Britain’s broadcasting watchdog is being pressed to decide whether a GB News Trump interview crossed a line that UK television has long drawn around accuracy and impartiality. The programme, recorded in November and billed as a rare sit-down with the former US president, has triggered a wave of formal complaints questioning whether misleading assertions were allowed to pass without scrutiny.
During the interview, Donald Trump repeated claims that climate change is a fabrication and suggested that parts of London are effectively outside police control, governed instead by Islamic law. The remarks were aired without substantive challenge, a decision that critics say runs directly against the expectations placed on British broadcasters.
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A question of standards, not politics
The complaints have landed with Ofcom, which is currently assessing whether the broadcast warrants a formal investigation. The regulator has confirmed it is reviewing submissions but has yet to say if enforcement action will follow.
What has unsettled observers is not simply the content of Trump’s remarks, but the way they were handled. Unlike partisan US networks, UK channels operate under strict rules requiring due impartiality and accuracy, particularly when dealing with contested factual claims.
Chris Banatvala, who helped shape those rules as Ofcom’s founding director of standards, said the interview marked unfamiliar territory for a domestic UK channel.
“I have never seen anything comparable on a British broadcaster,” he said. “This may resemble American political television, but it places real strain on the UK’s impartiality framework.”
He added that the regulator’s response would be closely watched. “If there is no investigation, it risks signalling that long-standing standards are becoming optional.”
Climate science and unchecked assertions
One of the most detailed complaints focuses on Trump’s comments on climate change. He dismissed human-driven warming as a hoax and claimed wind power was prohibitively expensive, assertions that contradict decades of scientific and economic analysis.
Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said the absence of challenge was deeply troubling. He described the broadcast as “a clear example of misinformation being aired to a British audience without context or correction”.
Claims about London crime
Other complainants have raised concerns about Trump’s characterisation of London policing. The former president claimed that officers avoid entire neighbourhoods, an assertion that went unchallenged during the interview. At one point, the presenter remarked that the United States “feels much safer”, a comment critics say compounded the issue rather than interrogating it.
Campaign group 38 Degrees has also submitted a complaint alleging a lack of due impartiality, citing repeated praise of Trump during the exchange, including comments lauding one of his speeches at the United Nations.
GB News and the wider context
The controversy comes as GB News continues to build an audience by giving airtime to figures associated with the Trump movement. The channel has been praised publicly by Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, and has increasingly featured US conservative voices alongside its UK output.
Critics argue that this makes adherence to UK broadcasting rules all the more important, particularly where factual claims are concerned. Under the regulator’s own framework, broadcasters must not materially mislead audiences, a principle set out in the UK Broadcasting Code.
GB News declined to comment on the complaints. An Ofcom spokesperson said the regulator was assessing the submissions against its rules and had not yet decided whether to open a formal investigation.
For many observers, the outcome will be seen as a measure of whether Britain’s broadcast standards still hold firm in a media environment increasingly shaped by imported political styles.
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