Donald Trump said on Friday that he would sue the BBC for up to five billion dollars after the British broadcaster apologized for airing a misleading edit of a speech by the US president, but rejected his defamation claims.

"We're going to sue them for (an amount between) one and five billion dollars, probably sometime next week. I think I have to do it. They've even admitted to cheating," he said aboard Air Force One.

The BBC, a true institution in the United Kingdom, has been in turmoil since last week's revelation that its flagship news magazine "Panorama" broadcast, just before the 2024 US presidential election, separate excerpts from a speech by Donald Trump on January 6, 2021, edited in such a way that he appears to explicitly call on his supporters to attack the Capitol in Washington.

"The British are very angry about what happened, as you can imagine, because it shows that the BBC is just fake news," Donald Trump said on Friday.

He also stated that he planned to raise the issue with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. He had pledged on Wednesday to "defend a strong and independent BBC".

"I'm going to call him this weekend. But he called me, he's very embarrassed," the US president added.

Donald Trump and his lawyers had given the British public broadcasting group until Friday to apologize and withdraw the documentary including the offending edit.

BBC chairman Samir Shah sent Donald Trump a "personal letter" of apology on Thursday, but also refuted any "legal basis" for a defamation lawsuit.

The affair led to the resignation on Sunday of its chief executive Tim Davie and the head of BBC News Deborah Turness.

AFP