British state broadcaster, the BBC, which justifies its existence on the grounds of quality and impartiality, is dishonest and anti-democratic, U.S. President Donald Trump says, as the corporation’s most senior executives have resigned.
The Director General and CEO of News announced they would stand down on Sunday night, following days of damaging revelations over inaction and dismissal within the corporation, after an internal report alerted top executives to dishonest editing and bias in its output became public knowledge. U.S. President Donald Trump greeted the news of their resignations by hailing the reporting on the BBC’s internal failures to challenge bias for bringing the executives down, noting “corrupt journalists” at the UK state broadcaster had doctored his January 6th speech to broadcast a dishonest account of events.
The President wrote: “These are very dishonest people who tried to step on the scales of a Presidential Election. On top of everything else, they are from a Foreign Country, one that many consider our Number One Ally. What a terrible thing for Democracy!”
LONDON, ENGLAND – NOVEMBER 10: Deborah Turness, former head of BBC News, speaks to media outside Broadcasting House on November 10, 2025 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)
Speaking to London local broadcaster LBC, Brexit leader Nigel Farage stated that he had spoken personally to President Trump on Friday and that he’d felt deeply betrayed, given that the state broadcaster of a close U.S. ally would be so engaged in spreading fake news against him.
Mr Farage said: “To say that he was angry would be an understatement. As he said, ‘I thought you guys were allies and this was a state broadcaster’. Absolutely appalling… He was absolutely enraged, enraged that the BBC had done this to him. He could scarcely believe it.”
The BBC, the state broadcaster of the United Kingdom, justifies its existence and exceptionalism on the grounds that its output is of extremely high quality and totally impartial, notions that already stood on shaky foundations before the revelations of the past week. Funded by a mandatory ‘licence fee’, this television tax is levied on anyone in the UK receiving live television programmes, whether they actually consume BBC content or not.
Those who refuse to pay up face hefty fines and even, incredibly, prison time. Prosecutions for non-payment are one of the single largest causes of court cases in the United Kingdom.
The resignation of Director General Tim Davie and CEO of News Deborah Turness on Sunday night left the question over how many others would have to follow, and what else the broadcaster would do to try and claw back its credibility.
As noted by The Daily Telegraph, the British broadsheet that first revealed the leaked internal BBC documents, which showed that senior leadership had been aware of its shortcomings and had either ignored them or explained them away, the broadcaster may be forced into making a public admission that it is institutionally biased.
That contrasts with the parting comments of Deborah Turness, who said outside BBC HQ this morning that, despite being forced to resign, everything was good at the BBC. She said: “I want to make one thing very clear. BBC News is not institutionally biased. That’s why it’s the world’s most trusted news provider”.
The paper also named Jonathan Munro, the global head of news content, who had replied to the dossier by telling the standards committee that it was “normal practice to edit speeches” as another top executive who may have to go.
Beyond the stories uncovered by the leaked dossier, including the aggressive editing of a Trump speech to change its contents, alleged bias over Israel, and editorial bias in which stories were promoted and which were not, the resignation of Davie follows several other allegations about the choices made at the top of the institution.
Gaining particular attention of late was the decision to broadcast anti-Israeli “death” chants by a music act at Glastonbury, which, in addition to the allegedly antisemitic content, also made a bid to humiliate native Britons concerned about losing their own country to mass migration, stating “I heard you want your country back, Huh, shut the fuck up”.
Last month, the BBC was officially sanctioned by the Ofcom regulator for “materially misleading” the public and committing a “serious breach” of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that it had employed the son of a Hamas leader to narrate a documentary about Gaza.
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