Trump Ordered to Sit for Deposition as His BBC Lawsuit Backfires

A federal judge has ordered President Trump to sit for a deposition by December 11 with attorneys for the British Broadcasting Corporation, which he is suing for $10 billion for defamation.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett ruled Thursday that Trump can’t delay answering questions from the BBC’s lawyers, the Associated Press reports. The president had canceled a planned October 16 deposition based on a “matter of national importance.” According to the BBC’s attorneys, Trump was in fact campaigning in Georgia for the midterms that day.

“He was participating in party politics and prioritized that over sitting for the deposition,” BBC attorney Charles Tobin told the AP, adding that “we still haven’t been able to depose the plaintiff” with only two months left in the discovery period of the case.

If Trump does not attend a deposition before the deadline, he could face sanctions including the dismissal of his case. The only reprieve he can get is if the lawsuit’s discovery period is extended beyond December 18.

Trump is accusing the BBC of defaming him in a 2024 documentary about the January 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, claiming the media company used deceptive editing to make it appear that he was urging his supporters to use violence to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. The network denies Trump’s accusations.

But the president was almost certainly trying to shake down the network, which appears to have backfired. BBC attorneys are trying to get his nemesis, former special counsel Jack Smith, to testify, and Trump has also fought attempts to subpoena his children and dig into his finances. He should have known better than to go after the BBC, which, being backed by licensing fees from the U.K.’s TV-owning public, wasn’t likely to settle with him. Now, he either has to win his case on its nonexistent merits, or drop it altogether.

This story has been updated.

President Donald Trump went post-verbal Wednesday at his rally in South Carolina.

After holding 20 campaign rallies in the span of just two months, the evidently exhausted 80-year-old president has started to insert wild sound effects into his already incoherent rants.

At one point, Trump appeared to short-circuit in the middle of a sentence. Instead of saying former North Carolina Governor Nikki Haley’s name, the president produced a gagging sound.

“I’d say 90 percent of the reason I took the governor—EUHH,” Trump said. “I took the governor, I put her over at the United Nations, because I wanted this guy to be, I wanted the guy to become governor.”

Trump has repeatedly misspelled or misstated Haley’s name. Recently, Trump has appeared to forget the names of candidates he’s shown up to support.

Later, Trump described the unlawful military strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats using one of his favorite sound effects. “We brought the flow of deadly drugs coming in by ocean and sea down by 97—pew, pew, pew. Ninety-seven,” he said. Trump has been repeating this number for months, but the Pentagon’s own statements don’t support this claim.

It then appeared that Trump has given up on pretending that the flow of energy through the Strait of Hormuz has been restored. He’s also given up on trying to say it.

“Oh, and when Iran ends. POW,” Trump said, miming a downward flow. “The oil,” he clarified.

Trump’s nearly eight-month “six-week war” against Iran has caused a sustained spike in energy prices, creating a quagmire for Republicans in the coming midterm elections. The president’s pathetic deal to lift sanctions on Russian oil hasn’t helped. Trump continues to promise that an end is near, but indirect negotiations are still ongoing.

It’s hard not to view this latest rally as one humiliating moment after another. Speaking in front of thousands of people, Trump ranted about wanting to change the name of the Atlantic Ocean to “Trump Ocean,” insisted that he should’ve won the Pulitzer Prize for writing (after confusing it for his much-coveted Nobel Peace Prize), cheered on a rallygoer who assaulted a heckler, and leered at Senator Tim Scott, of all people.

JD Vance was ghosted by practically every player on the Cincinnati Bengals football team during what he apparently believed would be a spontaneous meet and greet Wednesday evening.

The vice president waited outside the locker room. Just about every team member looked at Vance and decided not to interact with him—save for tight end Drew Sample, who gave Vance’s son a fist bump. Sample then gave Vance a handshake.

The entire situation—and its terrible optics—echoed a similar locker room visit by FBI Director Kash Patel, who unexpectedly appeared in videos with the U.S. men’s hockey team after their Olympic gold medal win earlier this year.

At the time, Patel was caught on tape chugging beers inside the locker room in Milan, spurring nationwide backlash as the American public questioned if the conspiracy podcaster turned intelligence chief had utilized taxpayer funds for the excursion. But at least Patel made it inside.

Despite occupying the number two office in America, Vance quietly waited for attention in the Bengals’ hallway. When it became clear that a meet and greet wasn’t going to happen, Vance wandered off with his entourage.

It was not immediately clear why the team snubbed Vance, but either way, the vice president should have bigger things on his plate. Earlier Wednesday, Vance sparked statewide backlash across Ohio for defending a disturbing advertisement by Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy that featured the estranged mother of Ramaswamy’s opponent, Democratic candidate Dr. Amy Acton.

The advert had Acton’s mother, Donna Arthur, claim that “Amy has a serious problem.” Acton has not spoken to her mother since she was 12 years old, ABC News reported. Arthur abandoned her two children to skip town with her husband, Acton’s stepfather, who was indicted for sexually abusing the Democratic candidate as a young girl.

“Vivek Ramaswamy had the audacity to run a TV commercial which calls it out like it is and calls Amy Acton a liar,” Vance said on Wednesday.

President Trump celebrated violence at his rally in South Carolina Thursday night.

At least nine protesters interrupted his speech at Clemson University, according to a pool report. In one instance, a heckler was punched by a Trump supporter in the crowd, and the president loved it.

“Wow. Man, I love that. I watched that,” Trump said. “That was incredible. Wow. That was, that was unbelievable. Is everybody OK? Who’s the guy that threw that punch?

“You know, you reminded me of Evander, the real deal, Holyfield,” Trump added, referring to the champion boxer in attendance.

“You gotta give them credit. It takes courage to do that at a Trump rally. He got whacked.”

In another instance, a MAGA fan followed a protester as security escorted him out, and hit him on the head.

Trump has a history of celebrating violence in his rallies going back to the start of his political career. In February 2016, Trump wished aloud at a rally in Las Vegas that he would have liked to punch a protester in the face. The next month, he told a rally crowd in Iowa, “So if you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of ’em, would you? I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees. I promise. I promise.”

As the president’s dwindling popularity keeps setting records, more and more people are showing up to his pre-midterm election rallies to heckle and protest him. The economy continues to grow worse thanks to his failed economic policies and disastrous war in Iran, increasing dissatisfaction even in areas that voted for him by wide margins.

However, Trump still retains a core group of die-hard supporters, who are perfectly willing to engage in violence to demonstrate their loyalty, whether it’s storming the Capitol building or beating up protesters. To Trump, however, nothing can go too far.

Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott publicized the endorsements of 11 Democratic sheriffs. Three of them denied ever endorsing him.

Zapata County Sheriff Ramon Montes, Val Verde County Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez, and Webb County Sheriff Marin Cuellar all publicly announced that they were not endorsing Abbot after he posted them on his endorsement list on Monday. While Cuellar has been removed from the list, Montes and Martinez are still on it.

“Please remove my name from this for the Governor Abbott. This is Sheriff Martin Cuellar. The governor endorsed Tano my brother’s opponent,” Cuellar wrote in a text screenshot he posted on Facebook. Cuellar is the brother of Democratic Representative Henry Cuellar, who is currently running for Texas’s 28th House district.

“I want to make it unequivocally clear that I have not issued a political endorsement of Governor Greg Abbott, and I did not authorize anyone to use my name as an endorsement,” Martinez wrote in his own official statement. “I made it clear to the Sheriff who submitted the endorsement that I could not endorse Governor Abbott. I also made it clear that no one from the Governor’s office ever contacted me regarding an endorsement, and that I do not need anyone speaking on my behalf.”

Sheriff Montes’s office told Border Report that he “is not endorsing anyone at this time.”

Recent polling has Abbott sitting just three points ahead of his Democratic challenger, former state Representative Gina Hinosoja.