White House labels BBC ‘fake news’ over program on Capitol insurrection

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt accused the BBC of being “purposefully dishonest” over the broadcaster’s depiction of the 2021 U.S. Capitol Hill insurrection in a Panorama documentary.

The British public broadcaster has been under fire in recent days over allegations that it misled viewers by splicing footage from different portions of U.S. President Donald Trump’s remarks on Jan. 6, 2021 — the day that protesters breached the U.S. Congress.

In remarks to the Telegraph published late Friday, Leavitt criticized the BBC for showing “selectively edited” footage of Trump’s speech in the Panorama program on the event, adding that the broadcaster “should no longer be worth the time” on the TVs of U.K. viewers.

“This purposefully dishonest, selectively edited clip by the BBC is further evidence that they are total, 100 percent fake news,” Leavitt told the newspaper.

U.K. taxpayers are being “forced to foot the bill for a Leftist propaganda machine,” Leavitt said.

In response, a spokesperson for the BBC told media outlets that the broadcaster’s editorial guidelines and standards committee explicitly considered differing views and opinions of its coverage. “While we don’t comment on leaked documents, when the BBC receives feedback it takes it seriously and considers it carefully,” the spokesperson said.