Left: President Donald Trump gestures during a reception for Republican members of Congress in the East Room of the White House, Tuesday, July 22, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson). Right: Mary Trump discussing her book "Who Could Ever Love You: A Family Memoir" at The 92nd Street Y on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, in New York (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP).
President Donald Trump must sit for a deposition two weeks before Christmas in his $10 billion defamation case against the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) or risk having the lawsuit thrown out, presenting him with a familiar choice.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett issued the Dec. 11 deadline after BBC attorneys accused the president of deliberately stalling, The Associated Press reported.
The BBC's lawyers emphasized that Trump skipped a previously scheduled Oct. 16 deposition, citing "matters of national importance," only to attend a political campaign event in Georgia instead.
Trump initially sued the BBC late last year, claiming the documentary "Trump: A Second Chance" defamed him by giving the "mistaken impression that [he] had made a direct call for violent action" in his Jan. 6 speech.
But months of requests to Trump's lawyers to set a deposition date in stone went nowhere, so the BBC filed a motion to compel that outcome.
Although Dec. 11 currently stands as the deposition date, there is still the prospect of Trump appealing to U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Kuntz — one of his appointees — to review the magistrate's order or moving to extend the discovery period past Dec. 18.
If the Dec. 11 deposition date holds, Trump and his legal team face a choice: put up or shut up.
The BBC's lawyers noted that the president cited his "unique and pressing obligations" to explain why he had not "provided specific dates of availability" for a deposition in his breach of contract lawsuit against his niece Mary Trump in New York, which likewise posed problems as discovery was set to close.
"This is not the first time a litigant has been forced to seek a court's help to secure Plaintiff's deposition. Just last year, in a lawsuit Plaintiff brought against his niece, defendant requested relief when she was 'unable to secure President Trump's agreement—despite at least five requests in the past 10 weeks—to appear for a deposition on any specific date or dates before the close of discovery,'" the BBC said.
The president never sat for a deposition in the case, instead reaching a settlement on the day depositions were supposed to be completed.
The president's BBC lawsuit may meet the same fate.
The BBC has argued that Trump chose to file the case, that the "obligations of civil litigation" still apply to him, and that his testimony about what he meant by his Jan. 6 speech is needed as the "most central figure in this case."
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