Censored by the BBC: ‘It was bending the knee to Donald Trump’
Rutger Bregman, whose Reith Lecture was censored by the BBC, tells The News Agents of the irony of cutting Trump criticism from a speech about the ‘cowardice’ of elites.
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In brief…
- Dutch author and historian Rutger Bregman tells Lewis Goodall about the series of events which led to the BBC cutting Trump criticism from a speech, and how the censorship drew even more attention to his comments.
- Bregman discusses the irony of the situation, with his speech addressing how corporations and broadcasters are “bending the knee” to Donald Trump.
- He says Trump’s administration is “a form of fascism”, and that critics need to stop acting “shocked” at his actions, and instead prepare to fight back.
What’s the story?
The BBC’s Reith Lectures have never had more attention than they did in 2025.
That wasn’t because the highbrow, annual Radio 4 broadcast was out of the ordinary last year, but because it chopped a line of criticism of Donald Trump from its guest speaker, Rutger Bregman.
Bregman, a Dutch academic and author, had referred to Trump as the most openly corrupt president in American history, and addressed the cut made to his lecture at the time, highlighting the “irony” of the BBC’s actions in a piece about the "paralysing cowardice of today’s elites".
Details of his lecture leaked to the press, after he delivered it in front of several hundred people, including guests invited by the BBC.
"Some idiot leaked to the Daily Mail that my whole first lecture was one big rant against Donald Trump, which is a lie. It was not at all," Bregman tells Lewis Goodall.
"The Daily Mail heard about what was going on, and they had this thing on their front page, about how it was outrageous that the BBC had invited 'another idiot', this Dutch, crazy vegan who believes in open borders.
"They also called the White House, and the director of communications there said, Yes, this is some horrible anti-Trump individual."
The backdrop to all this is the BBC's controversial Panorama edit, which it is in ongoing legal disputes with Trump over, in which it spliced together two parts from his January 6 speech to infer that he directly suggested his supporters riot at the Capitol building in Washington DC.
‘Lawyers don’t make decisions, leaders do’
Bregman says the BBC contacted him ahead of the Reith Lecture broadcast, and told him they were thinking about removing the line of Trump criticism from the speech – which he was strongly against.
"They told me it was being discussed at the highest level within the BBC," Bregman says.
"They said they got legal advice, that the lawyers were worried. Less than 24 hours before it was aired, they called me and said they were taking that line out."
Bregman says he was told by the BBC that the edit to his speech was directly related to the Panorama situation, and that US lawyers had advised the broadcaster to make the cut.
"For me, the irony could not have been greater, because this whole lecture was about the cowardice of elites," he says.
"It was about universities, corporations, law firms and – yes – media networks bending the knee to the regime.
"The fact that they said, this wouldn't have been a problem a month before, that made it only more clear for me that they were bending the knee."
The experience didn't leave him angry, just sad.
"They told me, it was not their decision, it's the lawyer's decision, but lawyers don't make decisions, leaders do," Bregman says.
"So I was just deeply saddened by the whole affair.
"Then there was the irony that whenever you cancel or censor something, it only gets more attention, and the irony that the lecture itself was about what the BBC did – bending the knee, cowardice."
The situation, he adds, makes him wonder what else has been "what's going on inside that machine" where BBC coverage of Donald Trump is concerned.
Trump’s MAGA administration a ‘form of fascism’
Recent events in America, including the deployment of ICE agents in cities across the country and violent clashes with protesters, has raised the discussion of whether Trump has turned America into an authoritarian state.
Bregman goes one step further when discussing the current state of America.
"I would even use the F word," he says.
"Historians of fascism have developed a very precise vocabulary to describe these different regimes. There is, in my view, not one definition of fascism, but there are many things that these regimes share, and the list is getting very long now.
"It's really important to understand what this is, because then we'll stop being surprised and shocked all the time, and we can act. We can prepare."
Trump and his administration, he says, are imperialist with a "blatant disregard for global rules".
"JD Vance, Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, – they're all saying, for the camera, that there's going to be a third term for Trump," Bregman says.
"Then, when pressed, they say they'll tell us later how they're going to do it. So there is a word for this.
"It is, in my view, a form of fascism."
Rutger Bregman’s latest book, Moral Ambition: How to Find Your Purpose, is available now.