A radio host was forced to do damage control after a caller falsely accused President Donald Trump of being a pedophile during a live segment.
The incident occurred when a man called in to the BBC’s Radio 5 Live show to moan about U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s continued cooperation with Trump, who has rankled international allies with his insistence on taking Greenland from Denmark.
Host Nicky Campbell introduced the man, Riley, from the city of Peterborough in the east of England, and said he had “something of a different view” on the matter, which Campbell said would be “interesting to hear.”
However, Campbell did not expect Riley to accuse the president of pedophilia. “The people of Greenland have got their own sovereignty, the whole world is watching this and thinking ‘what are you doing?’” Riley began, before making the unfounded claim.
“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin is probably looking at Trump and thinking, ‘even I wouldn’t do this.’ The whole thing is just an absolute mess, and I cannot believe it.”
Riley scoffed at “Trump’s claim to Greenland,” as the host put it, then dropped the bomb. “He is, and I don’t use this word lightly, he is a pedophile, he is a narcissist...” he began, before Campbell cut in.
“Oh, no, no, no, hang on, we can’t have accusations like that,” he said, before cutting off the caller and connecting to a different one.
Trump was once a close associate of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein before ending their friendship in the mid-2000s, but the president has denied any criminal wrongdoing and has not been accused by any Epstein survivors.
However, the president’s pushback on releasing the Epstein files sparked outrage among his MAGA supporters and raised further questions about the president’s relationship with the disgraced financier, who died in jail in 2019.
The BBC gaffe comes amid Trump’s lawsuit against the broadcaster over how his Jan. 6, 2021, speech was edited in a documentary by its investigative show, Panorama.
The president filed the $5 billion suit in a Florida court last month, accusing the British broadcaster of violating a trade practices law. He is also seeking $5 billion in damages for alleged defamation.
During Trump’s speech on Jan. 6, before the riot began at the U.S. Capitol, he told a crowd: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.”
Nearly an hour later, he added, “And we fight. We fight like hell.”
In the Panorama program, he was portrayed as saying: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol... and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.”
The BBC has previously acknowledged the edit had given “the mistaken impression” the president had “made a direct call for violent action.” The network, however, disagreed that there was a basis for a defamation claim.
Last week, BBC News reported that network bosses will file a motion to dismiss Trump’s lawsuit.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the BBC for comment.
