A federal judge in Florida on Thursday ordered President Donald Trump to sit for a deposition by Dec. 11 or face case dismissal in his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC.
The current deadline for discovery is Dec. 18, and the BBC attorneys are arguing that a deposition by Trump is essential to the discovery process, NBC News reported.
The president was to sit for a deposition Oct. 16, but canceled it for a “matter of national importance.” The BBC’s lawyers alleged the matter was a political rally and a fundraiser.
Trump filed the suit last December, stating the BBC aired a “false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction” of him during its program “Panorama” one week before the 2024 presidential election.
The clip in question spliced together comments from his speech at the Ellipse at a “Stop the Steal” rally, which took place ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol incursion, according to Variety. The edit made it seem like Trump said, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol … and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.”
VIDEO: In a bombshell exposé that has ignited calls for a full investigation into the BBC’s impartiality, an internal whistleblower memo obtained by ‘The Telegraph’ accuses the broadcaster of “doctoring” footage from President Donald Trump’s January 6, 2021, speech in its ‘Panorama’ broadcast by splicing unrelated phrases to falsely portray him urging supporters to “fight like hell” as they marched on the Capitol.
— The Western Journal (@WesternJournalX) November 3, 2025
Is the deadline for Trump’s deposition fair, given the circumstances?
In actuality, the president said, “And after this…we’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women … I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol Building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
Approximately 50 minutes later, at the end of the speech, Trump said, “And we fight. We fight like hell … So we’re going to, we’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue … And we’re going to the Capitol, and we’re going to try and give… [W]e’re going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones, because the strong ones don’t need any of our help. We’re going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”
The BBC later issued an apology for the program, and the head of the network and its top news executive resigned last November. The documentary did not air in the United States.
In a Wednesday court filing, Trump’s lawyers said that he is available to be deposed between Jan. 11-22, 2027, and asserted that the BBC was “wrong to claim that President Trump is avoiding his deposition in this action,” according to Variety.
In her ruling, Lett said that Trump must sit for the deposition by Dec. 11 or face sanctions, up to dismissal of his suit, unless the federal district court judge overseeing the case extends the discovery period past Dec. 18.
Asked about the deposition date, a spokesman for Trump’s personal legal team said in a statement to NBC News that “President Trump’s powerhouse lawsuit is holding the BBC accountable for its defamation and reckless election interference just as he has held other fake news mainstream media responsible for their wrongdoing.”
Both ABC and CBS’s parent company Paramount agreed to settle lawsuits with Trump over their 2024 coverage of the presidential race.
ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos wrongly reported in March 2024 that Trump was found “liable for rape” in a civil suit brought by writer E. Jean Carroll. In actuality, the suit brought by Carroll found Trump sexually abused and defamed her, but the jury did not find him guilty of rape. ABC agreed to pay Trump $16 million in the settlement.
Further, Paramount paid him $16 million for a “60 Minutes” interview of Kamala Harris that aired just prior to the 2024 election, in which the network spliced an answer she gave to an entirely different question.
Remember Kamala’s word salad answer about Israel on 60 Minutes? It’s gone.
This is what many Americans will now see. https://t.co/H4w7btDv6x
— MAZE (@mazemoore) October 8, 2024
The settlements from both suits are going toward Trump’s presidential library fund.
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