By
/ CBS News
Washington — A federal judge said President Trump must sit for a deposition with lawyers for the BBC by Dec. 11 as part of his ongoing defamation lawsuit against the British broadcaster.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjolique Lett set the deadline during a hearing in Miami on Thursday morning, according to the Associated Press. The judge ordered Mr. Trump to answer questions by Dec. 11 or face penalties, which could include dismissal of his lawsuit against the BBC, unless the period for the president and the network to collect information in the case is extended, the AP reported.
CBS News has asked Mr. Trump's legal team in the case for comment.
Mr. Trump was supposed to sit for a deposition Friday, but his lawyers told the BBC late last month that he would no longer be available to answer questions "due to other matters of national importance." The BBC told the court that on the day of the scheduled deposition, Oct. 16, the president spoke at a rally in Georgia alongside GOP candidates for the Senate and governor. He then traveled to his South Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, where he attended an event for the Republican National Committee.
The president said he would be available for the deposition in the second or third week of January, according to the BBC.
Lawyers for the broadcaster had asked the judge to compel Mr. Trump to confirm a date for the deposition and answer their questions.
Mr. Trump filed his $10 billion lawsuit against the BBC in December over a documentary that featured spliced-together portions of a speech he gave outside the White House on Jan. 6, 2021. Mr. Trump alleged that the documentary, which aired in October 2024, just weeks before the presidential election, misled viewers and falsely depicted his remarks to supporters.
Following the president's speech, a crowd of his backers marched to the U.S. Capitol and breached the building, where lawmakers and then-Vice President Mike Pence were gathered to reaffirm the results of the 2020 election.
The BBC said in November 2025 that it "sincerely regrets" how the clip of Mr. Trump's speech was edited but disagreed that there was a basis for a defamation claim. The network apologized to the president.
At the hearing Thursday, lawyers for the BBC and the president were set to discuss the network's subpoena for deposition testimony from Jack Smith, the former special counsel who brought criminal charges against Mr. Trump in 2023. The case involved Mr. Trump's alleged efforts to subvert the transfer of presidential power after the 2020 election. The charges were dismissed after the president was elected to a second term in 2024.
In defending the subpoena for Smith's testimony, the BBC said in a court filing that the former special counsel could shed light on matters involving Mr. Trump's speech on Jan. 6, including whether the president knew his remarks could lead to violence. The network said Smith does not object to the subpoena.
But Mr. Trump's lawyers refuted the notion that Smith has personal knowledge about the president's speech or state of mind when he delivered it. They also said Smith's testimony would be "duplicative," since he authored a final report on his investigation and testified twice to Congress about his case against Mr. Trump.
The BBC is also seeking documents from Mar-a-Lago about its membership and initiation fees, which the president's lawyers argue does not serve a legitimate purpose.
The discovery process began in February and is set to end Dec. 18. BBC lawyers said in a filing that nearly eight months into discovery, they still have not spoken with Mr. Trump and do not have a schedule to question him. They called the president "the most central figure in this case."
"There is hardly a more crucial and relevant piece of discovery in a defamation lawsuit than the deposition of the Plaintiff. For that reason, a plaintiff's unwillingness to sit for a deposition can be perilous to his claim," they wrote in a motion earlier this month.