Editorial: When free speech is not free

President Donald Trump and Brendan Carr, his henchman at the Federal Communications Commission, struck a major blow to the First Amendment last week. Carr implied on a podcast that he could stifle Jimmy Kimmel, the host of ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” for comments he made during his September 15 monologue about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. But Carr didn’t have to lift a finger. The Walt Disney Co., which owns ABC, did the dirty work for him, yanking Kimmel off the air just hours before the show’s planned broadcast September 17. Late last year, ABC News settled a defamation lawsuit, agreeing to pay $16 million to Trump, who was then president-elect.

In another stunner this summer, CBS informed Stephen Colbert, the host of “Late Night with Stephen Colbert,” that it was canceling the show in May 2026, allegedly for purely financial reasons. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to deduce that CBS’ announcement was made just days after Colbert criticized, on his show, the $16 million settlement CBS’ parent, Paramount Global, agreed to pay Trump regarding the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview last October with Kamala Harris, then the Democratic presidential nominee.

Disney made its decision regarding Kimmel after Nexstar and Sinclair, both owners of numerous TV stations across the country, announced that they were preempting his show. Nexstar is in the process of acquiring even more TV stations, which would require regulatory approval from, you guessed it, Carr’s FCC. After Disney announced that Kimmel’s show would return Tuesday, both Nexstar and Sinclair stated that it would not air on their stations, so many people won’t be able to watch it.  

Last week, Trump was pleased that Kimmel’s show was suspended, telling reporters that late night hosts are negative toward him. "I have read some place that the networks were 97% against me, again, 97% negative, and yet I won and easily [in last year's election]," the president said on board Air Force One returning from his state visit to the United Kingdom. "They give me only bad publicity [and] press. I mean, they're getting a license. I would think maybe their license should be taken away."

That’s not how it works in this country. The First Amendment gives broad protection to speech, and legal observers have said that the FCC couldn’t revoke licenses over political disagreements, as the BBC noted. But we know that this Trump administration is unlike any other. The president and his officials have gone up to the line – or crossed it, in our opinion – on numerous issues: immigration, trans rights, universities, public health, you name it. Trump is behaving like an authoritarian leader who can stop things he doesn’t like or punish people who don’t like him. He doesn’t care about the Constitution and he has a supermajority of conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court who think nothing of overturning precedents or otherwise ruling in favor of this administration. And while free speech is a bedrock American principle, we must all realize that could change. It’s how dictators consolidate their power – through intimidation, fear, and illegal actions.

Trump threatens a crackdown on mainstream media and political opponents, all in the name of preventing political violence. But that’s not really what’s going on here. Peter Baker, who writes for the New York Times, summed it up in a recent analysis. “But Mr. Trump himself has repeatedly made clear in recent days that he has a different goal. For him, it’s not about hate speech, but about speech that he hates – namely, speech that is critical of him and his administration.”

After eight months of Trump’s second term, some people, at least, are beginning to realize that his policies aren’t helping Americans at all. There has been no reduction in grocery prices, and his tariffs have been partly to blame for an uptick in inflation. Far from “winning,” farmers, tech workers, and others are at the mercy of the administration’s half-baked ideas that lack follow through. The Department of Homeland Security’s immigration tactics are horrendous, with many people detained who are U.S. citizens, have permission to work in the country, or have no criminal records. So, naturally, Trump will go after critics.

At the height of the right-wing furor over Kirk’s killing, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, who never passes up an opportunity to shower her boss with praise, had the temerity to suggest that hate speech is actually a real category of crime. “There’s free speech, and then there’s hate speech, and there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society,” Bondi said on the podcast of Katie Miller, the wife of Trump immigration enforcer Stephen Miller. “We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech.” Bondi tried to walk that back, later posting, “hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is NOT protected by the First Amendment.” That is quite different from what she initially said.

In fact, this is a clear pattern in this administration. Officials will say something that is not true, and then walk it back. The president has a uniquely Trumpian approach. He will say something untrue and then marginally qualify it, with an “I don’t know,” or “maybe that’s true,” to give him wiggle room to deny or muddy the issue. We saw this all the time during his first term, and it has become a standard of his in this second term as well. Meanwhile, people are often left confused, which is exactly what the administration wants.

It's hard to believe that just a few months ago, Trump was promoting himself as an advocate of the First Amendment. He championed it in his address to Congress in March and said he had “brought free speech back to America.” Not anymore. His recent actions clearly show that the freedom of speech is under attack like never before. PBS, the Public Broadcasting Service, which saw its funding gutted by Congress, noted that Democratic members of Congress have been threatened by the administration and grants have been pulled because of the language they include, including over LGBTQ health and other issues.

We’re glad that Kimmel is back on the air. Disney should have never suspended him in the first place. Companies, like law firms, universities, and hospitals, must stand up to Trump, as so many activists are. It’s a shame that’s not the case with UC Berkeley, which is providing names of 160 students, faculty, and staff to the federal government to comply with an investigation into allegations of antisemitism on campus. Many hospitals, as we’ve noted, have stopped providing gender-affirming surgeries and/or care to trans people under the age of 19. You can’t appease a bully by giving in – they always come back with new demands and it becomes a never-ending cycle.

Instead of capitulating, people need to say “Enough” to Trump and his sycophants. We must continue to speak out against blatant wrongdoing like what is happening over free speech, because if that is lost, we will be dangerously closer to losing the country we knew.