State of free speech in U.S.

The attorney general.

Yes.

Said hate speech is prosecutable.

Yes, hate speech is prosecutable. She tried to false-- absolutely false. Yeah, the First Amendment-- there is no exception for hate speech under the First Amendment, nor should there be. We have something called the bedrock principle in First Amendment law, which is essentially the idea that you can't ban something just because it's offensive. That's too subjective. That is too broad. And that--

Too subject to government abuse. Too subject to government abuse, exactly. But as she tried to walk it back-- and by the way, she walked it back very badly-- she still said things that were protected speech-- Donald Trump leaned in to this idea that hate speech is unprotected, even mentioning this to a reporter that you could potentially be prosecuted under hate speech. So we've seen all of these mechanisms that people, including Charlie Kirk, actually criticized, that the government should not be the arbiter of what is true-- so a criticism of misinformation, for example. But the argument that they're leaning into with Jimmy Kimmel is that, essentially, he said something untrue about the shooter in that case. What does the Jimmy Kimmel action from the FCC, its suggestion, and then ABC's action tell you about where we are? Well, it goes back further than that. So since the very beginning of the Trump administration, he's gone after basically things that he perceives to be-- and I think correctly-- several centers of liberal power. So essentially, it's been he's been going after law firms, which do a lot of pro bono for the left. And that's actually, I feel like, the least appreciated thing that's happening. Telling lawyers that they're going to get in trouble for opposing the government is scary and saying that they can't go into federal buildings, which, of course, include courts--

Or they lose their security clearance. Or they lose their security clearance-- just crazy. Then, of course, there's the going after higher education. And I'm in front of the line being critical of a lot of things going on in higher education, particularly regarding free speech and academic freedom. But the Trump administration's behavior to Harvard, for example, was essentially demanding federalizing Harvard itself. So that was-- there, they're really exceeding the powers that they have. But when it comes to the media, that's probably been the most concentrated attack. And the Trump administration has shown willingness to dangle mergers over a company. So you might know a little about that.

I'm aware of that. You might know just a little bit about that.

I think I read something, a blog or two, about that. [LAUGHS] It may feel pretty abstract, I'm sure. So they've been willing to dangle mergers over people's heads. And they made it very clear that they're going to be-- they're willing to file lawsuits against media companies. They filed a lawsuit against The Wall StreetJournal for saying that maybe Donald Trump sent a lewd birthday drawing to Jeffrey Epstein. And of course, that ended up being true. They verified the signature and everything, but a lawsuit nonetheless. And so by the time you actually get to the point that you have Brendan Carr, who has been--

FCC chair. --FCC chair, who's been a disaster for free speech since he's taken over, saying that he would potentially seek out punishment for Jimmy Kimmel for what he said, the threats were already well-established. But it was only hours after Brendan Carr said this on the Benny JohnsonShow, when clearly, he'd already been saying this to all sorts of people, that they dumped Jimmy Kimmel pretty much permanently. So is the right falling prey to the same temptations that you would argue the left fell prey to during COVID-- I-- --or George Floyd? I would say that they're playing--

Or going even farther? They're playing from the same playbook. And that essentially, I know that at least to a degree, there are people on the right who have always been saying that we need to use these tactics that the left has used on campuses against the left. So I know that there are some people who are thinking of this as a cynical strategy. But we've always at FIRE, at my organization, always said that, no, you don't legitimize these weapons against freedom of speech. It doesn't work out that people just decide, oh, I guess we'll abandon them now. It just turns out to whoever has power at the time gets to use this weapon against their enemies. And pretty soon, you're not a free country. You can watch my entire conversation with Greg Lukianoff on YouTube, or you can listen to it on your favorite podcast platform. That's what we do here.