‘You can't make this shit up’: BBC accused of censorship after cutting Trump criticism

Read time: 4 minutes

In brief:

• The BBC edited historian Rutger Bregman's description of Trump as "the most openly corrupt president in American history" from his Reith Lecture when it aired in November 2025, despite the speech having passed full editorial review when originally delivered in front of 500 people in October.
• Between the October lecture and November broadcast, Trump threatened to sue the BBC for at least $1 billion over a separate editing controversy involving a Panorama documentary.
• Bregman called the decision "self-censorship driven by fear", noting the irony that his lecture was specifically about elites' "paralyzing cowardice" and "bending the knee to authoritarianism".

What’s the story?

The BBC, still trying to put out a fire from its previous editing blunder over Donald Trump, is now facing fresh criticism over its handling of editorial decisions when it comes to the US President.

This time, Dutch author and historian Rutger Bregman has condemned the public broadcaster for editing out a “key line” from his speech for the BBC’s prestigious Reith Lecture.

During the speech, recorded in front of an audience of 500 on 28 October 2025, Bregman called Trump “the most openly corrupt president in American history”.

But when it was broadcast for the first time on the Today Programme, on 25 November 2025, that line was removed.

This decision was taken after Trump threatened to sue the BBC for at least $1 billion over its edit of one of his speeches in a Panorama documentary.

“It’s especially ironic because the lecture is exactly about the ‘paralyzing cowardice’ of today’s elites,” Bregman said in a statement on X.

“About universities, corporations and media networks bending the knee to authoritarianism.”

“You can't make this shit up,” Jon Sopel says on The News Agents.

“They've snipped out 10 seconds of what he was going to say, and left him absolutely seething and so bitterly disappointed in the corporation.”

Why did the BBC censor Bregman’s lecture?

That BBC - as far as we know - originally found Bregman’s lecture to be fully acceptable. He said that it “was reviewed through the full editorial process” before it was given in late-October.

However between it being delivered live, and broadcast less than a month later, a separate BBC row unfolded over its editing of a Trump speech for a Panorama programme, in which it spliced two clips together that were said more than 50 minutes apart.

In response, Trump threatened to sue the corporation.

While the BBC has said that it decided to remove that particular sentence from Bregman’s lecture “on legal advice,” he suspects otherwise.

“This has happened against my wishes, and I’m genuinely dismayed by it,” Bregman said.

“Not because people can’t disagree with my words, but because self-censorship driven by fear (Trump threatening to sue the BBC) should concern all of us.”

He added that he was told the decision came from “the highest levels within the BBC” - who that was specifically, is not mentioned.

Jon Sopel says the response is “a blatant example of bending the knee to Donald Trump.”

Was there any justification in censoring the speech?

The Reith Lectures, which began in 1948, aim to “advance public understanding and debate on important topics like politics, history, and social issues”, according to the BBC.

“The entire point of them is that it is not a BBC journalist delivering these lectures. It is not someone who works for the corporation,” Lewis Goodall explains.

“They are supposed to be authoritative, cerebral, learned and grounded in fact and reason, but nonetheless, a personal account of a key, fundamental set of issues facing the modern world.”

Even on the BBC’s grounds of removing it based on legal advice, or if they did so because of impartiality standards, Jon and Lewis believe it is easy to make the case that what Bregman said is true.

“Many people could argue very credibly that that is a true and factual statement - that Trump is the most corrupt president in history,” Lewis says.

Lewis cites Trump witholding congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine to pressure its government into announcing an investigation into his political rival at the time – Joe Biden – and, after he lost the 2020 election, asking the Georgia Secretary of State to “find 11,780 votes”, as just a few examples to back up the accusation.

“We could go on and on,” Lewis says.

“And therefore, Bregman's on extremely firm foundations in that statement”.

He says it is “chilling” that the BBC have taken this decision, most likely, as a result of Trump’s legal threat.

“This is what litigation does from someone like Trump. It's the chill effect that we've seen in network after network in the United States, and now we're seeing it play out with the BBC in our own country.”

Listen to the latest episode of The News Agents.