt and fraudulent” coverage of the Iran War in his latest public spat with the corporation.
Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump described the BBC as “fake news,” adding: “If you watch the BBC, it’s almost like they’re fighting us to a draw.
"It’s corrupt, fraudulent. It really is. It’s fraudulent. It’s not just fake. It’s beyond fake. It’s really criminal what they do.”
He also took the opportunity to lash out at British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, accusing him of damaging the so-called special relationship.
Starmer initially declined to allow Washington to use joint US-UK military bases as a platform for strikes on Iran, and subsequently only gave permission to use them for defensive operations targeting Iranian missile infrastructure.
He has also refused to deploy British warships to assist Trump’s initiative to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the vital shipping lane in the Persian Gulf which has been effectively closed by Iran’s attacks on commercial shipping, sending only mine-sweeping drones instead.
The latest polling in the UK suggests the majority of the British public oppose the prospect of the country getting directly involved in the war and believe that Trump was wrong to take military action against Iran.
"We have a tremendous relationship with the UK. People would say it’s the best, I don’t want to get into that. It was the longest and oldest, it always was the best before Keir came along,” Trump continued.
The president’s comments regarding the coverage of the war came after the BBC’s world affairs editor, John Simpson, was criticised for describing the Iranian regime’s security chief, Ali Larijani, as “clever and reasonable” after Larijani was killed in an Israeli strike on Monday.
Simpson posted a tweet saying: “I’ve met Ali Larijani several times over the years. Yes, he was a top figure in a nasty regime.
“But he always seemed clever and reasonable – the kind of person you might want to negotiate a peace deal with.
“Is it a good idea for Israel to take out people like him?”
Simpson subsequently deleted the tweet, saying it had been “interpreted wrong”.
Trump is also in the midst of a lawsuit in Florida against the corporation over its coverage of the unrest at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, over the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
The president claims that the BBC defamed him by selectively editing one of his speeches in a Panorama documentary about the incident to suggest that he encouraged his supporters to storm the legislature.
Lawyers for the BBC have accepted that the edit was misleading, but argue that this was unintentional and that, as BBC iPlayer is not available in Florida and Trump subsequently won the next election, there was no substantial damage to the president’s reputation.
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