The four-word message the BBC should send Trump

There's one way the BBC could retrieve some dignity from the smoking rubble of the past week.

- ALAN RUSBRIDGER

They should send Donald Trump a four-word reply to his blustering threat to sue them in Florida for $1bn in damages: “See you in court.” There's barely a notable news organisation in the US that Trump hasn't yet sued. ABC News and CBS News have demonstrated the resolve of a jellyfish in stumping up millions to settle lawsuits that were, in the view of most lawyers, perfectly defensible.

That leaves a $10bn claim against The Wall Street Journal for revealing a lewd scribble he allegedly penned to Jeffrey Epstein and a $15bn suit against The New York Times for engaging “in a decades long method of lying about your Favorite President (ME!), my family, business, the America First Movement, MAGA, and our Nation as a whole.” He's even suing the Pulitzer Prize Committee for giving the NYT a gong.

The BBC should shame the American broadcasters for their spineless capitulation by refusing to be bullied into abject apologies or donations to Trump's presidential library. They made an error. They have (belatedly) corrected it. They've expressed regret. Now move on.

If Trump had dared to sue in an English court (he can't because he's left it too late), the BBC could have replied with the coded response occasionally used by Private Eye: “We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v Pressdram.”

This refers to a 1970s libel threat from a businessman named Arkell. The magazine considered the claim so preposterous that they replied: “Dear Sir, Fuck off, Yours, Private Eye.”

But the joke is a little too esoteric for Trump and his lawyers, so “See you in court” would do just as well.