The Dictatorship
BBC to access Trump’s financial records as his dubious lawsuit starts to backfire
Donald Trump has earned a reputation as a president who loves to file outlandish lawsuits against major news organizations, but his gambit late last year against the BBC was bizarre even for him.
The week before Christmas, the Republican sued the British broadcaster for $10 billion over a news program that focused on the Jan. 6 attack. Defending the litigation, Trump told reporters that the network “literally put words in my mouth,” adding, “I guess they used AI. … They actually put terrible words in my mouth having to do with Jan. 6 that I didn’t say.”
That wasn’t quite right. For one thing, the BBC didn’t use artificial intelligence. For another, the network did air a program that edited Trump’s Jan. 6 speech, connecting two clips that were delivered roughly 50 minutes apart, but the news outlet didn’t manufacture words or phrases out of whole cloth.
Nevertheless, the editing sparked a controversy that led to an internal investigationand the BBC ultimately fired some senior officials and issued a written apology.
Trump, however, apparently doesn’t want an apology. He wants $10 billion.
Time will tell whether the case bears fruit, but in the meantime, there’s fresh evidence that the civil suit might backfire on the plaintiff. Politico reported:
A federal magistrate judge ruled Tuesday that President Donald Trump must turn over detailed financial information in connection with his defamation lawsuit against the BBC.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett concluded that Trump’s sweeping complaint put injury to his businesses at the forefront and made their vitality a fair subject for the BBC to demand information about.
In other words, Trump’s lawyers said the president is entitled to a massive payout because the BBC’s program hurt his business interests. With this in mind, the BBC’s lawyers said they needed detailed access to Trump’s financial records to assess the validity of the underlying claims.
The president’s legal team pushed back, but at least for now, they’re losing.
“All of President Trump’s brand, properties and businesses are impugned or said to have been impugned. Reputational, economic damages, all of that is now at issue in this case,” Lett said at the conclusion of a three-hour hearing.
The Blue Light News report added that her decision “opened the door for the BBC to explore the finances of more than 400 companies owned by a Trump family trust.”
What’s more, a report in The Guardian added, “Lett is also allowing the BBC to subpoena dozens of members of Trump’s inner circle, according to Bloomberg News, in an effort to find evidence of the president’s thoughts and intentions on January 6. Those subpoenas will target Trump family members and key advisers, including Donald Trump Jr, Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller.”
In case that weren’t quite enough, since Trump’s Jan. 6 rhetoric is directly relevant to the case, the BBC is also moving forward with demands for records from special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation, which the news organization insists are necessary as part of its defense.
To be sure, the president and his team can appeal the latest setbacks. But given Trump’s ugly track record on cases against media outlets, he might want at least to consider abandoning this dubious case before things get worse.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
When it comes to U.S. service members who have made the ultimate sacrifice during the Iran war, Donald Trump has struggled to know what to say — and how to say it.
In early March, for example, the day after he launched combat operations, the president posted a prerecorded video to social media in which he tried to comment on the deaths of U.S. troops. “Sadly, there will likely be more,” Trump said. Appearing to break from the text on his teleprompter, he added“Before it ends, that’s the way it is.”
A few days later, Time magazine asked the president whether Americans should be worried about possible retaliatory attacks from Iran. “I guess,” Trump replied. By the end of the first week of the war, the president had attended the dignified transfer of six fallen U.S. service members as they were returned home, but he defied American tradition and wore a baseball cap as caskets were carried from the plane.
The image that came into focus was a leader who appeared to be approaching his responsibilities with an unmistakable mix of disrespect and a blasé attitude about developments that he should have taken with a sobriety that he just couldn’t muster.
This week, as the U.S. death toll reached 18, the Republican appeared to use his social media platform to suggest that the total number of fatalities wasn’t that bad because other modern wars were even deadlier. On Wednesday morning, he again traveled to Dover Air Force Base to attend another dignified transfer (he didn’t wear a hat this time), but before departing for the event, the president spent a couple of minutes speaking to the press.
“We’re going to Dover … to honor our heroes, and they are indeed great heroes, actually,” Trump said. Referring to the troops who were killed, he added, “They said, and all of them said very strongly, ‘We can’t let, we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon.’”
There’s obviously nothing wrong with honoring fallen troops, and if the president wanted to say that their sacrifice was not in vain, it wouldn’t have been controversial in the slightest.
But Trump went far further, claiming that the soldiers who were killed abroad had somehow expressed personal support for the war he launched and endorsed his dubious rationale for the conflict.
As a piece in The New Republic summarized“For Trump to claim that soldiers who are no longer alive were in full agreement with his war is astounding and insulting to their memories. Trump has no idea how the fallen soldiers felt about the war or if they agreed with it, and the opinions of U.S. troops are as diverse as those of any other group of Americans. The soldiers honored in Dover Wednesday were simply doing their duty and following orders.”
A New York Times report added that Trump “did not say how he knew the fallen soldiers’ views, but he decided to speak for them at a perilous political moment.”
It’s a simple rule: Presidents shouldn’t put words in the mouths of fallen soldiers, especially ones they did not know. It’s common sense and common decency that Trump continues to lack.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
President Donald Trump started the war with Iran with a promise to help free its people from an oppressive regime. Nearly five months later, U.S. forces appear to be bombing the civilian infrastructure those same people depend on.
At least 21 strikes hit or damaged civilian infrastructure across Iran in July — including bridges, railways, telecommunication sites and water facilities — according to data compiled by Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, an independent conflict monitor, and shared with MS NOW. Each incident was documented by news agencies and human rights activists, including state-linked media outlets. Three water infrastructure sites were struck, including at least one desalination plant that supplies drinking water to thousands. Most of the destruction has occurred in southern Iran.
Map: Carson Elm-Picard / MS NOW; Source: Armed Conflict Location & Event Data; OpenStreetMap contributors
Zahriyannah Mohammadi Karakashian-Jones, an Iranian American, said her relatives in Bandar Abbas — a southern commercial and military hub by the Strait of Hormuz — can no longer evacuate their neighborhood if necessary by road after multiple strikes on nearby roads and bridges. She communicates with her family through messaging apps, but has not been able to reach them in the past four days.
“There’s essentially no evacuation route any longer,” she told MS NOW. “It makes me embarrassed to be an American. It makes me angry, especially when you consider that these acts of war are being carried out using my tax dollars.”
On Wednesday, Trump threatened to expand infrastructure attacks to Tehran.
“From this point forward, any time the Islamic Republic of Iran shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, whether it be by Missile, Rocket, Drone, or any other device or weapon, the United States will bomb and destroy ONE BRIDGE OR POWER PLANT, including those located next to, or in, the Capital City of Tehran,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Deliberate military action against civilian infrastructure is considered a war crime under international law. A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations, denied that America’s military has intentionally targeted such sites.
“We are only hitting sites that have military capabilities, so no we are not committing any war crimes,” the official told MS NOW.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, however, would not rule out the U.S. striking civilian infrastructure on Thursday, following the president’s renewed threats. “The president’s policy is a head for an eye. I mean, honestly, that’s what it’s going to be,” he told reporters. “They will pay a very heavy price for the things they’re doing. They’re already paying a very heavy price.”
Administration officials have defended the strikes by arguing that some structures have dual uses for both civilian and military purposes. The Geneva Conventions permit attacks on such “dual-use” sites only when they offer a “definite military advantage.” Iran has also hit civilian infrastructure in Gulf countries in counterstrikes, including residential buildings and a drinking-water plant in Kuwait last week.
Iranian state mediaciting local officialsaccused the U.S. of cutting off drinking water to 10,000 people across 20 villages in the Hormozgan province. General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a Senate hearing on Tuesday said he was not aware of water desalination plants “being particular targets,” or reports that desalination plants had been attacked.
“We have a robust process which considers a target — that goes through a system that looks at a variety of considerations, to include what you’re alluding to, around both purely civilian or dual-use targets,” Caine said, adding that he has “trust and confidence” in Central Command’s assessments. “I’ve got a lot of lawyers.”
When asked whether the U.S. was responsible for strikes on bridges, electrical infrastructure or water facilities, the White House did not comment. The Pentagon referred to U.S. Central Command, which has directly disputed at least one attack in the strikes compiled by Armed Conflict Location & Event Data: the reported bombing of a wheat storage facility in Hoveyzeh.
Note: Reported events recorded July 9 – 18, 2026. Locations may be approximate.
Map: Carson Elm-Picard / MS NOW; Source: Armed Conflict Location & Event Data; OpenStreetMap contributors
Trump’s threat Wednesday is the latest in a monthslong pattern. In March, Trump warned that the U.S. would target electrical plants, bridges and desalination plants in Iran before agreeing to a temporary ceasefire, which both sides have now abandoned. In April, he threatened that “a whole civilization will die tonight” and that he would blast Iran “back to the Stone Ages.”In mid-May, Trump said there “won’t be anything left” if Iran does not agree to U.S. terms to end the war.
In his initial address after strikes on Feb. 28, Trump told the Iranian people that “America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force. Now is the time to seize control of your destiny and to unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach.”
But experts say the level of destruction faced by civilians in Iran as a result of U.S. strikes has undercut that goal. More than 3,600 Iranians — at least 1,700 of them civilians — were killed in the first several weeks of the war, according to Human Rights Activists in Iranincluding at least 300 children.
“They’ve dehumanized Iran and Iranians almost every step of the way that they’ve been in office,” said Ryan Costello, policy director at the National Iranian American Council. “Any claims that they’d be acting within the best interests of Iranians would be disingenuous at best.”
On the first day of the war, a strike on a girls’ school killed dozens of children and faculty members, and an early assessment concluded that the U.S. was likely responsible, MS NOW previously reported. Trump has told reporters that the internal investigation is ongoing.
“The fact that that happened on the first day, not on the 30th — in which, statistically, some mistake at some point was going to happen — it happened on the first day. That I think is something that already at that time left a terrible legacy,” said Trita Parsi, executive vice president at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “Both sides have done terrible things to each other, but seldom has so much negative been done in such a short period of time and so unnecessarily.”
Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, told MS NOW there was a major drop in Iranians’ support for U.S. military action as soon as civilian casualties began and it became apparent that there was “no American clear vision for post-Islamic Republic Iran.”
He expressed doubt that strikes on critical infrastructure would force Iran back to the negotiating table.
“What President Trump has misunderstood is this regime’s willingness to absorb a lot of pain,” Vatanka said. “They feel time is on their side, and that if they continue just responding to any American attacks, that eventually President Trump is going to stop risking escalation to a point of no return, and go back to the diplomatic track.”
Priya Sridhar contributed to this article.
This piece has been updated with additional comments from Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday morning.
Akayla Gardner is a White House correspondent for MS NOW.
The Dictatorship
‘Americans aren’t against the war’: Trump pitches alternate reality on public attitudes
During a brief Q&A with reporters on Wednesday morning, Donald Trump was reminded that most Americans oppose the war in Iran. The president immediately pushed back against the assertion.
“Well, Americans aren’t against the war,” he said. “A poll just came out: Americans don’t want high gasoline prices, but they’re not against the war. That just came out, loud and clear, in a poll.”
Trump has spent much of his political career referring to survey data that exists only in his imagination — up to and including making up approval ratings for himselfciting data that he thinks ought to exist. So when the president told reporters about a poll that “just came out,” he didn’t elaborate, probably because he was making stuff up again.
To the extent that reality matters, plenty of polls show just how wrong the Republican is about public attitudes toward the ongoing military operations.
Last week, for example, the latest Washington Post-Ipsos poll found that 68% of Americans believe the war was not worth fighting. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were also unpopular, but according to previous Washington Post polls, public opposition to the current war with Iran is even worse than attitudes toward those other recent conflicts.
Similarly, the latest Fox News poll found 66% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of U.S. policy toward Iran.
It’s possible the president discards such data because the surveys include a broad range of Americans, including those who oppose him politically, and Trump has a track record of arguing that people who disagree with him literally don’t count. The trouble is, many of the Republican’s most loyal followers are also turning against the conflict.
“Half of President Donald Trump’s MAGA base thought the Iran war was worth its economic costs in May. Now, just a little more than a third do,” Politico reported. “That precipitous, 13-point drop in just two months, according to a new Blue Light News Poll, reveals how the president’s most die-hard supporters are starting to agree with the majority of Americans who have long opposed the U.S.’ involvement in the war.”
Trump doesn’t have to like this data. He can even try to argue that the American mainstream is wrong. But to pretend that Americans “aren’t against the war” is to take a life-and-death issue and turn public attitudes on their head.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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