BBC asks judge to compel Trump's deposition as clock runs out in $10 billion suit

Lawyers for the BBC asked a federal magistrate judge in Florida on October 15 to order President Trump to sit for a deposition in the $10 billion defamation lawsuit he filed against the broadcaster, arguing that his side has slow-walked a basic step of the case he chose to bring. The filing, made in Trump v. British Broadcasting Corporation in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, says Trump canceled an agreed-upon October 16 deposition date, citing "matters of national importance," and that his lawyers have since offered no sooner than the second or third week of January 2027 — weeks after discovery is due to close.

The motion to compel came days after Magistrate Judge Enjolique Lett, who oversees discovery in the case, warned Trump that further noncompliance could draw sanctions, citing his "disregard" of the court's procedures for resolving discovery disputes, which had already forced the BBC to bring five separate requests to the court on its own.

A lawsuit with a shrinking runway

Trump sued the BBC in December 2025, seeking $5 billion for defamation per se and another $5 billion under Florida's deceptive-trade-practices law, over the Panorama documentary "Trump: A Second Chance?", which aired days before the 2024 election. The program spliced together two separate portions of Trump's January 6, 2021 speech so that it appeared he told supporters to "fight like hell," while cutting a later passage in which he called for peaceful protest. The BBC has acknowledged the edit was misleading, apologized and said the program will not air again, but it disputes that the edit meets the legal bar for defamation and has refused to pay damages.

U.S. District Judge Roy Altman, who presides over the underlying case, set a provisional two-week trial date of February 15, 2027, and in February rejected the BBC's request to pause discovery while its motion to dismiss — which argues the court lacks personal jurisdiction because the documentary never aired in Florida or the United States — remains pending. That motion, filed in a filing with the federal court, has not been decided. Discovery is scheduled to close December 18, mediation before a separate judge is set for the week of October 26, and a hearing on the BBC's motion to compel Trump's deposition is expected this week.

Subpoenas reaching into Trump's inner circle

The fight over Trump's own deposition is only one front in a discovery process that has already widened considerably. In July, Judge Lett ruled that the BBC could seek testimony and documents from several of Trump's adult children and from longtime advisers, including Jared Kushner, Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller and Michael Flynn, along with government officials and agencies connected to efforts to challenge the 2020 election results. She also ordered Trump's business entities to produce financial records the BBC had sought by subpoena, while narrowing some of the broadcaster's broader requests and rejecting Trump's bid to block discovery outright. The scale of that ruling underscores what the BBC's attorney, Charles D. Tobin, has argued in the latest filing: that without a date to question Trump himself, the broadcaster cannot adequately build its defense against "the most central figure in this case."

"Going forward, the Court expects strict compliance with its Order, the failure of which will lead to sanctions."

That line, from Judge Lett's order last week, signals a magistrate judge running out of patience with the pace of a case now ten months old. The BBC says it first requested deposition dates from Trump's team in July and was eventually told he had "no availability whatsoever" before the discovery deadline. Trump's lawyers have not publicly explained the scheduling conflict beyond the "national importance" language cited in the BBC's filing, and in a statement they reiterated the underlying allegations, saying the president is holding the broadcaster accountable for defamation and election interference. The BBC, for its part, has limited its public comments, saying only that it will defend the case and will not discuss ongoing litigation further.

What the case has already cost the BBC

The documentary's fallout has already reshaped BBC leadership once. Director-General Tim Davie and BBC News CEO Deborah Turness both resigned in November 2025 after an internal memo detailing the edit became public, and BBC chair Samir Shah told staff at the time that there was "no basis for a defamation case" and that the corporation was "determined to fight." Ten months later, that fight is consuming significant legal resources on both sides: the original complaint runs to dozens of pages, the BBC's jurisdictional challenge remains unresolved, and discovery has expanded to touch Trump's family, his political allies and his business holdings.

The case is also drawing comparisons to Trump's past approach to depositions. The Associated Press has noted that Trump voluntarily dropped a $500 million lawsuit against his former lawyer Michael Cohen in 2023, days before he was scheduled to be deposed in that case — a history the BBC's lawyers appear to be citing implicitly in pressing the court to set a firm date now rather than let one slip again.

What happens next

A hearing on the BBC's motion to compel is expected this week before Judge Lett, who will decide whether to set a binding deposition date inside the current discovery window or allow Trump's proposed January timeline, which would run past the December 18 cutoff. Separately, mediation before U.S. District Judge John W. Thornton is scheduled for the week of October 26, ahead of a November 3 mediation deadline — a step that could resolve the case before it reaches Altman's provisional February 2027 trial date, though neither side has signaled willingness to settle. The BBC's motion to dismiss on jurisdictional grounds also remains outstanding, meaning the broadcaster is simultaneously fighting to narrow the case and to force the deposition that would be central to defending it if it proceeds.