In the gospel according to St. Donald of Trump, the Second Amendment of the US Constitution was etched in stone by the Almighty on Mount Sinai and is sacrosanct. The First Amendment, however, he sees as a flexible list of optional suggestions that he is free to interpret or ignore.
That’s the one that says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
The most urgent threat at this moment in US history is President Donald Trump’s contempt for the freedoms of speech and the press. They are first in the Bill of Rights to the Constitution, a document he wrongly claims gives him “the right to do whatever I want as president.” He is either unable to comprehend or refuses to accept the Constitutional principle of separation of powers.
He is waging a dangerous and paranoid war on free speech, a free press, and free expression.
Trump’s chief enforcer, Attorney-General Pam Bondi, shares her boss’s lust for retribution. She has promised a massive crackdown on “hate speech.”
“There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech,” she said, prompting The Washington Post to call her “constitutionally illiterate.”
I doubt she and Trump understand how that contradicts the man they went to Arizona to memorialize on Sunday, slain right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. “Hate speech does not exist legally in America. There’s ugly speech. There’s gross speech. There’s evil speech. And all of it is protected by the First Amendment,” Kirk had said.
Trump's people threatening crackdown on political opponents
Trump’s aides and allies are threatening “a wide-ranging crackdown on mainstream media institutions and political opponents” for what they contend is hate speech. Trump sees it a little differently, says New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker: “For him, it’s not about hate speech, but about speech that he hates – namely, speech that is critical of him and his administration.”
Trump confessed at the Kirk memorial, “I hate my opponents, and I don’t want the best for them.” In the name of fighting hate, Trump has weaponized antisemitism as a cudgel to accuse liberal universities, but last Sunday, he proved that’s a false flag. He didn’t object when his pal Tucker Carlson compared Kirk to Jesus at the memorial service and implied some guys “eating hummus” in Jerusalem were behind the murder.
Or when Fox & Friends co-anchor Brian Kilmeade said mentally ill homeless people should get “involuntary lethal injection or… just kill them.” It took five days for an apology; meanwhile, there were no Federal Communications Commission (FCC) threats to Fox’s licenses, no threats of firing, no White House outrage. Just that old double standard and another presidential rant saying, “The radical Left causes tremendous violence… I think they really hate our country.”
TRUMP HAS seized Kirk’s assassination to escalate his campaign of retribution, revenge, and intimidation of his enemies
He is using the FCC’s regulatory authority to intimidate and punish broadcasters and critics who offend him, and to collect millions of dollars of tribute along the way.
FCC chair Brendan Carr is his chief henchman. Carr, who had once been a strong believer in free speech, is now threatening offending broadcasters with “fines or license revocation” unless they “change conduct.”
“We can do it the easy way or the hard way,” he ominously warned. Broadcast licenses come with “an obligation to serve the public interest,” he said, leaving no doubt “public” means “Trump.”
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) called that “one of the greatest threats to free speech America has ever seen.” Even some Republicans were outraged. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said Carr’s thuggish threats are “unbelievably dangerous” and sound like something “right out of Goodfellas.”
Trump came to office vowing to “stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America… Never again will the immense power of the state be weaponized to persecute political opponents.” That promise had the lifespan of a mayfly.
No person has ever griped more about weaponizing the government, nor has engaged more maliciously in that malpractice than Trump.
The most litigious president in history is a hyper-thin-skinned narcissist who can dish it out, but he can’t take it. And that’s why he is waging war against the First Amendment. He has a particular penchant for berating and insulting reporters, particularly women of color.
His former White House lawyer, Ty Cobb, said Trump is “waging war on people who offend him.” Cobb likened it to the Nazi’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.
A court recently threw out his $15 billion defamation suit against The New York Times in which Trump accused the paper of saying he was not the great success that he claimed. The Times called the suit “an attempt to stifle and discourage independent reporting.”
Deputy Attorney-General Todd Blanche, a former Trump personal attorney (there are quite a few in top administration jobs), said he’s looking to use racketeering laws to go after protesters who curse Trump, particularly some who reportedly shouted “Hitler” when the president dined at a Washington restaurant.
Trump insists that critical coverage of him is “really illegal.” Journalists “take a great story and they’ll make it bad… I’m a very strong person for free speech, [but] when 97% of the stories are bad about a person, that’s no longer free speech.”
There’s an especially dark place in Trump’s heart for comedians. Just ask Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and Jimmy Fallon. He simply can’t take a joke. It’s a common trait among autocrats and dictators. They fear the jokes will spread, and soon the whole nation will be laughing at them.
That’s ironic considering his gluttonous appetite for insulting others.
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One earlier this month, he said media outlets deserve to be punished for their negative coverage of his presidency. “They give me only bad publicity or press. I mean, they’re getting a license; I would think maybe their license should be taken away,” he kvetched. “All they do is hit Trump. They’re licensed. They’re not allowed to do that.”
The Pentagon is waging its own war on the media. In an alarming break with longstanding practice, it restricted reporters’ access to people and places in the building, demanding they sign a pledge, at the risk of losing their credentials, not to gather or use any information not formally authorized.
What’s next? Don’t be surprised if Trump’s supine GOP-led Congress passes a law criminalizing insulting Glorious Leader.
The writer is a Washington-based journalist, consultant, lobbyist, and former legislative director at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.