After President Donald Trump's threats to sue venerable British media giant the BBC lead to the resignation of the network's top executives, The New Republic reports that a historian now says they deleted a comment of his that was critical of the president.
Historian Rutger Bregman writes on Bluesky that the broadcaster cut a line from a BBC lecture he had given in which he described Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.”
"I wish I didn’t have to share this," Bregman posted. "But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as 'the most openly corrupt president in American history.'"
In that lecture, writes The New Republic's Greg Sargent, "Bregman addressed the 2024 matchup between Joe Biden and Trump, and he posted a transcript that included the line he delivered, which was omitted from the on-air broadcast."
"This sentence was taken out of a lecture they commissioned, reviewed through the full editorial process, and recorded four weeks ago in front of 500 people in the BBC Radio Theatre. I was told the decision came from the highest levels within the BBC," Bregman continued.
"This has happened against my wishes, and I’m genuinely dismayed by it. 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 says.
Trump's high-profile dispute with the BBC came after a recent documentary edited his speech, giving the "mistaken impression" he directly called for violent action during the January 6, 2021 Capitol riots.
The fallout has led to the resignations of the BBC's director-general and head of news and a threat of a multi-billion dollar lawsuit.
Bregman continued to call out the BBC's alleged censorship on Bluesky, saying, "It’s especially ironic because the lecture is exactly about the ‘paralyzing cowardice’ of today’s elites. About universities, corporations and media networks bending the knee to authoritarianism."
"I share this with respect for the many excellent journalists at the BBC. And with the hope that transparency helps strengthen, not weaken, our democratic culture," he concluded.
In an email to Sargent, the BBC said “the integrity” of Bregman’s arguments remains “central to the broadcast.”
"But perhaps due to Britain’s stricter libel laws, Trump’s threat apparently got the BBC to censor something that is obviously correct. Trump is the most corrupt president in U.S. history; it’s not even a close call, and the open flaunting of his corruption and self-dealing are an essential feature of his presidency on a near-daily basis," Sargent notes.
"The MAGA movement plainly thrills on exactly this. Trump and MAGA just don’t want media sources that swing voters might believe to describe his behavior as 'corruption' — or worse, 'criminality,'" he adds.
Sargent says that even if one doesn't agree with the sentiment, the edit is nonetheless alarming.
"What’s perhaps most galling about the BBC edit is that even if you disagree with the assertion that Trump is the 'most openly corrupt president in American history,' it’s obviously legitimate grounds for intellectual inquiry and debate," Sargent says.
"The BBC’s annual Reith Lectures have for decades featured some of the leading intellectual figures of the day, beginning with Bertrand Russell just after World War II," he explains.
"They are a flagship achievement of public broadcasting. To omit this explicit mention of Trump’s world-historical corruption from one of those storied lectures is an unnerving new turn in the annals of elite capitulation," he concludes.