BBC asks judge to order Donald Trump to sit for deposition after last-minute cancellation as part of defamation lawsuit

However, despite months of efforts to arrange a suitable location, the President’s legal team said he could no longer attend in a last-minute cancellation.

According to the filing, Mr Trump’s lawyers informed the BBC’s counsel on September 28 that the President “is no longer available for his deposition on October 16 due to other matters of national importance”.

The legal team had indicated it would quickly propose an alternative date, but failed to do so.

Instead, it eventually suggested that Mr Trump could be available in the second or third week of January – a timetable that would fall well beyond the deadline for completing the discovery phase of the litigation.

The BBC’s lawyers had agreed to keep the location of the deposition confidential, citing the need to protect the President’s safety.

The broadcaster is now asking the court to intervene and require Mr Trump’s legal team to confirm a date, arrange a secure location and ensure that the deposition takes place within the case’s discovery timetable.

“Plaintiff chose to file this lawsuit and, in doing so, he accepted the obligations of civil litigation,” the BBC’s motion reads.

“The BBC therefore asks the Court to compel Plaintiff to confirm a date for his deposition, notify the BBC of a secure location where such deposition is possible and any other logistics required to ensure Plaintiff’s safety, and sit for the deposition, as the core rules of discovery require.”

The motion continued: “Nearly eight months into discovery, after seven depositions of BBC witnesses, and with only two months of discovery remaining, the BBC still has not been able to depose, and does not even have a schedule to depose, the most central figure in this case: Plaintiff himself.”

Magistrate judge Enjoliqué Aytch Lett has scheduled a hearing on discovery issues for October 22, where the dispute over Mr Trump’s deposition is likely to be addressed.

The President filed the lawsuit in December 2025, accusing the BBC of violating Florida’s Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act over the editing of a Panorama documentary.

The programme combined excerpts from remarks he made during a rally on January 6 2021, prompting allegations that the edit misrepresented his speech.

The BBC later apologised for the error, but maintains the Florida federal court lacks personal jurisdiction over the broadcaster, and defends the edit on grounds of a lack of “actual malice”.

The case is part of a broader history of legal action by Mr Trump against media organisations over their reporting and coverage of him.

A spokesman for Mr Trump’s legal team defended the lawsuit, and accused the broadcaster of deliberately distorting the president’s remarks.

They said: “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.”