President Donald Trump must sit for a deposition in his defamation lawsuit filed against the BBC, the judge overseeing the case ruled.
“Engaging in discovery is burdensome, but is a burden we undertake, especially if we file a lawsuit,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Aytch Lett said at a hearing in the case Thursday, as reported by CNN. The judge also warned Trump’s lawyers that the case could be dismissed if his legal team does not fulfill their obligation to produce documentation the BBC has a right to in defending itself in the matter.
Trump filed the lawsuit in Florida in December 2025, alleging defamation and trade practices violations over an October 2024 episode of the BBC program “Panorama,” which had edited his Jan. 6, 2021, speech to make it seem like he said: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol… and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.” He is seeking $10 billion in damages.
The BBC subsequently apologized for the error, acknowledging that the broadcast gave “the mistaken impression that President Trump made a direct call for violent action.”
At the hearing Thursday, Charles Tobin, a lawyer representing the BBC, said that “we still haven’t been able to depose” Trump with two months left in the discovery period, the BBC reported.
Lett ordered Trump to sit for a deposition by Dec. 11, although she allowed that that date could be pushed back if the discovery period is extended.
Asked about the judge’s ruling, a spokesman for Trump’s legal team said in a statement: “The formerly respected and now disgraced BBC defamed President Trump by intentionally, maliciously and deceptively doctoring his speech in a brazen attempt to interfere in the 2024 Presidential Election. The BBC has a long pattern of deceiving its audience in coverage of President Trump, all in service of its own leftist political agenda. 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.”
In a filing on Wednesday, Trump’s lawyers said that the president could appear for the interview between Jan. 11-22, 2027, and asserted that the BBC was “wrong to claim that President Trump is avoiding his deposition in this action.”
The BBC has filed a motion to dismiss Trump’s lawsuit, arguing that “Panorama” broadcast does not meet the legal criteria for defamation and that it was not available in the U.S.
In July, Trump dropped his claims against BBC Studios Distribution and BBC Studios Production, the broadcaster’s commercial and production arms, after the U.K. broadcaster had argued that those entities had “no role in creating or producing the documentary” in question. But the president is still pursuing the litigation against the BBC at large.