ATTACK ON FREE SPEECH
Donald Trump’s Most Authoritarian Week Yet
Andrew Perez, Nikki McCann Ramirez and Asawin Suebsaeng
Sat, September 20, 2025
ROLLING STONE
It was clear Donald Trump and his allies would ramp up their crackdown against any and all opposition in the wake of the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk — and this week, the president’s second administration unleashed its most authoritarian blitz yet.
The Trump administration got late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s show taken off the air by threatening companies’ broadcast licenses if they continued to run his show. Trump and his team threatened to strip the tax-exempt status of liberal nonprofit groups, while the president called for left-wing activists to be jailed for protesting him at dinner. Trump announced he’ll once again try to designate “antifa” — America’s disparate anti-fascist movement — as a terrorist group, with no legitimate basis, clarifying once again where he stands on the whole fascism question.
Meanwhile, the administration worked toward its goal to deport a legal U.S. resident for speaking out against Israel’s relentless assault on Palestine. Reports trickled out that Trump would fire a U.S. attorney for failing to bring charges against one of his enemies, before Trump publicly called for his departure and he quit.
This ugly, authoritarian week didn’t happen in a vacuum. Trump just last month mused about how Americans want a “dictator,” and the administration now appears to be using Kirk’s shocking murder as an excuse to escalate Trump’s ongoing campaign for total power.
The ramp-up began on Monday, as Vice President J.D. Vance hosted Kirk’s podcast from the White House and huddled with Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy White House chief of staff and the man responsible for leading his mass vengeance campaign.
“You have the crazies on the far left who are saying, ‘Stephen Miller and J.D. Vance, they’re going to go after constitutionally protected speech. No, no, no,” Vance said, before immediately pledging to go after a network of liberal nonprofits that supposedly “foments, facilitates, and engages in violence.”
During the discussion, Miller repeatedly invoked Kirk’s death to justify the effort to shut down liberal groups.
“The last message that Charlie sent me was — I think it was just the day before we lost him — was that we needed to have an organized strategy to go after the left-wing organizations that are promoting violence in this country,” Miller said. He added, “With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks.”
As the MAGA movement worked to get people fired for sharing negative thoughts about Kirk, conservative media outlets honed in on comments Kimmel made in the wake of his killing — twisting Kimmel’s words to make them seem like a fireable offense. And on Wednesday, Trump’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman, Brendan Carr, began issuing explicit threats, demanding that broadcasters take Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air.
Speaking with right-wing influencer Benny Johnson, Carr pressured broadcasters to tell ABC: “‘Listen, we are going to preempt, we are not going to run Kimmel anymore, until you straighten this out because we, we licensed broadcaster, are running the possibility of fines or license revocation from the FCC.’”
Carr added, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel, or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Within hours, ABC had indefinitely suspended Kimmel’s show and two large broadcast companies, Nexstar and Sinclair, announced they wouldn’t run it. (Note: The companies all have regulatory matters before the FCC.) Sources told Rolling Stone that while multiple executives at ABC and its parent company, Disney, did not feel that Kimmel’s comments merited a suspension, they caved to pressure from Carr.
“They were terrified about what the government would do, and did not even think Jimmy had the right to just explain what he said,” a person familiar with the internal situation said on Thursday, calling the decision “cowardly.”
Throughout Trumpland and the federal government, there was a heightened sense of glee over their silencing of Kimmel. Administration officials feel emboldened by the multiple scalps they’ve now collected — first Stephen Colbert, now Kimmel — to the point that they’re confident they have momentum to pressure corporate bosses to get rid of Trump’s late-night nemeses over at other networks.
Two Trump advisers told Rolling Stone that potential FCC investigations of Comcast are being viewed as a plausible route to pressure the NBC brass into sidelining, or dumping, late-night host Seth Meyers, whom Trump similarly despises. Aides at the White House and Republican National Committee often monitor the latest from liberal late-night shows, including Meyers’ program, to see if there’s any sound bite that Trump and company can quickly exploit — and that focus has only intensified in the aftermath of the Kirk slaying, two of those aides note.
The Trump administration’s threats against broadcasters have come under criticism from some conservatives. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) described Carr’s “easy way or the hard way” line as being something “right out of Goodfellas,” calling it “dangerous as hell.” The editorial board at Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal called out “the Carr FCC’s abuse of its power.”
Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), on the other hand, has apparently decided the First Amendment is no longer sacrosanct, because someone murdered Kirk. “Under normal times, in normal circumstances, I tend to think that the First Amendment should always be sort of the ultimate right. And that there should be almost no checks and balances on it,” Lummis said, according to Semafor. “I don’t feel that way anymore.”
Trump, himself, seemed eager on Thursday to threaten more media companies over their coverage as he spoke with reporters on Air Force One, saying that the networks “give me only bad press” and “maybe their license should be taken away.”
The same day as Kimmel’s ouster, Trump declared that he would attempt to designate “antifa” — short for anti-fascist — a terrorist organization. Given that the anti-fascist movement lacks any sort of centralized system of organization or leadership, it’s unclear how the administration would enforce such a designation or the scope of those it would target.
When an NPR reporter asked Trump on Air Force One how he would target antifa, he said, “We’re going to see. Did they have anything to do with your network? We’re going to find out.”
Trump also this week called on a group of protesters who bothered him to be jailed. Activists from the anti-war group CodePink recently located the president at Joe’s Seafood near the White House as he ventured out to see the city streets during his military deployment to the nation’s capital. The protesters made it into the restaurant near Trump and shouted at him: “Free D.C.! Free Palestine! Trump is the Hitler of our time!”
Trump is mad about it. “They should be put in jail, what they’re doing to this country is really subversive,” he said on Monday, adding that he asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to look into bringing “criminal RICO” racketeering cases against them. On Thursday, Trump said of the protesters, “I think they were a threat.”
Amid Trump’s attacks on free expression and a free press, one of the president’s most sustained attacks on speech received less attention as it turned more ugly.
On Wednesday, it was reported that the Trump administration could soon deport Mahmoud Khalil to Algeria or Syria. The administration already jailed Khalil for months after revoking his green card over his pro-Palestine activism. Khalil, whose wife and baby are American citizens, was released in June per a judge’s order.
There was news about Trump’s apparent attempt to wield the Department of Justice against one of his most personal enemies.
On Thursday, ABC News reported that Trump planned to fire the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia for refusing to bring charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James, after prosecutors failed to find evidence she committed mortgage fraud.
James led the civil fraud case against the Trump family’s business empire. Trump was ordered to pay $355 million in damages in the case last year, before it was tossed last month.
In any other administration, news that the president intended to fire a prosecutor for failing to charge a political enemy would be treated as a massive scandal — indeed, it’s similar to the scandal that led to the resignation of George W. Bush’s attorney general, Alberto Gonzales.
Trump is different. When a reporter asked him Friday in the Oval Office if he wanted to fire Erik Siebert, Virginia’s acting U.S. Attorney — a guy Trump nominated — the president said, “Yeah, I want him out.” Trump complained about the prosecutor receiving blue slips, or customary endorsements, from Virginia’s two Democratic senators, whom he called “bad guys.” Siebert resigned afterward.
With everything going on, it might have been easy to miss the news Trump ordered more strikes on boats in the Caribbean supposedly carrying drugs — attacks so lawless that John Yoo, Bush’s torture memo author, felt the need to register his concern. “We can’t just consider anything that harms the country to be a matter for the military,” Yoo said. “Because that could potentially include every crime.”
Trump deployed the National Guard to Memphis, Tennessee, continuing his militarized crackdown on Democratic-led cities, while his masked goons roughed up a Democratic congressional candidate protesting outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Illinois.
Late in the day Friday, The Washington Post reported that the Pentagon — under the leadership of former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, who’s calling himself the “Secretary of War” — will now require journalists who want press badges to agree not to gather any information that hasn’t been officially approved for release. That is, of course, literally a reporter’s job.
Speaking in the Oval Office on Friday, Trump claimed he’s “a very strong person for free speech,” before asserting, as he keeps saying, that 97 percent of reports about him are negative. “That’s no longer free speech,” he said. “That’s just cheating.”
It was clear Donald Trump and his allies would ramp up their crackdown against any and all opposition in the wake of the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk — and this week, the president’s second administration unleashed its most authoritarian blitz yet.
The Trump administration got late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s show taken off the air by threatening companies’ broadcast licenses if they continued to run his show. Trump and his team threatened to strip the tax-exempt status of liberal nonprofit groups, while the president called for left-wing activists to be jailed for protesting him at dinner. Trump announced he’ll once again try to designate “antifa” — America’s disparate anti-fascist movement — as a terrorist group, with no legitimate basis, clarifying once again where he stands on the whole fascism question.
Meanwhile, the administration worked toward its goal to deport a legal U.S. resident for speaking out against Israel’s relentless assault on Palestine. Reports trickled out that Trump would fire a U.S. attorney for failing to bring charges against one of his enemies, before Trump publicly called for his departure and he quit.
This ugly, authoritarian week didn’t happen in a vacuum. Trump just last month mused about how Americans want a “dictator,” and the administration now appears to be using Kirk’s shocking murder as an excuse to escalate Trump’s ongoing campaign for total power.
The ramp-up began on Monday, as Vice President J.D. Vance hosted Kirk’s podcast from the White House and huddled with Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy White House chief of staff and the man responsible for leading his mass vengeance campaign.
“You have the crazies on the far left who are saying, ‘Stephen Miller and J.D. Vance, they’re going to go after constitutionally protected speech. No, no, no,” Vance said, before immediately pledging to go after a network of liberal nonprofits that supposedly “foments, facilitates, and engages in violence.”
During the discussion, Miller repeatedly invoked Kirk’s death to justify the effort to shut down liberal groups.
“The last message that Charlie sent me was — I think it was just the day before we lost him — was that we needed to have an organized strategy to go after the left-wing organizations that are promoting violence in this country,” Miller said. He added, “With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks.”
As the MAGA movement worked to get people fired for sharing negative thoughts about Kirk, conservative media outlets honed in on comments Kimmel made in the wake of his killing — twisting Kimmel’s words to make them seem like a fireable offense. And on Wednesday, Trump’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman, Brendan Carr, began issuing explicit threats, demanding that broadcasters take Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air.
Speaking with right-wing influencer Benny Johnson, Carr pressured broadcasters to tell ABC: “‘Listen, we are going to preempt, we are not going to run Kimmel anymore, until you straighten this out because we, we licensed broadcaster, are running the possibility of fines or license revocation from the FCC.’”
Carr added, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel, or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Within hours, ABC had indefinitely suspended Kimmel’s show and two large broadcast companies, Nexstar and Sinclair, announced they wouldn’t run it. (Note: The companies all have regulatory matters before the FCC.) Sources told Rolling Stone that while multiple executives at ABC and its parent company, Disney, did not feel that Kimmel’s comments merited a suspension, they caved to pressure from Carr.
“They were terrified about what the government would do, and did not even think Jimmy had the right to just explain what he said,” a person familiar with the internal situation said on Thursday, calling the decision “cowardly.”
Throughout Trumpland and the federal government, there was a heightened sense of glee over their silencing of Kimmel. Administration officials feel emboldened by the multiple scalps they’ve now collected — first Stephen Colbert, now Kimmel — to the point that they’re confident they have momentum to pressure corporate bosses to get rid of Trump’s late-night nemeses over at other networks.
Two Trump advisers told Rolling Stone that potential FCC investigations of Comcast are being viewed as a plausible route to pressure the NBC brass into sidelining, or dumping, late-night host Seth Meyers, whom Trump similarly despises. Aides at the White House and Republican National Committee often monitor the latest from liberal late-night shows, including Meyers’ program, to see if there’s any sound bite that Trump and company can quickly exploit — and that focus has only intensified in the aftermath of the Kirk slaying, two of those aides note.
The Trump administration’s threats against broadcasters have come under criticism from some conservatives. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) described Carr’s “easy way or the hard way” line as being something “right out of Goodfellas,” calling it “dangerous as hell.” The editorial board at Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal called out “the Carr FCC’s abuse of its power.”
Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), on the other hand, has apparently decided the First Amendment is no longer sacrosanct, because someone murdered Kirk. “Under normal times, in normal circumstances, I tend to think that the First Amendment should always be sort of the ultimate right. And that there should be almost no checks and balances on it,” Lummis said, according to Semafor. “I don’t feel that way anymore.”
Trump, himself, seemed eager on Thursday to threaten more media companies over their coverage as he spoke with reporters on Air Force One, saying that the networks “give me only bad press” and “maybe their license should be taken away.”
The same day as Kimmel’s ouster, Trump declared that he would attempt to designate “antifa” — short for anti-fascist — a terrorist organization. Given that the anti-fascist movement lacks any sort of centralized system of organization or leadership, it’s unclear how the administration would enforce such a designation or the scope of those it would target.
When an NPR reporter asked Trump on Air Force One how he would target antifa, he said, “We’re going to see. Did they have anything to do with your network? We’re going to find out.”
Trump also this week called on a group of protesters who bothered him to be jailed. Activists from the anti-war group CodePink recently located the president at Joe’s Seafood near the White House as he ventured out to see the city streets during his military deployment to the nation’s capital. The protesters made it into the restaurant near Trump and shouted at him: “Free D.C.! Free Palestine! Trump is the Hitler of our time!”
Trump is mad about it. “They should be put in jail, what they’re doing to this country is really subversive,” he said on Monday, adding that he asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to look into bringing “criminal RICO” racketeering cases against them. On Thursday, Trump said of the protesters, “I think they were a threat.”
Amid Trump’s attacks on free expression and a free press, one of the president’s most sustained attacks on speech received less attention as it turned more ugly.
On Wednesday, it was reported that the Trump administration could soon deport Mahmoud Khalil to Algeria or Syria. The administration already jailed Khalil for months after revoking his green card over his pro-Palestine activism. Khalil, whose wife and baby are American citizens, was released in June per a judge’s order.
There was news about Trump’s apparent attempt to wield the Department of Justice against one of his most personal enemies.
On Thursday, ABC News reported that Trump planned to fire the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia for refusing to bring charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James, after prosecutors failed to find evidence she committed mortgage fraud.
James led the civil fraud case against the Trump family’s business empire. Trump was ordered to pay $355 million in damages in the case last year, before it was tossed last month.
In any other administration, news that the president intended to fire a prosecutor for failing to charge a political enemy would be treated as a massive scandal — indeed, it’s similar to the scandal that led to the resignation of George W. Bush’s attorney general, Alberto Gonzales.
Trump is different. When a reporter asked him Friday in the Oval Office if he wanted to fire Erik Siebert, Virginia’s acting U.S. Attorney — a guy Trump nominated — the president said, “Yeah, I want him out.” Trump complained about the prosecutor receiving blue slips, or customary endorsements, from Virginia’s two Democratic senators, whom he called “bad guys.” Siebert resigned afterward.
With everything going on, it might have been easy to miss the news Trump ordered more strikes on boats in the Caribbean supposedly carrying drugs — attacks so lawless that John Yoo, Bush’s torture memo author, felt the need to register his concern. “We can’t just consider anything that harms the country to be a matter for the military,” Yoo said. “Because that could potentially include every crime.”
Trump deployed the National Guard to Memphis, Tennessee, continuing his militarized crackdown on Democratic-led cities, while his masked goons roughed up a Democratic congressional candidate protesting outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Illinois.
Late in the day Friday, The Washington Post reported that the Pentagon — under the leadership of former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, who’s calling himself the “Secretary of War” — will now require journalists who want press badges to agree not to gather any information that hasn’t been officially approved for release. That is, of course, literally a reporter’s job.
Speaking in the Oval Office on Friday, Trump claimed he’s “a very strong person for free speech,” before asserting, as he keeps saying, that 97 percent of reports about him are negative. “That’s no longer free speech,” he said. “That’s just cheating.”
Charlie Kirk believed in the right to 'evil speech.' Do his allies?
Taylor Seely, Arizona Republic
Sat, September 20, 2025
Charlie Kirk built his reputation championing free speech before his assassination in Utah on Sept. 10.
He debated thousands of students who disagreed with him and said the U.S. Constitution protected so-called "hate speech," "ugly speech," "gross speech" and even "evil speech."
Yet in the week since Kirk's assassination at a college, his supporters have sought to punish people for speech they find inappropriate. They include government officials, whose statements and actions have raised alarm among First Amendment advocates and sparked national debate over what sort of speech is and isn't protected by the Constitution.
Comedian Jimmy Kimmel's late-night show was suspended after Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr made veiled threats. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said she would prosecute "hate speech," and President Donald Trump said TV stations that criticize him too much should possibly have their broadcast licenses revoked.
Some viewed what Kirk said as extreme, hateful, racist and sexist. Others said detractors misrepresented or misunderstood Kirk's points.
In Arizona, a sports reporter and a fitness instructor lost their jobs over comments they made about Kirk. A Pima County Sheriff's deputy was put on leave for social media posts that “are alleged to be inappropriate."
An anonymous website called "Expose Charlie's Murderers" was launched to collect submissions about anyone who posted anti-Kirk sentiments. It published their names and screenshots of what they said. It temporarily went offline, but has since returned as "Cancel the Hate," with a mission "to hold individuals accountable for their public words and actions when those words promote political violence, discrimination or endanger the lives of others." Visitors to the site could not submit or view submissions as of Sept. 19.
The initial website was broadly described as a doxxing effort. Doxxing, or posting people's personally identifying information online with the intent to harm them, is illegal in Arizona, but attorneys say it may be difficult to prosecute.
Free speech scholars maintain the most vile and reprehensible speech, including that which celebrates someone's death, is legally protected — not from the consequences meted by private employers, but from government suppression. The First Amendment protects the public from the government limiting speech, not anyone else.
Kirk's closest allies have said people shouldn't encourage violence or joke about it in the aftermath of murder, and that if private companies want to cut ties with people who do, they have a First Amendment right to do that. Their views about government suppression of speech are less clear.
Meanwhile, some of Kirk's fans who knew him through his campus events and social media or radio show, have expressed skepticism over broad-swath firings
Kirk himself was controversial. Some viewed what he said as extreme, hateful, racist and sexist. Others said detractors misrepresented or misunderstood Kirk's beliefs.
The varying perspectives reflect a nation grappling with free expression when political violence enters the fold. Speech that legally is allowed is clashing against what Kirk's allies deem culturally acceptable, and those in power appear to have taken their side. Free speech advocates have warned against the clamp downs.
“The Republican Party is not going to hold the executive branch forever. And you can very easily see the federal government (and future) Democratic officeholders doing the exact same thing,” Adam Steinbaugh, an attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said.
Change in command: Turning Point board elects Erika Kirk as its new CEO in wake of Charlie Kirk's death
Kirk's Turning Point allies on firings, Kimmel and Bondi
Two top Turning Point officials mostly emphasized private employers' rights when discussing firings and government officials' involvement in free speech issues.
Turning Point Action Chief Operating Officer Tyler Bowyer told The Arizona Republic the government shouldn't be "protecting the licensing of people who have that dark energy," referring to Kimmel. He also re-shared a social media post that said the Kimmel suspension was done for Charlie and that, "We're just getting started."
But Bowyer declined to comment on the propriety of Carr as a government official making statements condemning Kimmel, saying it wasn't his place and that he was more focused on the role of ABC.
Carr is one of three current FCC commissioners who make decisions about whether to grant, or revoke, broadcasting licenses. Before Kimmel's suspension, Carr suggested on a podcast that if ABC affiliates didn't take their own action to address Kimmel, the FCC would get involved.
Jimmy Kimmel: First Amendment advocates increasingly worried after ABC pulled Kimmel's show
Andrew Kolvet, executive producer of "The Charlie Kirk Show" and spokesperson for Turning Point, told The Republic, "Nobody's saying you can't say it. I'm not saying you belong in prison. I'm just saying if I'm your employer, I'd fire you."
Kolvet called Bondi's comments about prosecuting "hate speech," which were broadly rejected by legal scholars, "unfortunate," and that while he appreciated her intent to honor Charlie, "we have to be careful about using the right language."
Kirk's fans skeptical of firings, call for courage and more debate
Some of Kirk's supporters in Arizona seemed to show more tolerance for disrespectful speech.
At a vigil for Kirk at Arizona State University, Phoenix resident Janice Bailey, 52, said, "We live in a country of free speech and they (critics) have a right to that opinion." Bailey said she was "on the fence" about firings.
"Just like I don't think government should be dictating certain things about our lives and our decisions, it's kind of hard for a workplace employer. I think it's wrong," she said. "I won't lie and say I wasn't happy about some of the ones that I've seen, the really mean and hateful ones. I think it's a very fine line and you have to be really careful."
Bailey said she had followed Kirk for years, and felt his death was a "wake up call" for her and other Christians. She said she thinks the tragedy would lead to more people engaging in conversation with others they disagree with.
"To show love, to show grace and to be able to debate and interact with people we don't agree with, but in a loving way. To love our neighbors no matter what their beliefs are. That's what he did, that's what he stood for. I hope to pick up that mantle," Bailey said.
Kane Adamson, 19, said firings were a "double edged sword. I think if we preach free speech, then I feel like everybody's entitled to it as well. There's certain stuff that should be not said, in a sense, but I feel like as a society, we should practice what we preach."
Adamson said "people have lost sight" of the importance of debate and the First Amendment. He thought the more people followed their faith and spoke about problems publicly, the better society would be.
"Especially now that he's gone, I think everybody needs to have courage to have faith and whatever they believe in. It doesn't matter if nobody agrees. As long as we come together as a country," Adamson said.
What Arizona's doxing law allows, doesn't allow
An Arizona law passed in 2021 bans publishing someone's personally identifying information online for the purpose of "imminently causing the person unwanted physical contact, injury or harassment."
Attorneys at the Phoenix law firm Snell & Wilmer wrote in 2021 that the law "should help prevent harassing online behavior."
But a provision of the law says the doxing must "in fact incite or produce that unwanted physical contact, injury or harassment."
The attorneys wrote that that could serve as "a significant bar to prosecuting doxing events."
The law also exempts social media platforms, which attorneys wrote, "may frustrate individuals or corporate clients seeking to stop a widespread doxing event."
The Republic's Stephanie Murray contributed reporting.
Taylor Seely is a First Amendment Reporting Fellow at The Arizona Republic / azcentral.com. Do you have a story about the government infringing on your First Amendment rights? Reach her at tseely@arizonarepublic.com or by phone at 480-476-6116.
Seely's role is funded through a collaboration between the Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.
The US right claimed free speech was sacred – until the Charlie Kirk killing
J Oliver Conroy
Sat, September 20, 2025
In the emotionally and politically charged days since the killing of Charlie Kirk, the conservative youth activist who was a close ally of Donald Trump, one statement has loomed large. On Monday, the US attorney general – the official in charge of the rule of law in America – said that the Trump administration would “absolutely target” those who espouse “hate speech” about Kirk.
Unlike in many other countries, hate speech is protected by US law unless it incites imminent violence or constitutes a true threat. But that did not deter the nation’s top law enforcement officer, who also suggested that – for example – a print shop employee who refused to print flyers memorializing Kirk could be “prosecuted”.
Since Kirk was shot to death while speaking to college students in Utah earlier this month, the US has been gripped by a bitter debate about the relation between political speech and violence. Bondi later walked back some of her remarks, in part because of criticism from other conservatives worried about the reframing of “free speech” as “hate speech”. But Trump, Vice-President JD Vance, White House adviser Stephen Miller and other top Republicans have framed Kirk’s death as the consequence of what they claim is unchecked and violent rhetoric, which they blame on the left wing alone.
It is a remarkable turn from prominent American conservatives, who until Trump’s return to power in January had long complained of a censorious leftwing “cancel culture” but now seem happy to reframe that, too, as “consequence culture”. Nancy Mace, a House representative, sounded a lot like the progressives she has often decried for their political correctness when she declared last week, during an effort to censure one of her opponents in Congress, that “free speech isn’t free from consequences”.
Many conservatives are also now championing a public campaign to get fired from their jobs any Americans who made light of Kirk’s death or disparaged him or his politics in death. Meanwhile, administration officials are proceeding with drafting an executive order for Trump aiming to “combat political violence and hate speech”, the New York Times recently reported.
Kirk’s assassination was a “despicable act of political violence, an attack on a figure who built his brand around campus debating, and the outrage, grief, and anger is understandable”, Aaron Terr, the director of public advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (Fire), said.
But instead of recommitting to free speech as a “fundamental value”, the response from many public officials “has been the opposite. They are using the tragedy to justify a broad crackdown on speech,” he said.
“They are openly collapsing the distinction between political dissent and political violence, and it sounds like they are laying the foundation for mass censorship and surveillance of political critics.”
The pressure campaign’s biggest trophy so far is the talk show host Jimmy Kimmel. After an episode of his show in which Kimmel seemed to suggest (wrongly, according to reports) that Kirk’s assassin had Maga sympathies, the Trump-appointed chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the government agency that regulates broadcasting, urged TV networks to drop Kimmel’s show. On Wednesday, ABC announced that it was suspending the program indefinitely.
The FCC chair, Brendan Carr, applauded ABC’s surrender – even though just two years ago he said that free speech is a crucial “check on government control. That is why censorship is the authoritarian’s dream.”
“It’s an overreaction,” Katie Fallow, an attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute, said, “and it is an example of the kind of ‘cancel culture’ that major figures on the right have been criticizing for so many years. Now they’re just doing a complete about-face and engaging in it themselves.”
Bondi’s rhetoric is a particularly “alarming threat” given her status overseeing American law enforcement, Veena Dubal, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, and the general counsel of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), said. It is also “a signal that not only does this administration not care about the first amendment, they don’t seem to really understand it.”
Although Kimmel is the most prominent media figure to have been punished so far, in recent days a number of journalists have faced the loss of their jobs or other disciplinary measures, either at the direct instigation of conservative pressure or in seeming preemption of it. Earlier in the week the Washington Post – under Jeff Bezos, who has cosied up to Trump and whose ownership has seen the opinion section move closer to the political right – terminated the columnist Karen Attiah for, she said, her unflattering writing about Kirk’s political views.
Academics, too, are under threat, with three professors at Clemson University in South Carolina recently fired for making allegedly inappropriate social media posts about Kirk’s death. Dubal is concerned by this aggressive campaign to get professors fired or disciplined for their “extramural” speech, particularly when academics are often contractually entitled to rigorous processes before they can be terminated.
It seems as though many employers have decided that it is worth violating principles of academic freedom and contractual obligation, she said, rather than “displease the president, or displease rightwing donors. And that’s a political calculation, it’s a legal calculation. But it’s dangerous.”
Indeed, Fallow finds the attempt to suppress speech after Kirk’s death disturbing because she sees it as part of a larger and “unprecedented” attempt by the second Trump administration to use “every available lever of power to try and suppress dissent and chill speech” – including but not limited to threatening universities with investigations or financial penalties because of protests on campus; targeting law firms with executive orders for their legal work; deporting international students for participating in protests or writing op-eds; kicking reporters out of White House press conferences based on their publications’ coverage; and bringing frivolous defamation lawsuits against media outlets.
The general message, Fallow said, is that if you disagree with Trump or his allies “you’re going to be in the administration’s crosshairs”.
Although some people have defended the suspension of Kimmel or the firings of professors on the grounds that these are private employer decisions, and not matters of first amendment-protected public speech, Dubal and other experts feel that the government’s increasingly naked involvement makes it difficult for that argument to carry water.
“Here … you have a vice-president [Vance] who’s calling for employers [and] third-party vigilante organizations and individuals to force employers to terminate their employees and others based on speech,” Dubal said. “Coercive government speech is very different than the creation of political cultures where it’s not okay to say certain things based on social response. I think what we’re seeing is really, at least for my own lifetime, unprecedented.”
Conservatives are making arguments similar to the ones that some progressives used to make about cancel culture, Terr noted, particularly during the wave of firings, de-platformings, and social-media shamings that occurred during the national “reckoning” after George Floyd’s murder. “And conservatives at the time, I think rightly, argued that we should think of free speech not just as a legal right, but as a broader cultural value.”
Now, Terr said, “many of the same politicians who have long railed against cancel culture are leading the loudest calls for censorship – often using, either explicitly or implicitly, rationales that they’ve dismissed when invoked by the left: ‘This is hate speech.’ ‘This is misinformation.’ ‘This will lead to violence.’ ‘Stochastic terrorism.’ ‘This speech makes us unsafe.’ It’s amazing. And I think the lesson here is that once the justification for censorship is put on the table, it’s a loaded gun just waiting to be picked up by the other side.”
Some conservatives have pushed back. Bondi’s remarks, especially, were condemned by rightwing commentators including Matt Walsh and Tucker Carlson. Referring to Bondi, Walsh wrote on social media: “Get rid of her. Today. This is insane. Conservatives have fought for decades for the right to refuse service to anyone … Now Pam Bondi wants to roll it all back for no reason.”
Walsh also argued that a crackdown on speech would come back to haunt the right: “Every Trump supporter right now applauding Trump threatening ABC with consequences unless they suspend Jimmy Kimmel must also applaud when a Democratic president in 4yrs threatens Fox News with consequences unless they suspend Greg Gutfeld. Hey Maga, do you understand?”
Dubal said she thought conservative pundits were right to lambast Bondi. “There are principles of speech in this country that apply broadly … and the idea that they were going to go after businesses and individuals based on protected speech was really kind of shocking.”
The late Kirk was an inconsistent defender of free speech – his organization, Turning Point USA, famously maintains a “watchlist” of professors it describes as dangerously leftwing – but some conservatives have argued that Kirk would not want the right to turn against free expression. “You hope that Charlie Kirk’s death won’t be used by … bad actors to create a society that was the opposite of the one he worked to build,” Carlson recently said.
J Oliver Conroy
Sat, September 20, 2025
THE GUARDIAN
Jimmy Kimmel speaks in to a microphone as someone holds a phone with Trump's mouth over the top of his mouthIllustration: Guardian Design/Andy Kropa/Getty
Jimmy Kimmel speaks in to a microphone as someone holds a phone with Trump's mouth over the top of his mouthIllustration: Guardian Design/Andy Kropa/Getty
In the emotionally and politically charged days since the killing of Charlie Kirk, the conservative youth activist who was a close ally of Donald Trump, one statement has loomed large. On Monday, the US attorney general – the official in charge of the rule of law in America – said that the Trump administration would “absolutely target” those who espouse “hate speech” about Kirk.
Unlike in many other countries, hate speech is protected by US law unless it incites imminent violence or constitutes a true threat. But that did not deter the nation’s top law enforcement officer, who also suggested that – for example – a print shop employee who refused to print flyers memorializing Kirk could be “prosecuted”.
Since Kirk was shot to death while speaking to college students in Utah earlier this month, the US has been gripped by a bitter debate about the relation between political speech and violence. Bondi later walked back some of her remarks, in part because of criticism from other conservatives worried about the reframing of “free speech” as “hate speech”. But Trump, Vice-President JD Vance, White House adviser Stephen Miller and other top Republicans have framed Kirk’s death as the consequence of what they claim is unchecked and violent rhetoric, which they blame on the left wing alone.
It is a remarkable turn from prominent American conservatives, who until Trump’s return to power in January had long complained of a censorious leftwing “cancel culture” but now seem happy to reframe that, too, as “consequence culture”. Nancy Mace, a House representative, sounded a lot like the progressives she has often decried for their political correctness when she declared last week, during an effort to censure one of her opponents in Congress, that “free speech isn’t free from consequences”.
Many conservatives are also now championing a public campaign to get fired from their jobs any Americans who made light of Kirk’s death or disparaged him or his politics in death. Meanwhile, administration officials are proceeding with drafting an executive order for Trump aiming to “combat political violence and hate speech”, the New York Times recently reported.
Kirk’s assassination was a “despicable act of political violence, an attack on a figure who built his brand around campus debating, and the outrage, grief, and anger is understandable”, Aaron Terr, the director of public advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (Fire), said.
But instead of recommitting to free speech as a “fundamental value”, the response from many public officials “has been the opposite. They are using the tragedy to justify a broad crackdown on speech,” he said.
“They are openly collapsing the distinction between political dissent and political violence, and it sounds like they are laying the foundation for mass censorship and surveillance of political critics.”
The pressure campaign’s biggest trophy so far is the talk show host Jimmy Kimmel. After an episode of his show in which Kimmel seemed to suggest (wrongly, according to reports) that Kirk’s assassin had Maga sympathies, the Trump-appointed chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the government agency that regulates broadcasting, urged TV networks to drop Kimmel’s show. On Wednesday, ABC announced that it was suspending the program indefinitely.
The FCC chair, Brendan Carr, applauded ABC’s surrender – even though just two years ago he said that free speech is a crucial “check on government control. That is why censorship is the authoritarian’s dream.”
“It’s an overreaction,” Katie Fallow, an attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute, said, “and it is an example of the kind of ‘cancel culture’ that major figures on the right have been criticizing for so many years. Now they’re just doing a complete about-face and engaging in it themselves.”
Bondi’s rhetoric is a particularly “alarming threat” given her status overseeing American law enforcement, Veena Dubal, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, and the general counsel of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), said. It is also “a signal that not only does this administration not care about the first amendment, they don’t seem to really understand it.”
Although Kimmel is the most prominent media figure to have been punished so far, in recent days a number of journalists have faced the loss of their jobs or other disciplinary measures, either at the direct instigation of conservative pressure or in seeming preemption of it. Earlier in the week the Washington Post – under Jeff Bezos, who has cosied up to Trump and whose ownership has seen the opinion section move closer to the political right – terminated the columnist Karen Attiah for, she said, her unflattering writing about Kirk’s political views.
Academics, too, are under threat, with three professors at Clemson University in South Carolina recently fired for making allegedly inappropriate social media posts about Kirk’s death. Dubal is concerned by this aggressive campaign to get professors fired or disciplined for their “extramural” speech, particularly when academics are often contractually entitled to rigorous processes before they can be terminated.
It seems as though many employers have decided that it is worth violating principles of academic freedom and contractual obligation, she said, rather than “displease the president, or displease rightwing donors. And that’s a political calculation, it’s a legal calculation. But it’s dangerous.”
Indeed, Fallow finds the attempt to suppress speech after Kirk’s death disturbing because she sees it as part of a larger and “unprecedented” attempt by the second Trump administration to use “every available lever of power to try and suppress dissent and chill speech” – including but not limited to threatening universities with investigations or financial penalties because of protests on campus; targeting law firms with executive orders for their legal work; deporting international students for participating in protests or writing op-eds; kicking reporters out of White House press conferences based on their publications’ coverage; and bringing frivolous defamation lawsuits against media outlets.
The general message, Fallow said, is that if you disagree with Trump or his allies “you’re going to be in the administration’s crosshairs”.
Although some people have defended the suspension of Kimmel or the firings of professors on the grounds that these are private employer decisions, and not matters of first amendment-protected public speech, Dubal and other experts feel that the government’s increasingly naked involvement makes it difficult for that argument to carry water.
“Here … you have a vice-president [Vance] who’s calling for employers [and] third-party vigilante organizations and individuals to force employers to terminate their employees and others based on speech,” Dubal said. “Coercive government speech is very different than the creation of political cultures where it’s not okay to say certain things based on social response. I think what we’re seeing is really, at least for my own lifetime, unprecedented.”
Conservatives are making arguments similar to the ones that some progressives used to make about cancel culture, Terr noted, particularly during the wave of firings, de-platformings, and social-media shamings that occurred during the national “reckoning” after George Floyd’s murder. “And conservatives at the time, I think rightly, argued that we should think of free speech not just as a legal right, but as a broader cultural value.”
Now, Terr said, “many of the same politicians who have long railed against cancel culture are leading the loudest calls for censorship – often using, either explicitly or implicitly, rationales that they’ve dismissed when invoked by the left: ‘This is hate speech.’ ‘This is misinformation.’ ‘This will lead to violence.’ ‘Stochastic terrorism.’ ‘This speech makes us unsafe.’ It’s amazing. And I think the lesson here is that once the justification for censorship is put on the table, it’s a loaded gun just waiting to be picked up by the other side.”
Some conservatives have pushed back. Bondi’s remarks, especially, were condemned by rightwing commentators including Matt Walsh and Tucker Carlson. Referring to Bondi, Walsh wrote on social media: “Get rid of her. Today. This is insane. Conservatives have fought for decades for the right to refuse service to anyone … Now Pam Bondi wants to roll it all back for no reason.”
Walsh also argued that a crackdown on speech would come back to haunt the right: “Every Trump supporter right now applauding Trump threatening ABC with consequences unless they suspend Jimmy Kimmel must also applaud when a Democratic president in 4yrs threatens Fox News with consequences unless they suspend Greg Gutfeld. Hey Maga, do you understand?”
Dubal said she thought conservative pundits were right to lambast Bondi. “There are principles of speech in this country that apply broadly … and the idea that they were going to go after businesses and individuals based on protected speech was really kind of shocking.”
The late Kirk was an inconsistent defender of free speech – his organization, Turning Point USA, famously maintains a “watchlist” of professors it describes as dangerously leftwing – but some conservatives have argued that Kirk would not want the right to turn against free expression. “You hope that Charlie Kirk’s death won’t be used by … bad actors to create a society that was the opposite of the one he worked to build,” Carlson recently said.
THEY ONLY BELIEVE IN THE SECOND AMENDMENT
Analysis by Aaron Blake, CNN
Fri, September 19, 2025
President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media on the South Lawn of the White House on September 16. - Bonnie Cash/UPI/Bloomberg/Getty Images
When Elon Musk took control of Twitter in 2022, he famously declared himself a “free speech absolutist.” He reinstated accounts that had been banned for spreading misinformation, violent rhetoric and harassment. If it wasn’t illegal, he signaled, it was fair game.
Musk expressed a very different view this week.
“The path forward is not to mimic the ACLU of the mid 90’s,” White House adviser Stephen Miller posted on X (formerly Twitter), referring to the epitomic free-speech-absolutist organization. “It is to take all necessary and rational steps to save Western Civilization.”
Musk responded with one word: “Yes.”
In other words: Free speech absolutism? Not so much anymore. We’ve got a civilization to preserve.
Musk is hardly alone in this sentiment. As President Donald Trump and his administration have threatened an increasingly harsh crackdown on the political left in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination last week, a growing number of allies have suddenly expressed a narrower view of Americans’ free speech rights.
Yes, they say, they support the First Amendment. But they also suggest the times call for a new approach – one that’s often at odds with their former rhetoric
The other case in point is Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming. In an interview with Semafor, Lummis was remarkably blunt about her own sudden recalculation.
“Under normal times, in normal circumstances, I tend to think that the First Amendment should always be sort of the ultimate right,” she said, “and that there should be almost no checks and balances on it.”
Then she added: “I don’t feel that way anymore.”
Sen. Cynthia Lummis at the US Capitol on July 1.
Charlie Kirk holds a debate event at the University of Washington in Seattle, on May 7, 2024. - David Ryder/Reuters
“Charlie said that there was no such thing as hate speech,” Fox host Martha MacCallum told the president in an interview. She was citing a 2024 Kirk quote in which he said hate speech “does not exist legally in America” and is protected by the First Amendment.
“Yes,” Trump said, before adding: “He might not be saying that now.”
Trump later complained that free speech has come to mean “you’re, like, able to do anything.”
This exchange is particularly remarkable. Kirk’s past comments about free speech are a problem for Trump’s new crackdown. Kirk was a free-speech absolutist, if there ever was one. Many, including some on the right, have argued that what Bondi was saying on Monday and what Trump is trying to do are anathema to Kirk’s views – and it’s all being justified in his name.
And the fact that Trump now feels the need to explain away Kirk’s comments on hate speech suggests he’s headed in a decidedly un-Kirk direction on the issue of free speech.
That’s a shift from where he and his allies had been, even earlier in this term. On Trump’s first day in office, he signed an executive order ostensibly aimed at taking the government out of the speech-policing business. “Government censorship of speech is intolerable in a free society,” it said. Miller, likewise, in 2022 labeled free speech the “cornerstone of democratic self-government” and equated censorship to fascism.
Not all Republicans are toeing the new line, though. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas on Friday became the strongest GOP critic yet of Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr’s role in pressuring ABC to suspend Kimmel.
Cruz called it “dangerous as hell” and “right out of ‘Goodfellas,’” going on to argue Democrats would use that precedent against conservatives when back in power.
“They will silence us,” Cruz added. “They will use this power, and they will use it ruthlessly.”
The increasing question is whether the American people are going to tolerate this sudden downplaying of First Amendment concerns.
It could be a tough sell, including on the right.
A demonstrator holds a sign reading "Protect Free Speech" outside the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California, on Thursday. - David Pashaee/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images
A 2022 Siena College poll for the New York Times opinion section showed just 30% of Americans said there is sometimes a need to shut down free speech if it’s “anti-democratic, bigoted or simply untrue.” Just 26% of Republicans took this view.
A Vanderbilt University poll last year showed Americans said 59%-41% that free speech should be unfettered – that it shouldn’t be restricted by content, speaker or subject. And the right was much more likely to take that view; 70% of Republicans and 77% of MAGA Republicans agreed there should be no such restrictions.
Gauging views on speech is difficult, because “free speech absolutism” is rarely truly absolute. Most everyone agrees that things like inciting violence aren’t protected.
But the Trump administration is clearly targeting speech that comes up well shy of that standard. Kimmel’s purported offense was saying something that made it sound like Kirk’s assassin was MAGA. And Trump is talking about stripping the licenses of broadcasters for being too critical of him.
So they’ve set about trying to convince their supporters that the times are extraordinary enough for truly extraordinary measures – like disowning their own high-minded views from the very recent past.
Shakari Briggs
Fri, September 19, 2025
Houston Chronicle
WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA-JULY 26: Charlie Kirk, who founded Turning Point USA, speaks before former President Donald Trump's arrival during a Turning Point USA Believers Summit conference at the Palm Beach Convention Center on July 26, 2024 in West Palm Beach, Florida. Trump had earlier in the day met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago.
What are your rights to free speech in the workplace?
According to Zach Greenberg, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression's (FIRE) faculty legal defense, public employees who work for the government, such as public school teachers, have the First Amendment that protects their rights to speak.
Under the First Amendment, those individuals have the right to speak in their private capacities on matters of public concern, and that includes the right to speak on social media to discuss political issues like the Charlie Kirk assassination.
Is there a difference between First Amendment rights when it comes to public sector and private sector jobs?
Greenberg says public universities and institutions are bound by the First Amendment. Therefore, they're legally required under the Constitution to protect their employees' free speech rights.
However, private institutions, universities and companies are not bound by the First Amendment. Those entities are "free to do what they want, subject to the state law and their own internal rules."
Does a social media policy in the workplace override an employee's use of free speech?
Greenberg outlined that the First Amendment, which is a part of the Constitution, is the "supreme law of the land," making it supersede "any state or federal or local policy to the contrary."
Are there limitations to the First Amendment when it comes to one's rights being violated?
If one works for a private company, Greenberg says the limitations come down to the company's own policies and state law.
"Some states have rules that punish employees for their speech, such as their political affiliation, but it wouldn't be a First Amendment issue; that would be a state law or contract issue between you and the company."
Is it illegal for a governor to demand that public and/or private universities expel students for freedom of speech?
Greenberg says that, based on the law, governors still must obey the First Amendment and respect people's free speech rights.
"The governor can pressure schools to punish students and professors with what they say, but the schools cannot act on those requests," he said. "That would violate the rights of individuals."
What legal recourse do students, teachers and professors have for being punished for expressing their views?
Greenberg insists that anyone facing university suspension can use the First Amendment to defend themselves in the proceedings. Additionally, he says they can hire an attorney to sue the university for First Amendment retaliation under 42 U.S. Code § 1983. That also applies to educators whose First Amendment rights have been violated due to political pressure.
"The First Amendment does not protect speech that incites violence or unlawful behavior, but it does protect Texans' right to criticize public figures - including their past words and actions - even if that speech offends or provokes controversy," ACLU of Texas said in a statement. "Any government or institution that punishes or threatens to punish this type of speech, especially under pressure from political leaders, raises serious constitutional concerns.
"We urge Texas leaders and schools to uphold our democratic values of open inquiry, academic freedom, and free expression. Our democracy depends on respectful dialogue - not censorship, retaliation, or violence."
White House threats against liberal groups test free speech protections
Rebecca Beitsch
Analysis by Aaron Blake, CNN
Fri, September 19, 2025
President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media on the South Lawn of the White House on September 16. - Bonnie Cash/UPI/Bloomberg/Getty Images
When Elon Musk took control of Twitter in 2022, he famously declared himself a “free speech absolutist.” He reinstated accounts that had been banned for spreading misinformation, violent rhetoric and harassment. If it wasn’t illegal, he signaled, it was fair game.
Musk expressed a very different view this week.
“The path forward is not to mimic the ACLU of the mid 90’s,” White House adviser Stephen Miller posted on X (formerly Twitter), referring to the epitomic free-speech-absolutist organization. “It is to take all necessary and rational steps to save Western Civilization.”
Musk responded with one word: “Yes.”
In other words: Free speech absolutism? Not so much anymore. We’ve got a civilization to preserve.
Musk is hardly alone in this sentiment. As President Donald Trump and his administration have threatened an increasingly harsh crackdown on the political left in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination last week, a growing number of allies have suddenly expressed a narrower view of Americans’ free speech rights.
Yes, they say, they support the First Amendment. But they also suggest the times call for a new approach – one that’s often at odds with their former rhetoric
The other case in point is Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming. In an interview with Semafor, Lummis was remarkably blunt about her own sudden recalculation.
“Under normal times, in normal circumstances, I tend to think that the First Amendment should always be sort of the ultimate right,” she said, “and that there should be almost no checks and balances on it.”
Then she added: “I don’t feel that way anymore.”
Sen. Cynthia Lummis at the US Capitol on July 1.
- Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg/Getty Images/File
The Wyoming senator suggested a crackdown on people saying “insane things” and connected it to political violence like Kirk’s assassination.
Just two years ago, Lummis introduced the “Free Speech Protection Act,” which would have barred the government from directing online platforms to censor constitutionally protected speech. “If we let the Biden administration restrict our freedom of speech,” she said at the time, “there is no telling what other sacred freedoms they will come for next.
Lummis said out loud what plenty of others have suggested. High-profile Trump allies have also downplayed the importance of protecting free speech rights at this moment, suggesting drastic times call for drastic measures.
Attorney General Pam Bondi signaled Monday, in comments she later tried to clarify, that the government would prosecute people for hate speech – this despite the Supreme Court having affirmed over and over again that hate speech is protected.
“There’s free speech, and then there’s hate speech – and there’s no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society,” Bondi said on a podcast.
She later claimed she didn’t mean to refer to hate speech broadly, but to speech that’s inciting violence.
On Fox News on Thursday, former Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said ABC’s suspension of Jimmy Kimmel amid clear pressure from the Trump administration “has nothing to do with the First Amendment.”
“For all the concern about ‘The First Amendment! The First Amendment!’ I mean, they are apoplectic, Jesse,” McEnany told host Jesse Watters. “What about all the amendments that Charlie Kirk lost? Because Charlie Kirk has no amendments right now. None.”
And perhaps most strikingly, Trump suggested Thursday that Kirk himself might suddenly reevaluate his views on free speech if he were alive today.
The Wyoming senator suggested a crackdown on people saying “insane things” and connected it to political violence like Kirk’s assassination.
Just two years ago, Lummis introduced the “Free Speech Protection Act,” which would have barred the government from directing online platforms to censor constitutionally protected speech. “If we let the Biden administration restrict our freedom of speech,” she said at the time, “there is no telling what other sacred freedoms they will come for next.
Lummis said out loud what plenty of others have suggested. High-profile Trump allies have also downplayed the importance of protecting free speech rights at this moment, suggesting drastic times call for drastic measures.
Attorney General Pam Bondi signaled Monday, in comments she later tried to clarify, that the government would prosecute people for hate speech – this despite the Supreme Court having affirmed over and over again that hate speech is protected.
“There’s free speech, and then there’s hate speech – and there’s no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society,” Bondi said on a podcast.
She later claimed she didn’t mean to refer to hate speech broadly, but to speech that’s inciting violence.
On Fox News on Thursday, former Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said ABC’s suspension of Jimmy Kimmel amid clear pressure from the Trump administration “has nothing to do with the First Amendment.”
“For all the concern about ‘The First Amendment! The First Amendment!’ I mean, they are apoplectic, Jesse,” McEnany told host Jesse Watters. “What about all the amendments that Charlie Kirk lost? Because Charlie Kirk has no amendments right now. None.”
And perhaps most strikingly, Trump suggested Thursday that Kirk himself might suddenly reevaluate his views on free speech if he were alive today.
Charlie Kirk holds a debate event at the University of Washington in Seattle, on May 7, 2024. - David Ryder/Reuters
“Charlie said that there was no such thing as hate speech,” Fox host Martha MacCallum told the president in an interview. She was citing a 2024 Kirk quote in which he said hate speech “does not exist legally in America” and is protected by the First Amendment.
“Yes,” Trump said, before adding: “He might not be saying that now.”
Trump later complained that free speech has come to mean “you’re, like, able to do anything.”
This exchange is particularly remarkable. Kirk’s past comments about free speech are a problem for Trump’s new crackdown. Kirk was a free-speech absolutist, if there ever was one. Many, including some on the right, have argued that what Bondi was saying on Monday and what Trump is trying to do are anathema to Kirk’s views – and it’s all being justified in his name.
And the fact that Trump now feels the need to explain away Kirk’s comments on hate speech suggests he’s headed in a decidedly un-Kirk direction on the issue of free speech.
That’s a shift from where he and his allies had been, even earlier in this term. On Trump’s first day in office, he signed an executive order ostensibly aimed at taking the government out of the speech-policing business. “Government censorship of speech is intolerable in a free society,” it said. Miller, likewise, in 2022 labeled free speech the “cornerstone of democratic self-government” and equated censorship to fascism.
Not all Republicans are toeing the new line, though. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas on Friday became the strongest GOP critic yet of Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr’s role in pressuring ABC to suspend Kimmel.
Cruz called it “dangerous as hell” and “right out of ‘Goodfellas,’” going on to argue Democrats would use that precedent against conservatives when back in power.
“They will silence us,” Cruz added. “They will use this power, and they will use it ruthlessly.”
The increasing question is whether the American people are going to tolerate this sudden downplaying of First Amendment concerns.
It could be a tough sell, including on the right.
A demonstrator holds a sign reading "Protect Free Speech" outside the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California, on Thursday. - David Pashaee/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images
A 2022 Siena College poll for the New York Times opinion section showed just 30% of Americans said there is sometimes a need to shut down free speech if it’s “anti-democratic, bigoted or simply untrue.” Just 26% of Republicans took this view.
A Vanderbilt University poll last year showed Americans said 59%-41% that free speech should be unfettered – that it shouldn’t be restricted by content, speaker or subject. And the right was much more likely to take that view; 70% of Republicans and 77% of MAGA Republicans agreed there should be no such restrictions.
Gauging views on speech is difficult, because “free speech absolutism” is rarely truly absolute. Most everyone agrees that things like inciting violence aren’t protected.
But the Trump administration is clearly targeting speech that comes up well shy of that standard. Kimmel’s purported offense was saying something that made it sound like Kirk’s assassin was MAGA. And Trump is talking about stripping the licenses of broadcasters for being too critical of him.
So they’ve set about trying to convince their supporters that the times are extraordinary enough for truly extraordinary measures – like disowning their own high-minded views from the very recent past.
Charlie Kirk's death sparked a free speech debate. Here's what experts say about First Amendment rights.
Shakari Briggs
Fri, September 19, 2025
Houston Chronicle
WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA-JULY 26: Charlie Kirk, who founded Turning Point USA, speaks before former President Donald Trump's arrival during a Turning Point USA Believers Summit conference at the Palm Beach Convention Center on July 26, 2024 in West Palm Beach, Florida. Trump had earlier in the day met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago.
Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) (Joe Raedle/Getty Images
After the death of right-wing conservative Charlie Kirk, a swell of conservatives is pushing to punish those who speak out about the 31-year-old's political assassination.
People across the country have been fired from their jobs and students have been expelled from school for their comments about Kirk, sparking a debate about freedom of speech.
"Political violence is a threat to our democracy," ACLU of Texas said in a statement. "The growing pattern of disciplinary responses to speech across Texas - including suspensions, firings and institutional investigations - is also a threat to our democracy. While some institutional policies may allow for some of these responses, the overall pattern risks stifling free speech.
Despite being a proponent of free speech, Charlie Kirk's legacy has been accompanied by silencing discourse from detractors. In a major move by Walt Disney Company, which owns ABC Network, the media conglomerate suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live! Wednesday in what they called a decision to preempt the show "indefinitely."
The action came on the heels of Kimmel's Monday night monologue that included remarks about Kirk and President Donald Trump.
Critics argue the move comes as both Disney and Nexstar Communications Group have business dealings with the Federal Communications Commission. Disney hopes to get regulatory approval for ESPN's acquisition of the NFL Network. At the same time, Nexstar needs Trump's approval to close out its $6.2 billion purchase of Tegna Inc., a rival broadcasting company.
Nexstar said it planned to pull Jimmy Kimmel Live! as early as Wednesday, describing Kimmel's comments as "offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse."
"In general, government cannot constitutionally punish people for saying things the government doesn't like," said Rebecca Tushnet, Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment at Harvard Law School. "That's long been a pillar of American free speech law; whether it continues to be true depends a lot on whether individuals and institutions push back against this coercion."
In back-to-back calls for action, Gov. Greg Abbott demanded that the administration at two Texas universities expel students for their remarks about Kirk. Texas State University moved swiftly to expel a student just hours after Abbott insisted the public institution set an example.
While it's unclear if Texas Tech University expelled its students, officials did confirm the student was no longer enrolled. In both instances, viral videos showed each student making fun of Kirk's untimely demise.
"Students expelled from public universities on the basis of their speech could sue for reinstatement and potentially for damages, and they should win," Tushnet told the Chronicle. "Given how long litigation can take, however, that can be cold comfort."
What is the First Amendment?
The First Amendment protects freedom of speech. It states, in part, that Congress shall make no law... abridging freedom of speech."
Written as part of the Bill of Rights proposed by the First Congress in September 1789, the First Amendment protects the right to freedom of religion and expression from government interference.
After the death of right-wing conservative Charlie Kirk, a swell of conservatives is pushing to punish those who speak out about the 31-year-old's political assassination.
People across the country have been fired from their jobs and students have been expelled from school for their comments about Kirk, sparking a debate about freedom of speech.
"Political violence is a threat to our democracy," ACLU of Texas said in a statement. "The growing pattern of disciplinary responses to speech across Texas - including suspensions, firings and institutional investigations - is also a threat to our democracy. While some institutional policies may allow for some of these responses, the overall pattern risks stifling free speech.
Despite being a proponent of free speech, Charlie Kirk's legacy has been accompanied by silencing discourse from detractors. In a major move by Walt Disney Company, which owns ABC Network, the media conglomerate suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live! Wednesday in what they called a decision to preempt the show "indefinitely."
The action came on the heels of Kimmel's Monday night monologue that included remarks about Kirk and President Donald Trump.
Critics argue the move comes as both Disney and Nexstar Communications Group have business dealings with the Federal Communications Commission. Disney hopes to get regulatory approval for ESPN's acquisition of the NFL Network. At the same time, Nexstar needs Trump's approval to close out its $6.2 billion purchase of Tegna Inc., a rival broadcasting company.
Nexstar said it planned to pull Jimmy Kimmel Live! as early as Wednesday, describing Kimmel's comments as "offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse."
"In general, government cannot constitutionally punish people for saying things the government doesn't like," said Rebecca Tushnet, Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment at Harvard Law School. "That's long been a pillar of American free speech law; whether it continues to be true depends a lot on whether individuals and institutions push back against this coercion."
In back-to-back calls for action, Gov. Greg Abbott demanded that the administration at two Texas universities expel students for their remarks about Kirk. Texas State University moved swiftly to expel a student just hours after Abbott insisted the public institution set an example.
While it's unclear if Texas Tech University expelled its students, officials did confirm the student was no longer enrolled. In both instances, viral videos showed each student making fun of Kirk's untimely demise.
"Students expelled from public universities on the basis of their speech could sue for reinstatement and potentially for damages, and they should win," Tushnet told the Chronicle. "Given how long litigation can take, however, that can be cold comfort."
What is the First Amendment?
The First Amendment protects freedom of speech. It states, in part, that Congress shall make no law... abridging freedom of speech."
Written as part of the Bill of Rights proposed by the First Congress in September 1789, the First Amendment protects the right to freedom of religion and expression from government interference.
What are your rights to free speech in the workplace?
According to Zach Greenberg, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression's (FIRE) faculty legal defense, public employees who work for the government, such as public school teachers, have the First Amendment that protects their rights to speak.
Under the First Amendment, those individuals have the right to speak in their private capacities on matters of public concern, and that includes the right to speak on social media to discuss political issues like the Charlie Kirk assassination.
Is there a difference between First Amendment rights when it comes to public sector and private sector jobs?
Greenberg says public universities and institutions are bound by the First Amendment. Therefore, they're legally required under the Constitution to protect their employees' free speech rights.
However, private institutions, universities and companies are not bound by the First Amendment. Those entities are "free to do what they want, subject to the state law and their own internal rules."
Does a social media policy in the workplace override an employee's use of free speech?
Greenberg outlined that the First Amendment, which is a part of the Constitution, is the "supreme law of the land," making it supersede "any state or federal or local policy to the contrary."
Are there limitations to the First Amendment when it comes to one's rights being violated?
If one works for a private company, Greenberg says the limitations come down to the company's own policies and state law.
"Some states have rules that punish employees for their speech, such as their political affiliation, but it wouldn't be a First Amendment issue; that would be a state law or contract issue between you and the company."
Is it illegal for a governor to demand that public and/or private universities expel students for freedom of speech?
Greenberg says that, based on the law, governors still must obey the First Amendment and respect people's free speech rights.
"The governor can pressure schools to punish students and professors with what they say, but the schools cannot act on those requests," he said. "That would violate the rights of individuals."
What legal recourse do students, teachers and professors have for being punished for expressing their views?
Greenberg insists that anyone facing university suspension can use the First Amendment to defend themselves in the proceedings. Additionally, he says they can hire an attorney to sue the university for First Amendment retaliation under 42 U.S. Code § 1983. That also applies to educators whose First Amendment rights have been violated due to political pressure.
"The First Amendment does not protect speech that incites violence or unlawful behavior, but it does protect Texans' right to criticize public figures - including their past words and actions - even if that speech offends or provokes controversy," ACLU of Texas said in a statement. "Any government or institution that punishes or threatens to punish this type of speech, especially under pressure from political leaders, raises serious constitutional concerns.
"We urge Texas leaders and schools to uphold our democratic values of open inquiry, academic freedom, and free expression. Our democracy depends on respectful dialogue - not censorship, retaliation, or violence."
White House threats against liberal groups test free speech protections
Rebecca Beitsch
THE HILL
Fri, September 19, 2025
The Trump administration’s plans to go after left-leaning groups are prompting fear among nonprofits and activists that the government will run roughshod over the First Amendment in an effort to target them in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
Vice President Vance and Stephen Miller, a White House deputy chief of staff, made clear they would use Kirk’s death as a rallying cry to target left-wing groups they claimed were disproportionately responsible for provoking political violence.
“With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people,” Miller said in a conversation with Vance, who was guest hosting Kirk’s show this week.
“We’re going to go after the NGO [nongovernmental organization] network that foments, facilitates and engages in violence,” Vance added.
There’s no indication Kirk’s shooter had broader associations, but Vance vaguely accused “radical left lunatics” of fomenting extremism.
It’s not clear what the legal basis would be for any prosecution, and also unclear is whom they plan to go after — though 100 different nonprofits immediately sensed they may be a target.
In an open letter Wednesday, the groups — which have spoken out against political violence — said such moves would impact both their advocacy and their funding.
“Organizations should not be attacked for carrying out their missions or expressing their values in support of the communities they serve. We reject attempts to exploit political violence to mischaracterize our good work or restrict our fundamental freedoms, like freedom of speech and the freedom to give. Attempts to silence speech, criminalize opposing viewpoints, and misrepresent and limit charitable giving undermine our democracy and harm all Americans,” the coalition said in the letter.
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) said such efforts would be a clear abuse of the justice system and a Constitution that protects free speech, but would nonetheless let the process be the punishment for vulnerable groups.
“They are just looking for an excuse to go after nonprofits, liberal groups … what they call the racial left … so that they can bring the weight of the federal government down on them, even though they have no evidence that they have done anything wrong that would warrant an investigation,” Goldman, a former federal prosecutor, told The Hill.
“They could come up with some, you know, small nonprofit that supports immigrants, or that opposes domestic violent extremists or white nationalists. And they could issue subpoenas all their documents and records and all this stuff, which would then require them to get a lawyer and require them to spend tens of thousands of dollars just responding to the subpoena,” he added, saying it could “bankrupt them and destroy them.”
“Many small organizations do not have that money, and so this is really just a pretext to run these small organizations out of business.”
The comments come amid a broader effort by the Trump administration to target speech in the wake of Kirk’s death.
Vance endorsed calling out and even reaching out to the employer of people viewed as having unsavory views.
And Attorney General Pam Bondi found herself in hot water after saying she would go after those who promote hate speech — which is largely protected under the First Amendment — and even threatened to prosecute Office Depot over an employee’s refusal to print posters for a vigil honoring Kirk.
Nonetheless, administration officials are said to be preparing an executive order that would address political violence, though the details of that order are still being finalized.
In the meantime, multiple Justice Department officials have suggested they could use federal racketeering laws, known as RICO, to target left-wing groups they claim are working together to target others through doxing.
In raising the idea of RICO charges, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche this week cited the case of a group of progressives who protested the president during his night out for dinner in Washington, D.C.
Vance also suggested the administration could specifically target the Ford Foundation and the Open Society Foundations, both of which have ties to liberal megadonor George Soros.
And Trump late Wednesday announced he was designating antifa as a domestic terrorist group, a move that won plaudits on the right but had unclear practical implications.
Trump previously made a similar declaration in 2020, and federal officials have said antifa is a decentralized movement without a clear leader or structure. Trump said Wednesday he would recommend investigations into those funding antifa, an indication the declaration could be used to more broadly crackdown on left-wing groups the administration is skeptical of.
However, most major left-leaning groups and institutions have categorically condemned Kirk’s killing and political violence generally.
“They’re just trying to be very threatening to left wing, or groups that they perceive to be left wing. And I think it’s red meat for their base. … There’s no evidence I’ve seen that any of these particular groups did anything to feed into the murder,” said Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.), a former prosecutor.
“So I think it’s an overall attack on the First Amendment, ironically, because they’re trying to praise Kirk for being such a First Amendment proponent, but they’re doing things to undermine it across the board.”
Ivey said he saw no avenue to bring any charges against groups.
“I haven’t even heard grounds for a civil lawsuit against anybody. I haven’t seen anything really that would fall even close to that category. Certainly nothing to prosecute,” he said.
Blanche’s suggestion of RICO charges was also panned by the two former prosecutors.
“I think it demonstrates that they don’t know what they’re talking about,” Ivey said.
And Goldman, a former colleague of Blanche in the Southern District of New York, said the deputy attorney general was improperly citing RICO despite his familiarity with such cases.
“There’s no coordinated organization, and to start talking about RICO, where you would have to prove a criminal enterprise that is in the business of committing crimes and that has committed specific racketeering acts to be connected somehow to hate speech, is totally preposterous and is yet another degradation of the Department of Justice. And I’m frankly embarrassed for Todd Blanche that he actually went on TV and said that,” he said.
“Because I worked with Todd Blanche. Todd Blanche charged a lot of RICO cases when he was there. He knows what a RICO case is, and he knows that there is no possible way to use hate speech as a predicate for a RICO case, and for him to mislead the American people on national television about that brings disgrace to the Department of Justice.”
Some GOP voices have criticized the Trump administration for suggesting the Justice Department go after such groups.
“It’s not very unifying. There are some people saying terrible things out there, but the president and the vice president have the opportunity to speak to our higher angels. And you know, there’s Democrats who’ve been targeted. So I just, I wish it was more unifying,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a moderate, told The Hill.
“And by the way, I don’t mind shaming people if they say something bad. But using the force of government is not about freedom of speech. It’s anti freedom of speech. So I’m not aligned with the behavior. They don’t have the power — the Constitution gives people the right to say what they want.”
But Trump’s allies in Congress have also raised their eyebrows at the comments.
“Look, in America, it’s a very important part of our tradition that we do not — this is a conservative principle and certainly an American principle — we do not censor and silence disfavored viewpoints,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters this week.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) didn’t directly respond to the threats of prosecution but floated the creation of a select committee in Congress that could play a role in reviewing the work of left leaning groups.
He mentioned Soros’s group, migrant support groups, as well as the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit that works on voting rights and criminal justice reform in addition to its work monitoring white supremacists and other extremist groups.
“We just need to pursue the truth. And I present it to the American people,” he said.
“What I’m saying is the American people need to know the organization of the left. They act like they’re all like freakin’ puppies and unicorns and rainbows. ‘Look at us. We’re so nice. We love everybody.’ And the fact is, there, it’s an organized effort to attack the people that I represent.”
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
Fri, September 19, 2025
The Trump administration’s plans to go after left-leaning groups are prompting fear among nonprofits and activists that the government will run roughshod over the First Amendment in an effort to target them in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
Vice President Vance and Stephen Miller, a White House deputy chief of staff, made clear they would use Kirk’s death as a rallying cry to target left-wing groups they claimed were disproportionately responsible for provoking political violence.
“With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people,” Miller said in a conversation with Vance, who was guest hosting Kirk’s show this week.
“We’re going to go after the NGO [nongovernmental organization] network that foments, facilitates and engages in violence,” Vance added.
There’s no indication Kirk’s shooter had broader associations, but Vance vaguely accused “radical left lunatics” of fomenting extremism.
It’s not clear what the legal basis would be for any prosecution, and also unclear is whom they plan to go after — though 100 different nonprofits immediately sensed they may be a target.
In an open letter Wednesday, the groups — which have spoken out against political violence — said such moves would impact both their advocacy and their funding.
“Organizations should not be attacked for carrying out their missions or expressing their values in support of the communities they serve. We reject attempts to exploit political violence to mischaracterize our good work or restrict our fundamental freedoms, like freedom of speech and the freedom to give. Attempts to silence speech, criminalize opposing viewpoints, and misrepresent and limit charitable giving undermine our democracy and harm all Americans,” the coalition said in the letter.
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) said such efforts would be a clear abuse of the justice system and a Constitution that protects free speech, but would nonetheless let the process be the punishment for vulnerable groups.
“They are just looking for an excuse to go after nonprofits, liberal groups … what they call the racial left … so that they can bring the weight of the federal government down on them, even though they have no evidence that they have done anything wrong that would warrant an investigation,” Goldman, a former federal prosecutor, told The Hill.
“They could come up with some, you know, small nonprofit that supports immigrants, or that opposes domestic violent extremists or white nationalists. And they could issue subpoenas all their documents and records and all this stuff, which would then require them to get a lawyer and require them to spend tens of thousands of dollars just responding to the subpoena,” he added, saying it could “bankrupt them and destroy them.”
“Many small organizations do not have that money, and so this is really just a pretext to run these small organizations out of business.”
The comments come amid a broader effort by the Trump administration to target speech in the wake of Kirk’s death.
Vance endorsed calling out and even reaching out to the employer of people viewed as having unsavory views.
And Attorney General Pam Bondi found herself in hot water after saying she would go after those who promote hate speech — which is largely protected under the First Amendment — and even threatened to prosecute Office Depot over an employee’s refusal to print posters for a vigil honoring Kirk.
Nonetheless, administration officials are said to be preparing an executive order that would address political violence, though the details of that order are still being finalized.
In the meantime, multiple Justice Department officials have suggested they could use federal racketeering laws, known as RICO, to target left-wing groups they claim are working together to target others through doxing.
In raising the idea of RICO charges, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche this week cited the case of a group of progressives who protested the president during his night out for dinner in Washington, D.C.
Vance also suggested the administration could specifically target the Ford Foundation and the Open Society Foundations, both of which have ties to liberal megadonor George Soros.
And Trump late Wednesday announced he was designating antifa as a domestic terrorist group, a move that won plaudits on the right but had unclear practical implications.
Trump previously made a similar declaration in 2020, and federal officials have said antifa is a decentralized movement without a clear leader or structure. Trump said Wednesday he would recommend investigations into those funding antifa, an indication the declaration could be used to more broadly crackdown on left-wing groups the administration is skeptical of.
However, most major left-leaning groups and institutions have categorically condemned Kirk’s killing and political violence generally.
“They’re just trying to be very threatening to left wing, or groups that they perceive to be left wing. And I think it’s red meat for their base. … There’s no evidence I’ve seen that any of these particular groups did anything to feed into the murder,” said Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.), a former prosecutor.
“So I think it’s an overall attack on the First Amendment, ironically, because they’re trying to praise Kirk for being such a First Amendment proponent, but they’re doing things to undermine it across the board.”
Ivey said he saw no avenue to bring any charges against groups.
“I haven’t even heard grounds for a civil lawsuit against anybody. I haven’t seen anything really that would fall even close to that category. Certainly nothing to prosecute,” he said.
Blanche’s suggestion of RICO charges was also panned by the two former prosecutors.
“I think it demonstrates that they don’t know what they’re talking about,” Ivey said.
And Goldman, a former colleague of Blanche in the Southern District of New York, said the deputy attorney general was improperly citing RICO despite his familiarity with such cases.
“There’s no coordinated organization, and to start talking about RICO, where you would have to prove a criminal enterprise that is in the business of committing crimes and that has committed specific racketeering acts to be connected somehow to hate speech, is totally preposterous and is yet another degradation of the Department of Justice. And I’m frankly embarrassed for Todd Blanche that he actually went on TV and said that,” he said.
“Because I worked with Todd Blanche. Todd Blanche charged a lot of RICO cases when he was there. He knows what a RICO case is, and he knows that there is no possible way to use hate speech as a predicate for a RICO case, and for him to mislead the American people on national television about that brings disgrace to the Department of Justice.”
Some GOP voices have criticized the Trump administration for suggesting the Justice Department go after such groups.
“It’s not very unifying. There are some people saying terrible things out there, but the president and the vice president have the opportunity to speak to our higher angels. And you know, there’s Democrats who’ve been targeted. So I just, I wish it was more unifying,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a moderate, told The Hill.
“And by the way, I don’t mind shaming people if they say something bad. But using the force of government is not about freedom of speech. It’s anti freedom of speech. So I’m not aligned with the behavior. They don’t have the power — the Constitution gives people the right to say what they want.”
But Trump’s allies in Congress have also raised their eyebrows at the comments.
“Look, in America, it’s a very important part of our tradition that we do not — this is a conservative principle and certainly an American principle — we do not censor and silence disfavored viewpoints,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters this week.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) didn’t directly respond to the threats of prosecution but floated the creation of a select committee in Congress that could play a role in reviewing the work of left leaning groups.
He mentioned Soros’s group, migrant support groups, as well as the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit that works on voting rights and criminal justice reform in addition to its work monitoring white supremacists and other extremist groups.
“We just need to pursue the truth. And I present it to the American people,” he said.
“What I’m saying is the American people need to know the organization of the left. They act like they’re all like freakin’ puppies and unicorns and rainbows. ‘Look at us. We’re so nice. We love everybody.’ And the fact is, there, it’s an organized effort to attack the people that I represent.”
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
Some Republicans start rejecting the First Amendment’s free speech protections
Steve Benen
Fri, September 19, 2025
Steve Benen
Fri, September 19, 2025
MSNBC
By any fair measure, it’s been a rough week for the First Amendment. Donald Trump, for example, said “evening shows” are “not allowed” to criticize him, and networks that give him “only bad publicity” risk losing their broadcast licenses.
Alas, we can keep going. A federal agency helped push a comedian off the air. The attorney general vowed to go after speech she considered “hate speech.” The deputy attorney general talked about a possible federal investigation into people who heckled Trump at a restaurant. Responding to a conservative reporter who said that anti-war protesters near the White House “still have their First Amendment right,” the president replied, “Yeah, well, I’m not so sure.”
With the government’s encouragement, employers have punished, suspended or fired countless Americans who talked about Kirk’s death in ways the right didn’t like. Immigrants were told that government officials would monitor their speech and, if they expressed views about Kirk’s death in ways federal agencies found objectionable, that their visas could be revoked.
If that weren’t quite enough, Politico reported, “The Pentagon’s crackdown on employees accused of mocking Charlie Kirk’s death has startled troops, who fear an increasing stranglehold on what they’re allowed to say.”
But there’s no reason to assume we’ve reached the bottom.
Fox News’ Kayleigh McEnany argued on Thursday night to colleague Jesse Watters, “For all the concern about the ‘the First Amendment, the First Amendment’ — they’re apoplectic, Jesse — what about all the amendments that Charlie Kirk lost? Because Charlie Kirk has no amendments right now. None.”
I’m not altogether sure what that meant. For that matter, I’d be curious how Fox News responded if, after other deadly shootings, someone argued, “For all the concern about the ‘the Second Amendment, the Second Amendment,’ what about all the amendments that the victims lost? Because the victims have no amendments right now. None.”
But I think what McEnany was getting at is the idea that there was a tragic violent crime, which she suggested necessarily makes constitutional legal protections less important.
Those on-air comments followed an interview in which Fox News’ Martha MacCallum reminded Donald Trump that Kirk rejected the very idea of “hate speech.” The president replied, “He might not be saying that now.”
Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, others on the right are thinking along similar lines. Semafor reported:
In fact, some Republicans who consider themselves defenders of unfettered speech are getting more comfortable with limiting it. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., told Semafor that ‘an FCC license, it’s not a right. It really is a privilege.’
“Under normal times, in normal circumstances, I tend to think that the First Amendment should always be sort of the ultimate right,” the Wyoming Republican said. “And that there should be almost no checks and balances on it. I don’t feel that way anymore.”
The far-right senator added, “I feel like something’s changed culturally. And I think that there needs to be some cognizance that things have changed. We just can’t let people call each other those kinds of insane things and then be surprised when politicians get shot and the death threats they are receiving and then trying to get extra money for security.”
It’s possible that all of this is a short-term, immediate effect of a deadly tragedy, and that cooler heads will prevail in time. But it’s also possible that we’re watching a major political party, which is becoming increasingly comfortable with an authoritarian vision, fundamentally reassess its view of the First Amendment.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
By any fair measure, it’s been a rough week for the First Amendment. Donald Trump, for example, said “evening shows” are “not allowed” to criticize him, and networks that give him “only bad publicity” risk losing their broadcast licenses.
Alas, we can keep going. A federal agency helped push a comedian off the air. The attorney general vowed to go after speech she considered “hate speech.” The deputy attorney general talked about a possible federal investigation into people who heckled Trump at a restaurant. Responding to a conservative reporter who said that anti-war protesters near the White House “still have their First Amendment right,” the president replied, “Yeah, well, I’m not so sure.”
With the government’s encouragement, employers have punished, suspended or fired countless Americans who talked about Kirk’s death in ways the right didn’t like. Immigrants were told that government officials would monitor their speech and, if they expressed views about Kirk’s death in ways federal agencies found objectionable, that their visas could be revoked.
If that weren’t quite enough, Politico reported, “The Pentagon’s crackdown on employees accused of mocking Charlie Kirk’s death has startled troops, who fear an increasing stranglehold on what they’re allowed to say.”
But there’s no reason to assume we’ve reached the bottom.
Fox News’ Kayleigh McEnany argued on Thursday night to colleague Jesse Watters, “For all the concern about the ‘the First Amendment, the First Amendment’ — they’re apoplectic, Jesse — what about all the amendments that Charlie Kirk lost? Because Charlie Kirk has no amendments right now. None.”
I’m not altogether sure what that meant. For that matter, I’d be curious how Fox News responded if, after other deadly shootings, someone argued, “For all the concern about the ‘the Second Amendment, the Second Amendment,’ what about all the amendments that the victims lost? Because the victims have no amendments right now. None.”
But I think what McEnany was getting at is the idea that there was a tragic violent crime, which she suggested necessarily makes constitutional legal protections less important.
Those on-air comments followed an interview in which Fox News’ Martha MacCallum reminded Donald Trump that Kirk rejected the very idea of “hate speech.” The president replied, “He might not be saying that now.”
Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, others on the right are thinking along similar lines. Semafor reported:
In fact, some Republicans who consider themselves defenders of unfettered speech are getting more comfortable with limiting it. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., told Semafor that ‘an FCC license, it’s not a right. It really is a privilege.’
“Under normal times, in normal circumstances, I tend to think that the First Amendment should always be sort of the ultimate right,” the Wyoming Republican said. “And that there should be almost no checks and balances on it. I don’t feel that way anymore.”
The far-right senator added, “I feel like something’s changed culturally. And I think that there needs to be some cognizance that things have changed. We just can’t let people call each other those kinds of insane things and then be surprised when politicians get shot and the death threats they are receiving and then trying to get extra money for security.”
It’s possible that all of this is a short-term, immediate effect of a deadly tragedy, and that cooler heads will prevail in time. But it’s also possible that we’re watching a major political party, which is becoming increasingly comfortable with an authoritarian vision, fundamentally reassess its view of the First Amendment.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
