Trump's direct attack on free speech
We all should be concerned by the pattern emerging from the administration on our fundamental rights.
We should be very afraid of what is happening to freedom of speech in the United States. The Trump administration’s orchestrated removal of Jimmy Kimmel as a late-night talk show host is just the most recent example of a systematic effort to silence critics.
Consider just the events of the past week. Attorney General Pam Bondi said that the government would punish what she regards as hate speech, even though the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that such expression is protected by the First Amendment. President Donald Trump said that the government would use its powers to investigate groups he sees as liberal, such as the Open Society Foundations and the Ford Foundation. Trump even raised the possibility of criminal charges under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, typically used to prosecute gangs and organized crime rings. And this week, Trump filed a $15 billion lawsuit against the New York Times for articles questioning his success in business (the suit was quickly dismissed by a no-nonsense Florida judge).
Amid all this, the Trump administration successfully pressured ABC to take Kimmel off the air for a comment he made concerning the murder of Charlie Kirk. Kimmel has been a frequent critic of Trump. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr, a staunch Trump supporter, made clear that ABC would face sanctions if it did not take actions against Kimmel. Carr stated: “Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or, you know, there's going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.” Carr also said: “This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney.”
The law is well established that the government violates the First Amendment when it threatens punishment for speech. Just a year ago, the Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, declared: “Government officials cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views that the government disfavors.” But that is exactly what Carr was doing: threatening to use the powers of the government to punish ABC to silence Kimmel because of his views. The very core of the First Amendment is that the government never can punish speech based on the views expressed.
Yet, on Sept. 18, in the wake of the Kimmel firing, Trump said that broadcast stations that were critical of him should lose their licenses. He declared, “I would think maybe their license should be taken away.” Doing so would obviously violate the First Amendment, but even the threat is chilling and unconstitutional.
It is crucial to see these as actions as Trump’s pattern of trying to intimidate the media. Prior to being reelected, Trump frequently filed defamation suits that consistently failed, including against CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. But since his reelection, media companies have settled with him in litigation in which Trump seemed to have had little chance of prevailing in court.
For example, in December, ABC News announced it would settle a defamation suit brought by Trump by giving $15 million to the Trump presidential foundation and paying $1 million to Trump in attorneys’ fees. ABC News also apologized, expressing its “regret” for remarks made about Trump.
The defamation case stemmed from an interview in which George Stephanopoulos said that “Donald Trump has been found liable for rape by a jury. Donald Trump has been found liable for defaming the victim of that rape by a jury.”
Trump sued for defamation on the ground that he had not been found liable for rape. But he had been found liable by a jury of sexual battery against Carroll. In May 2023, a jury found that Trump sexually abused Carroll and awarded $5 million for battery and defamation. The judge, in August 2023, dismissed a countersuit by Trump and said that the claim Trump raped Carroll was “substantially true.” The judge wrote that Trump “raped” her in the sense of that word, as people generally understand it, though not as it is narrowly defined by New York state law.
In light of these findings, it is very difficult to see how Trump could have prevailed in his defamation suit against ABC News. ABC decided to settle, not litigate.
In January, Meta agreed to a $25 million settlement with Trump—with $22 million going to the Trump library and $3 million to pay his legal fees—for a lawsuit that was frivolous. Trump had sued Facebook and Instagram for violating the First Amendment for barring him from those platforms after Jan. 6, 2021. But Facebook and Instagram are private entities, and the First Amendment does not apply to them. Any first-year law student knows that. But Meta capitulated rather than defend against the president.
On July 2, it was announced that Paramount Global would pay $16 million to settle Trump’s lawsuit that alleged that “60 Minutes” had deceptively edited an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris to favor her during the 2024 presidential election. Trump had sued for $20 billion. Again, the suit was groundless. The First Amendment protects the discretion of news stations in how to present stories. Perhaps Paramount settled because it wanted FCC approval of its proposed $8.4 billion merger with Skydance Media. On July 22, Trump bragged about the settlement and said that there could be another $20 million forthcoming.
The pattern is very disturbing. Trump files groundless suits against major media companies, and they cave rather than litigate. There are exceptions. In July, Trump sued the Wall Street Journal for $10 billion for publishing an article describing a letter apparently signed by Trump that was part of a collection given to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday. So far, the Wall Street Journal has not settled.
Of course, it is not just the media that is targeted by Trump for its speech. In a series of executive orders, Trump imposed draconian sanctions on law firms for their advocacy. Four of the law firms sued, and all have won so far, with four different federal judges finding that Trump’s actions blatantly violated the First Amendment. But several firms settled with Trump despite having done nothing wrong. A disturbing result is that law firms, to avoid drawing the president’s ire, are refraining from bringing cases challenging Trump administration policies.
Universities, too, are being targeted for their speech. Billions of dollars of grants have been cut off by the Trump administration for the perceived viewpoint of the research. Funds have been terminated for prestigious universities because of their allowing speech protected by the First Amendment.
It is crucial to understand this not as a series of isolated events but as a deeply concerning pattern. Freedom of speech in a democracy is not lost all at once. Every authoritarian tries to use the power of the government to control expression and to silence critics. That is exactly what Donald Trump is doing, and we all should be deeply concerned.
 | A guest post by
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The very good news that the American people have spoken loudly enough--or at least, their dollars have--that ABC has reinstated Jimmy Kimmel as of tomorrow night, casts a little ray of light into the gathering darkness.
When the likes of Ted Cruz and Tucker Carlson join thousands of liberal voices in denouncing Brendan Carr and the Trump administration's appalling, clumsy, blundering assault on the First Amendment and on fundamental principles of free speech, you kind of sense an opening (however fragile, however temporary) for the revival of a pro-democracy, pro-constitution reaction against Team Project 2025.
If only white shoe law firms, CEOs, university presidents and boards of trustees, and the corporate owners of news outlets were to learn something from all this--if only they were to experience, at the very least, some sense of shame and some understanding of the profound contempt in which a majority of the American people hold them--then we might be looking at a real lifeboat moment for US democracy.
Time to invoke the 25th amendment.