Are Trump's lawyers now controlling the BBC?
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 25 November 2025
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Just a day after BBC bosses were in front of MPs to address impartiality concerns, and there's a fresh impartiality headache for the beleaguered broadcaster. Dutch historian Rutger Bregman, who'd been asked to give the prestigious Reith Lecture, today revealed that the BBC had removed a “key line” from his address. Bregman's claim that President Trump is “the most openly corrupt president in American history” was removed from the Radio 4 broadcast of his lecture. He's said today that he was informed that the decision to remove the accusation was taken at the “highest levels within the BBC”. The BBC has insisted the decision was taken on legal advice. So why was the line pulled? And is the threat of Donald Trump's legal action now influencing the editorial decisions of the BBC?
Later, with Nigel Farage on the back foot over the allegations he made racist remarks as a schoolboy - does the Reform UK leader have a glass jaw?
The News Agents is brought to you by HSBC UK - https://www.hsbc.co.uk/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:08.1 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:11.7 | Hey everyone. I have some really disappointing news to share. |
| 0:16.0 | And honestly, I wish this wasn't true. |
| 0:19.1 | But the BBC has decided to censor the opening lecture of a series they invited me to give. |
| 0:25.3 | They deleted the sentence in which I described Donald Trump as the most openly corrupt president in American history. |
| 0:33.4 | That line is gone. |
| 0:36.5 | It has been removed from the version broadcast this morning on BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:40.6 | That is Rutger Bregman, the distinguished Dutch author and historian who had this year been asked to deliver the prestigious wreath lectures. |
| 0:50.9 | He's been shocked to discover that a key line about Donald Trump has mysteriously |
| 0:56.5 | vanished from the recorded version when it was broadcast this morning. It comes as the BBC's |
| 1:02.4 | bosses went before the Commons yesterday to say at the heart of everything we do is impartiality. |
| 1:10.0 | Is this impartiality or is it cowardice? Is this the new BBC saying |
| 1:15.7 | we just don't want to say anything that could in any way be seen as controversial? Welcome to the |
| 1:23.8 | newsagents. |
| 1:30.0 | The Newsagents. |
| 1:31.6 | It's John. It's Lewis. |
| 1:36.2 | And when we had our morning meeting to discuss what we'd be doing on the news agents today, |
| 1:42.4 | we thought, yeah, the BBC story is good, but maybe we'll do that as a second half reflecting on what happened at the select committee yesterday, |
| 1:45.0 | where sort of more or less everybody emerged unscathed. |
| 1:49.0 | And then we saw this line about the wreath lectures, having been edited, |
| 1:54.0 | and the comments from Rutger Bregman about the circumstances. |
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