The row between the BBC and Donald Trump has escalated further after it was revealed the broadcaster commissioned a fierce critic of the US President to deliver its flagship annual lectures.
Dutch author Rutger Bregman used the high-profile events to draw parallels between Trump’s America and the rise of fascism in the 1930s. In one talk, entitled A Time Of Monsters and due to air next week, he likened Mr Trump, Nigel Farage and tech billionaires such as Elon Musk to fascists, according to one audience member. He is said to have used the term ‘a ‘bit fashy’ to describe them.
The BBC’s decision to invite Mr Bregman – who has previously described opposition to Mr Trump in the US as a fight between ‘good and evil’ – to deliver the showpiece Reith lectures will fuel ongoing accusations that the corporation has an institutional Left-wing bias.
The White House tonight branded Mr Bregman ‘a rabid anti-Trump individual’.
The news comes after the President told reporters on board Air Force One that he was intending to sue the corporation for ‘anywhere between $1 billion (£760 million) and $5billion (£3.8 billion) probably sometime next week’ over a Panorama episode that misleadingly edited one of his speeches.
By splicing together words he said as angry protesters descended on Capitol Hill, Washington, on January 6, 2021, the BBC gave the impression that he had made a direct call for violent action. It later emerged that Newsnight had made a similar edit in an episode from 2022.
The corporation has apologised to Mr Trump, but refused to pay him damages.
Tonight, after The Mail on Sunday told the White House about Mr Bregman’s lectures, communications director Steven Cheung said: ‘The BBC has been caught red-handed doctoring President Trump’s remarks on multiple occasions so it’s no surprise that they have commissioned a rabid anti-Trump individual to deliver a lecture.’
Dutch author Rutger Bregman used the high-profile events to draw parallels between Trump’s America and the rise of fascism in the 1930s
And Mr Farage said: ‘The BBC is diseased and needs radical surgery at every level, including the removal of the licence fee.’
Tory culture spokesman Nigel Huddleston added: ‘This is yet more evidence of the Left-wing bias of the BBC. They just can’t help themselves’.
The crisis has already led to the resignation of BBC director-general Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Furness. Sir Keir Starmer is due to discuss the issue with the President in a call this weekend.
Mr Bregman’s series of talks, collectively titled Moral Revolution, were recorded in London, Liverpool, Edinburgh and the US last month and are due to air on Radio 4 from November 25. The tone of his anti-populist diatribe has led some senior BBC figures to discuss whether the Trump references should be edited out before it is broadcast to avoid renewed fury from the White House. A member of the 500-strong audience at the Time Of Monsters lecture in London told The Mail on Sunday that ‘it was made very clear that Trump was one of the monsters of the title’.
In that first lecture, Mr Bregman was cheered when he said that the world was on the cusp of neo-fascism and likened Trumpian politics to the anti-democratic forces at play in the 1930s. The audience member said: ‘He basically lumped together Trump with Farage and the tech billionaires as a bit ‘fashy’. He said that to combat this we needed a moral campaign on a par with that which abolished slavery.’
During the lectures, Mr Bregman thanked the team behind the event for helping him with the text. Radio 4 controller Mohit Bakaya has called the talks ‘a provocation’, saying Mr Bregman tells how ‘we are in an age of crisis, but offering hope about where we could go’.
Mr Bregman follows in the footsteps of philosopher Bertrand Russell, physicist Stephen Hawking and Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the nuclear bomb, in delivering the lectures, which began in 1948 in honour of Lord Reith, the BBC’s first director-general.
Mr Bregman expanded on his themes over a post-lecture dinner for guests personally invited by Mr Davie in the council chamber in Broadcasting House.
The BBC’s decision to invite Mr Bregman (pictured) – who has previously described opposition to Mr Trump in the US as a fight between ‘good and evil’ – to deliver the showpiece Reith lectures will fuel ongoing accusations that the corporation has an institutional Left-wing bias
Under the gaze of a portrait of Lord Reith, the guests, including Radio 4 executive Eleanor Garland and David Olusoga, the BBC historian and Celebrity Traitor, dined on venison carpaccio and herb-crusted lamb rump as Mr Bregman talked about the need to organise a ‘resistance movement against populism’.
In a Channel 4 interview earlier this year, Mr Bregman said: ‘We have seen democracies break down before and we need people to take a stand against that…
‘Europeans don’t realise how bad the situation is [in the US]. We are talking about the real chance of an authoritarian breakthrough in the next couple of years.
‘This is not normal politics any more. This is not Left versus Right, this is good versus evil.’ Mr Bregman did not respond to a request for comment tonight, while the BBC would not comment beyond confirming the Radio 4 broadcast date.
However a BBC source said: ‘The Reith Lectures have a long tradition of showcasing leading thinkers from across the political spectrum. The views expressed are always those of the speaker, not the BBC, and they are discussed and challenged after the lecture.’
