Dutch writer Rutger Bregman has accused the BBC of running scared from Donald Trump after a line from a lecture criticising the US president was deleted from the broadcast version.

Bregman, the author of bestselling books such as Utopia for Realists, called Trump “the most openly corrupt president in American history” in the first of the four Reith Lectures, one of the BBC’s oldest and most prestigious lecture series.

But when the lecture was broadcast on BBC Radio Four, the offending line had been cut in what Bregman described in a social media post as “really disappointing news”.

A BBC spokesman confirmed the sentence had not been broadcast “on legal advice”. The corporation is embroiled in a row with Trump over the editing of an episode of current affairs programme Panorama that led to the resignation of its director general and CEO.

Plausible statement

Bregman said the claim was a “defensible and plausible statement,” citing an investigation in the New Yorker last year which found Trump and his family had profited to the tune of at least US$3.5bn (€3bn) from the presidency through real estate, cryptocurrency and other business deals.

I wish I didn’t have to share this. 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.” /1 pic.twitter.com/Z0oRPqX7RW

— Rutger Bregman (@rcbregman) November 25, 2025

He said: “The irony could not be bigger, because this lecture is exactly about the cowardice of today’s elites. About universities, corporations and, yes, media networks bending the knee to authoritarianism.”

Trump has threatened to sue the BBC for up to $5 bn after it edited a speech given by Trump on January 6 2021, the day of the riots on Capitol Hill, to make it look like he was directly inciting violence.

The BBC has apologised to Trump and admitted it created “the mistaken impression that President Trump made a direct call for violent action”, but rejected his demands for compensation.

Trump used violent imagery in his speech on January 6 as he told his supporters to “fight like hell”, one of 20 uses of the word “fight”, though he also called on protesters going to the Capitol “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard”.

Bregman said he was “shocked” by the BBC’s decision because it showed the corporation, “one of the greatest media organisations in the world”, had bowed to Trump’s attacks.

“When institutions start censoring themselves because they’re scared of those in power, that is the moment we all need to pay attention,” he said. “Democracies don’t collapse overnight. They gradually erode in acts of fear.”