Just eight months ago, President Trump rode into office on the promise of ending censorship, cancel culture, and the use of government power to pressure private individuals and companies into doing its bidding. Eight months have brought a full 180-degree revolution from free speech defender to censor-in-chief.
As an organization committed to protecting the freedom of thought, inquiry, and expression, the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) condemns the federal government’s use of its power to pressure ABC to take Jimmy Kimmel off the air. The executive branch’s work to silence a disfavored media voice violates the First Amendment and undermines every American’s liberty to choose what they read, see, or hear. And the government’s gleeful acts of censorship amount to stunning hypocrisy from a president who came into office vowing to fight it.
Indeed, one of the President’s first Executive Orders vowed to “Restore Freedom of Speech and End Federal Censorship.” Initially, when the Administration issued its Executive Order, NCAC welcomed the Order’s text – and there was good reason. Last summer, the Supreme Court heard Murthy v. Missouri, a case brought by a group of individuals identified by the Biden administration as purveyors of disinformation. Rather than use its bully pulpit to correct or condemn those views, the government instead sought to pressure social media companies into silencing voices they disagreed with – a phenomenon called “jawboning.”
We weighed in at the Supreme Court with other free expression allies, arguing that the First Amendment should absolutely prevent the government from using its regulatory power over businesses to coerce them into taking action that the Constitution prevents the federal government from taking directly – like silencing dissenting speech or political opponents. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court disagreed – and in doing so, they condoned the egregious censorship we are witnessing right now: government and corporations working hand in glove to constrict the boundaries of acceptable speech.
At the time, while NCAC cautiously welcomed the Order, we noted that the devil would be in the details of its enforcement. Well, the details have arrived, and they are worse than we could have envisioned.
This week, we see the boundaries of acceptable discourse shrinking rapidly. Kimmel going off-air wasn’t just an internal programming decision from Kimmel’s network, ABC – it was a product of targeted and serious government pressure on companies currently at the mercy of the Federal Communications Commission. ABC’s parent company, Disney, is dependent on the FCC’s grant of broadcast licenses to do business. And both FCC Chairman Brendan Carr and President Trump made plain this week that they wanted Kimmel off the air for insensitive remarks about Charlie Kirk’s murder. Carr, saying that Kimmel needed to be off the air, went as far as to say: “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.” Those are the words of a mafioso or an autocrat – not someone whose job is to ensure that the public benefits from a diverse spectrum of media.