Trump ordered to sit for deposition by Dec. 11 in BBC suit

Erik Larson, Bloomberg News on Oct 22, 2026

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A judge ordered President Donald Trump to sit for a deposition by Dec. 11 in his $10 billion lawsuit against the British Broadcasting Corp. after he missed an earlier date he’d agreed to.

The date was set Thursday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett in Miami, who last week threatened to sanction Trump if he didn’t follow through on the mandatory deposition, the BBC said.

Trump sued the BBC in December over the broadcaster’s misleading edit of a speech he gave to his supporters shortly before the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. The edit, which spliced together different parts of the speech, made it appear Trump made a direct call for violence. The BBC apologized before Trump sued, but denies defaming the president.

Trump had previously argued that he was not able to sit for a deposition — a typical part of the evidence gathering process in most lawsuits — until mid-to-late January and suggested the judge could not order a sitting president to attend on a specific date without making significantly more effort to accommodate his unique schedule. He missed his earlier Oct. 16 deposition citing “other matters of national importance.”

In a Wednesday filing, Trump’s lawyer said some of those include the conflict in Iran and war between Russia and Ukraine. The BBC said that Trump missed the date because he was campaigning in Georgia and attending a fundraising event at Mar-a-Lago.

“President Trump is a sitting president whose constitutional responsibilities warrant special scheduling accommodations,” his lawyer Alejandro Brito said in Wednesday’s filing. After Thursday’s ruling, Trump’s legal team issued a statement that focused on the underlying lawsuit rather than the deposition.

“The BBC has a long pattern of deceiving its audience in coverage of President Trump, all in service of its own leftist political agenda,” a spokesman for Trump’s legal team said. “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.”

The deposition will likely focus on the events of Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol in a failed attempt to block Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

Lawyers for the BBC couldn’t be reached to comment.

The BBC has said that its defense will focus on Trump’s intent and state of mind before and during the speech. The news outlet has previously argued that for Trump to win the case, he “must prove that he did not foment or incite the January 6 Capitol riot,” the BBC said.

The clash over Trump’s deposition is only the latest hiccup in his lawsuit against the British media outlet. The BBC is also seeking to question members of Trump’s inner circle and former cabinet members to gather information about the president’s intent and state of mind when he delivered the speech. The BBC is also seeking to question Jack Smith, the former special prosecutor who investigated Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election as well as his role in the Jan. 6 attack.

The criminal case Smith brought against Trump was ultimately dropped by the Justice Department after he won the 2024 election, citing a longstanding policy barring the criminal prosecution of a sitting president.

The case is Trump v. British Broadcasting Corporation, 25-cv-25894, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida.