A US judge has ordered Donald Trump to give sworn testimony in his $10 billion defamation action against the BBC, after the broadcaster accused the US president of trying to avoid sitting for a deposition under oath.
Trump has sued the BBC in a Florida court, claiming a 2024 Panorama documentary gave a “false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory and malicious” depiction of him by splicing together two separate parts of his infamous speech on January 6 2021 before the Capitol Hill riot.
The BBC has apologised to Trump for the edit, admitting it “unintentionally” gave “the impression of a direct call for violent action” and blaming an “error of judgement” by the program makers.
The president’s lawyers launched legal action in a Florida court in late 2025, accusing the BBC of “a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence” the 2024 presidential election, and claiming it had damaged “President Trump’s personal brand [which] is reasonably estimated to be worth tens of billions of dollars”. They demanded compensation of $5bn for defamation, plus $5bn for deceptive trade practices, plus costs and punitive damages.
But the BBC has asked the judge to throw out the case, saying Trump is dragging his feet in prosecuting it, and doesn’t have a legal leg to stand on.
Why did Trump sue?
A week before the 2024 presidential election, Panorama’s documentary “Trump: A Second Chance” included an excerpt from the speech Trump delivered to a crowd in DC in 2021, shortly before a mob stormed the Capitol.
The edit showed Trump saying: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
However this combined parts of the speech that were 55 minutes apart, Trump’s lawyers argued, and Panorama should have mentioned the part where he said “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard”.
“The BBC intentionally used the Panorama Documentary to maliciously, falsely, and defamatorily make it appear that President Trump explicitly called for violent action and rioting,” Trump’s lawyers said, demanding “compensatory and punitive damages for the extensive reputational harm inflicted upon him”.
What did the BBC say?
A month before the legal action was launched, in late 2025, BBC Chair Samir Shah sent a personal letter to Trump saying he and the BBC were “sorry” about the edit. Shah told a parliamentary committee “we accept that the way the speech was edited did give the impression of a direct call for violent action. The BBC would like to apologise for that error of judgement.”
However the corporation said “we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim”.
In March, BBC lawyers asked the judge in Florida to dismiss the action before it even went to trial.
They said the documentary had never aired or been viewable on any BBC platform in Florida (Trump’s lawyers did not directly dispute the point, but claimed many Floridans would have watched it via VPN). A shorter version that was licensed to a North American distributor did not include the edit of the January 6 speech.
They said Trump had “failed to plead, and will not be able to prove, that the documentary caused him any cognizable injury”. They noted that Trump had won the election, carrying Florida with a 13-point margin, an improvement on his 2020 and 2016 results.
While not denying Panorama’s mistake, they said “actual malice requires more than a departure from reasonable journalistic standards”, and even if it carried the implication that Trump had encouraged violence on January 6, this was Constitutionally protected free speech.
Trump under oath?
Since July the BBC has been trying to get Trump to give evidence under oath, as part of the preparatory pre-trial process known as discovery.
In a formal deposition Trump would be sworn in and questioned by the BBC’s lawyers. Trump would be compelled to answer under oath or fact court sanctions.
Evidence from a deposition can then be used in the trial. Experienced lawyers can often tell from the depositions alone whether a case is likely to succeed, informing decisions on whether to settle.
But the BBC said it has been repeatedly stonewalled by Trump and his lawyers. In September they finally pinned the president to an October 16 deposition, only to be told “the President is no longer available… due to other matters of national importance”.
Trump’s lawyers claimed on October 16 Trump had been busy with “the conflict in Iran, unrest in other parts of the Middle East, the war between Russia and Ukraine, the White House Accord on Super Intelligence, and other matters that have significantly impacted the United States’ national security and economy”.
BBC attorney Charles Tobin told the Florida court on Thursday that was “fake news”.
Trump, on the day of his cancelled deposition, spent the morning on official business including receiving an intelligence briefing, but left the White House at 1pm to fly to a 4pm political rally in Georgia, then flew to Mar-a-Lago for what he described as “a party for the RNC”.
“He was participating in party politics and supported his candidates in the election, and he prioritised that over his obligations in this proceeding,” Tobin said.
Last week the judge overseeing the case, Enjoliqué Lett, said she “admonished [Trump] for his lack of participation to no avail. Going forward, the court expects strict compliance”.
On Thursday she ordered that Trump must sit for the deposition by 11 December, unless the discovery period is extended – rejecting an offer from Trump’s lawyers to make him available in mid-January.
What other tactics is the BBC trying?
In order to counter the claim that Trump has suffered financially from the Panorama documentary, the BBC has subpoenaed his Mar-a-Lago resort for its records of membership applications, and fees, dating back a decade. Trump’s lawyers have tried to oppose this, arguing it was irrelevant, but Lett approved the subpoena on Thursday.
The BBC’ has also asked to subpoena former special counsel Jack Smith, who charged Trump with conspiracy to defraud the United States related to the January 6 attack and his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Though the charge was dismissed after Trump’s re-election, Smith wrote in his report on the investigation that Trump had “inspired his supporters to commit acts of physical violence” on January 6.
Trump’s lawyers argued that Smith’s information was all secondhand, but the BBC said it was “difficult to imagine a more authoritative source on these issues than Mr Smith.”
Lett will rule on that issue later.
What did Trump say?
On social media on Thursday, the president put out a flood of messages encouraging people to vote in the midterms, and also expressed his sadness over the banning of horse-drawn carriages from New York’s Central Park.
In a Q&A with White House press on his way to an Iowa campaign rally he was not asked about the action against the BBC, and he didn’t mention it at the rally, though he did make a general complaint about the “fake news” and “some of the fake things I’ve had to endure over the years”.