Judge orders Trump deposition in BBC defamation case by December

What the judge ordered

A federal magistrate judge has ordered President Trump to sit for questioning by lawyers for the BBC no later than Dec. 11, according to the Associated Press. Judge Enjolique Lett announced the deadline at a hearing in Miami on Thursday morning.

The AP reported that if Trump does not comply, he could face penalties, including dismissal of his own lawsuit. The deadline could shift if the window for exchanging evidence between the two sides is lengthened.

A spokesman for the president's legal team did not directly address the demand for testimony. He said instead that Trump's "powerhouse lawsuit is holding the BBC accountable for its defamation and reckless election interference," according to CBS News.

A canceled session and a competing schedule

The president had been due to give his deposition on Oct. 16. Late last month, his attorneys informed the BBC that he would not be available "due to other matters of national importance."

In a court filing, the BBC said that on the day of the planned session Trump addressed a rally in Georgia with Republican candidates for Senate and governor. He then went to his Mar-a-Lago resort in South Florida for a Republican National Committee event, the broadcaster told the court.

According to the BBC, the president said he could be available during the second or third week of January. That is after the Dec. 11 deadline the judge has now set. BBC lawyers had asked the court to force him to commit to a date and answer their questions.

The underlying lawsuit

Trump filed the $10 billion suit in December. It targets a BBC documentary that aired in October 2024, weeks before the presidential election. The program stitched together pieces of the speech Trump delivered near the White House on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump alleges that the edit misled viewers and falsely portrayed what he told his supporters.

After that speech, a crowd of his backers marched to the U.S. Capitol and breached it while lawmakers and then-Vice President Mike Pence were there to affirm the 2020 election results.

In November 2025, the BBC said it "sincerely regrets" how the clip was edited and apologized to the president. It maintained, however, that there was no basis for a defamation claim.

Disputes over other evidence

The hearing was also set to address a BBC subpoena seeking testimony from Jack Smith, the former special counsel who brought criminal charges against Trump in 2023 over alleged efforts to undermine the transfer of power after the 2020 election. Those charges were dropped after Trump won a second term in 2024.

The BBC argued in a filing that Smith could help clarify issues surrounding the Jan. 6 speech, including whether Trump understood his words might lead to violence. The network said Smith does not object to the subpoena.

Trump's lawyers dispute that Smith has personal knowledge of the speech or of the president's state of mind. They also called his testimony "duplicative," noting that Smith wrote a final report on his investigation and testified twice before Congress.

The BBC is also seeking Mar-a-Lago records on membership and initiation fees. The president's attorneys say that request serves no legitimate purpose.

Time running short

Discovery began in February and is scheduled to end Dec. 18. In a filing, BBC lawyers said that nearly eight months into the process they have not spoken with Trump and have no timetable for questioning him. They described him as "the most central figure in this case."

In a motion earlier this month, they wrote that "a plaintiff's unwillingness to sit for a deposition can be perilous to his claim."