GB News journalist Beverley Turner has been accused of ‘trying to goad’ Donald Trump into bankrupting the BBC with his legal threat.
This week, the US president threatened to sue the BBC for $1bn in damages over an edit of his January 6 speech in a Panorama programme.
The sequence appeared in the BBC documentary Trump: A Second Chance?, which aired the week before last year’s US election.
READ NEXT: ‘Putin, Trump and Netanyahu denouncing BBC shows it’s doing something right’ – Jonathan Dimbleby
A leaked 19-page memo on impartiality by a former external adviser to the BBC’s editorial standards committee ruled the broadcaster gave the impression that he told supporters he would march with them to the US Capitol to “fight like hell.”
Following this, Trump threatened to sue the BBC for $1bn in damages if the corporation doesn’t issue a full apology and retraction of the programme. In a legal letter, he gave the corporation until Friday evening to apologise and “appropriately compensate” him.
On Wednesday, GB News’ Beverley Turner asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt if the president truly was “prepared to bankrupt the BBC” after the “malicious edits.”
Leavitt responded by labelling the BBC a “leftist propaganda machine that unfortunately is subsidised by British taxpayers.”
She continued: “He thinks that’s extremely unfortunate for the great people of the UK.”
Of course, GB News being the channel of Nigel Farage has been eager to jump on the attacks on the Beeb, and on social media Turner was accused of “trying to goad” Trump with her questions.
Journalist Owen Jones said the clip was “wild,” writing: “A British journalist for GB News trying to goad a foreign leader into destroying one of her country’s main media organisations.
“Publicly agitating to get a foreign power to destroy one of your country’s main institutions. Is this… patriotism?”
Others suggested GB News was “working against the people of the United Kingdom.”