White House gloats after BBC boss quits over Trump coverage ‘mistakes’

LONDON — The head of Britain’s publicly-funded broadcaster and its top news executive resigned Sunday after days of pressure over its coverage of Donald Trump.

In a move swiftly celebrated by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, BBC Director-General Tim Davie and CEO of News Deborah Turness both announced their exits from the media institution.

The resignations — which represent a moment of crisis at the U.K.’s main public service broadcaster — come after days of torrid headlines for the BBC over an episode of its flagship Panorama documentary show.

The broadcaster had faced allegations it misled viewers by splicing footage from different portions of U.S. President Donald Trump’s remarks on Jan. 6, 2021 — the day that rioters breached the U.S. Congress.

Leavitt seized on the row in an interview with the Telegraph newspaper on Friday, directly accusing the broadcaster of being “purposefully dishonest” and peddling “total, 100 percent fake news.”

The White House press chief appeared jubilant Sunday, posting screenshotted news coverage of both her remarks and Davie’s subsequent resignation on X alongside the caption “Shot: … Chaser.”

Shot: Chaser: pic.twitter.com/n0U08PnUJb

— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) November 9, 2025

‘Fight like hell’

The BBC is bound by its governing charter to avoid “favoring one side over another,” and is no stranger to claims from all political sides in the U.K. that it sometimes fails to do so.

But the latest row marks a significant escalation in attacks on the BBC from the right.

Last week the right-leaning Telegraph newspaper published a memo written by Michael Prescott, the broadcaster’s former standards advisor, covering a range of alleged failings in its content. That included its coverage of transgender issues, the war in Gaza, and Trump’s presidency.

Perhaps the most eye-catching accusation was that footage in the Panorama show had been selectively edited to suggest the U.S. president had told supporters in January 2021: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you, and we fight. We fight like hell.”

The words were in fact spliced from sections of the speech almost an hour apart, and omitted a section in which Trump had said he wanted supporters “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

Farage: ‘BBC’s last chance’

Davie’s exit statement, issued Sunday night, acknowledged there had been “some mistakes made and as Director-General I have to take ultimate responsibility.” He added that the decision to leave the broadcaster after 20 years of service — including five in its most senior post — was “entirely my decision.”

“I am working through exact timings with the board to allow for an orderly transition to a successor over the coming months,” Davie said.

Turness, the broadcaster’s most senior news executive, directly referenced the Trump row in her own statement, saying the “ongoing controversy” around the Panorama episode had “reached a stage where it is causing damage to the BBC – an institution that I love.”

“As the CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs, the buck stops with me – and I took the decision to offer my resignation to the Director-General last night,” she added.

British political reaction to the resignations fell broadly along party lines Sunday.

Kemi Badenoch, leader of the opposition Conservatives, welcomed the exits, but lashed out at a “catalogue of serious failures that runs far deeper,” and called for further scrutiny of its coverage of the Gaza conflict.

Nigel Farage, an ally of Trump whose populist-right Reform UK is consistently leading in the U.K. polls, said: “This is the BBC’s last chance.”

The broadcaster had faced allegations it misled viewers by splicing footage from different portions of U.S. President Donald Trump’s remarks on Jan. 6, 2021. | Saul Loeb/Getty Images

“If they don’t get this right, there will be vast numbers of people refusing to pay the licence fee,” he added, referencing the levy that most Brits pay to fund the institution.

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy had stopped short of calling for Davie to resign earlier on Sunday, but had laid out a catalogue of issues she expected to be addressed. She said a “a series of very serious allegations” had been made against the broadcaster, including “systemic bias in the way that difficult issues are reported at the BBC.”

In a statement after Davie’s resignation, Nandy vowed to support the BBC’s board — its top governing body — in managing the transition to new leadership, and added: “Now more than ever, the need for trusted news and high quality programming is essential to our democratic and cultural life, and our place in the world.”

Ed Davey, leader of the centrist Liberal Democrats — who has himself taken repeated shots at the BBC and complained that it gives too much airtime to right-wing parties — called for the outfit to “turn a new leaf, rebuild trust and not give in to the likes of Nigel Farage who want to destroy it.”

Mason Boycott-Owen and Jacob Parry contributed reporting.