When President Trump returned to the Oval Office, he promised, unequivocally and emphatically, that he would protect free speech and ensure that no Americans — including his critics — would be punished for voicing their opinions.
But in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, those pledges have given way to threats and calls for retaliation, as administration officials promise to go after anyone they accuse of hateful or even uncivil commentary about the conservative activist and his Republican allies.
This promise to use the government’s power to police speech stands in contrast to Americans’ rights as espoused by Mr. Kirk himself, who emphasized that all speech, no matter how offensive, was protected by the First Amendment. But while the White House has argued that there is a difference between free speech and speech celebrating violence, the calls for retaliation are at odds with views the president and his advisers uttered only months — or in one case, one day — before. Here are how the views of Mr. Trump and top officials in his administration have changed, in their own words.
President Trump
What he said: Mr. Trump kicked off his second term with a promise, made during his inauguration speech, to “immediately 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,” Mr. Trump continued. Later that day, he signed an executive order doubling down on that promise, declaring that any kind of censorship of speech — even in the name of combating disinformation — was “intolerable in a free society.”
What he is saying now: This week, Mr. Trump used his social media platform to cheer ABC’s decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk show over comments he made about the assassination of Mr. Kirk, calling it “Great News for America” and calling on other networks to follow suit. On Thursday, Mr. Trump claimed without evidence that 97 percent of the coverage of him on network television was negative, suggesting that “maybe their license should be taken away” for airing such overwhelmingly negative content.
He also announced this week that he was designating the anti-fascism movement known as antifa as a terrorist organization, calling it “a sick, dangerous, radical left disaster.”
Vice President JD Vance
What he said: “Under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square, agree or disagree,” he said in February during a speech to European leaders at the Munich Security Conference. He admonished them to do more to guarantee similar freedoms.
He followed up on that notion in a Fox News interview soon after: “We have to ask ourselves the questions as leaders: Are we willing to defend people even if we disagree with what they say? If you’re not willing to do that, I don’t think you’re fit to lead Europe or the United States of America.”
What he’s saying now: This week, while hosting Mr. Kirk’s podcast from the White House, Mr. Vance blamed “left-wing extremism” for the conservative activist’s death and called for action.
“When you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out — and hell, call their employer,” he said.
Stephen Miller
What he has said: “I want you to think for a minute about the decades of abuse that has been heaped upon the good people of this nation,” he said during an October 2024 rally at Madison Square Garden, criticizing “a political system that punishes hardworking citizens, oppresses them at every turn, takes away their right to free speech, their right to political expression, the right to fundamental safety in their own country.”
During Mr. Trump’s most recent campaign, Mr. Miller, a top adviser and architect of many of his domestic policies, accused the president’s predecessors of having denied Americans free speech protections.
What he’s saying now: On Monday, Mr. Miller told Mr. Vance that left-leaning political organizations were “a vast domestic terror movement.” The two spoke on an episode of Mr. Kirk’s podcast that the vice president hosted from the White House.
“With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people,” Mr. Miller said. “It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi
What she said: In her confirmation hearing to become attorney general, Ms. Bondi said plainly, “I believe in the freedom of speech.”
In 2024, while leading the litigation team for the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank, Ms. Bondi criticized leaders of the New York Fire Department for threatening to discipline members who had booed Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, at an event and cheered for Mr. Trump, whom her office was prosecuting for business fraud.
“In a fit of selective outrage, the government cannot choose which messages it will permit and which it will censor in a viewpoint-discriminatory manner,” she wrote in a letter to the Fire Department’s commissioner. “It may not, such as in this case, target and punish those who express a view contrary to the government’s preferred message.”
What she’s saying now: This week, Ms. Bondi added a caveat for the case of Charlie Kirk.
“We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech, anything — and that’s across the aisle,” she said on a podcast hosted by Katie Miller, a former member of the Trump administration and Mr. Miller’s wife.
“It’s not free speech when you come out and you say, ‘it’s OK what happened to Charlie,’” she added. “We’re firing people, we’re seeing people online who are posting hate speech — they should be shut down.”
Legally, all kinds of speech — including hate speech — are protected by the First Amendment, unless that speech is an incitement to or threat of violence, or indicates that a criminal act ought to be prosecuted as a hate crime, which can carry harsher penalties.
After the podcast, Ms. Bondi clarified her comments in a social media post, stating: “Hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is NOT protected by the First Amendment. It’s a crime.”
Brendan Carr, Federal Communications Commission chairman
What he said: “Free speech is the counterweight — it is the check on government control,” he wrote on social media in 2023, when he was an F.C.C. commissioner. “That is why censorship is the authoritarian’s dream.”
He appeared to hold a version of those views as recently as Tuesday, when he said at a technology summit hosted by Politico that the government should not crack down on social media posts in the wake of Mr. Kirk’s killing.
What he’s saying now: Mr. Carr expressed very different views on a right-wing podcast on Wednesday, suggesting that the commission could take official action to get Mr. Kimmel off the air.
“Frankly, when you see stuff like this — I mean, we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Mr. Carr told the podcast’s host, Benny Johnson. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the F.C.C. ahead.”
Mr. Kimmel accused Mr. Trump and his supporters during his Monday night monologue of trying to capitalize politically off Mr. Kirk’s killing and “desperately trying to characterize” the suspect in his assassination as “anything other than one of them.”
According to people with knowledge of the matter, the decision to suspend “Jimmy Kimmel Live” was made by Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, and Dana Walden, the company’s television chief.
Karoun Demirjian is a breaking news reporter for The Times.
The post In Their Own Words: Trump and Top Officials Change Tone on Free Speech appeared first on New York Times.
