President Donald Trump doubled down on his administration’s brazen attacks on free speech in a Friday afternoon press conference, telling reporters that publishing negative stories about him is “really illegal.”
Asked by a reporter whether he sees a difference between “cancel culture and consequence culture,” the president called it “a trick question,” noting, “I’m a very strong person for free speech.”
The way Trump sees it, the math just doesn’t add up. Referring to his victory in the 2024 election as “a landslide times two” (right after calling it a “landside”), the president doesn’t see how a person could have the “level of popularity or voter support as I did in the last election, and yet 97 percent of the people are against me in the sense of the newscasts are against me.”
“The stories are 97 percent bad. They’ll take a great story and they’ll make it bad. See, I think that’s really illegal, personally,” he continued, before going on to reference his lawsuit against ABC News, which ABC settled for $15 million last December.
“George Slopadopolous had to pay $16 million to me because of what he said, and that’s ABC… I think that reporting has to be at least accurate to an extent. Again, when somebody is given, 97 percent of the stories are bad about a person, that’s no longer free speech… that’s just cheating, and they cheat. And they become really members of the Democratic National Committee is what they are, the networks, in my opinion. They’re offshoots of the Democratic National Committee.”
In the days since the shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the Trump administration and its allies have enacted a crackdown on free speech that has seen an MSNBC analyst fired, teachers investigated, and, on Wednesday, Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show indefinitely pulled from the air.
Prominent liberals have criticized the decision, which was made by ABC after Trump-appointed FCC Chairman Brendan Carr threatened to revoke the network’s broadcasting license. Stephen Colbert, whose own show was axed in what many viewed as an attempt to appease the FCC ahead of Paramount Global’s acquisition by Skydance, is one of several A-list TV personalities who has very publicly sided with Kimmel.
Even former President Barack Obama weighed in, sharing articles on X about the importance of free speech and writing, “This commentary offers a clear, powerful statement of why freedom of speech is at the heart of democracy and must be defended, whether the speaker is Charlie Kirk or Jimmy Kimmel, MAGA supporters or MAGA opponents.”
Some conservatives have also criticized the Trump administration’s actions in the wake of Kirk’s death, including Tucker Carlson, who sought to remind his fellow conservatives that “Charlie was a free speech champion,” adding, “I hope that’s his legacy.”
Republican Senator Ted Cruz broke MAGA ranks to describe the administration’s actions as “dangerous as hell,” likening Carr’s tactics to those of a mob boss and warning conservatives of what liberals will do if returned to power.
“They will silence us,” Cruz said. “They will use this power, and they will use it ruthlessly.”
