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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
Trump and his allies are suddenly downplaying the First Amendment
Analysis by Aaron Blake, CNN
Updated:
1:58 PM EDT, Fri September 19, 2025
Source: CNN
When Elon Musk took control of Twitter in 2022, he famously declared
himself a “.” He reinstated accounts that had been banned for . 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 (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: “.”
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 and his administration have
on the political left in the wake of 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 , 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.”
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 “,” 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 , 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 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 . “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 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 “” 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 , 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 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 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 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 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.
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