Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has broken ranks with the Trump administration on free speech, urging Americans to protect it at all cost in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
Days after Republican Senator Ted Cruz and conservative commentator Ben Shapiro spoke out against the administration’s role in pulling Jimmy Kimmel off the air last week, Gabbard became the latest MAGA figure to champion the importance of free speech at a time when dissent is increasingly being silenced.
“Free speech is the foundation of our democratic republic. We must protect it at all costs, because without it, we’ll be lost. Charlie knew this. He lived it,” she told mourners at his memorial in Arizona on Sunday.
The comments were viewed by some observers as an implicit rebuke to Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr and other administration officials who have publicly threatened punitive steps to crack down on free speech in the wake of Kirk’s death.
Trump himself last week suggested the FCC should revoke the licenses of broadcast TV stations that he said are “against” him, telling reporters: “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.”
But others, like Republican Senator Cruz, warned that using the government to police political content was “dangerous as hell” and could come back to haunt conservatives if Democrats returned to office.
“They will silence us,” said the Trump ally, who likened Carr’s actions to a mafia character from Goodfellas.
“They will use this power, and they will use it ruthlessly.”
Gabbard’s latest breaking of ranks is part of a broader pattern of occasional friction between her and other administration factions.
Over the weekend, The Guardian reported that Trump’s aides were frustrated by the DNI’s recent announcement that dozens of former and current intelligence officials had their security clearances yanked last month, claiming she had blindsided them.
Trump has also previously called her out for testifying to Congress in March that Iran wasn’t building a nuclear weapon.
“I don’t care what she said,” the president told reporters in June as the administration quietly prepared to launch an unprecedented strike on Iran.
“I think they were very close to having one.”
But Gabbard, a former Democrat Congresswoman who became part of Trump’s circle ahead of the 2024 election, has long been a staunch defender of free speech, usually taking aim at the left over attempts at censorship.
Tulsi Gabbard Didn’t Get the Memo: The DNI went off script at the Charlie Kirk memorial and challenged Brendan Carr and the Trump administration on First Amendment principles.”Free speech is the foundation of our democratic republic because without it, we will be lost.” pic.twitter.com/hXoHWxDTak
— Lincoln Square (@LincolnSquareHQ) September 21, 2025
“Free speech is under attack,” she warned last year when the Biden administration was in power. “Our government has proven they will stop at nothing to try to censor and control what we can say, read and hear.”
Last week, the First Amendment took center stage yet again, when Kimmel was fired from his show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, after making comments about Kirk’s killing.
This led to Carr threatening to revoke ABC’s broadcast license, a move that Cruz likened to mafia tactics, while Shapiro warned: “The FCC should not be threatening action against ABC or its affiliates or Disney.”
On Sunday, Republican Senator Rand Paul also weighed in, telling NBC’s Meet the Press that companies like ABC had the right to make content choices based on the reactions of their audiences, but stressed that the Trump administration went too far with Carr’s involvement.
Speaking at Kirk’s memorial on Sunday, Gabbard paid tribute to the conservative commentator, saying he entered the arena armed with the Constitution, and used his words as weapons to defend free speech, faith, and the nation he loved.
“Tulsi Gabbard didn’t get the memo,” anti-Trump group Lincoln Square observed on X after the speech. “The DNI went off script and challenged Brendan Carr and the Trump administration on first amendment principles.”
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