Trump doesn’t want free speech. He wants favored speech. For himself. And he’s using the US government, and now Kirk’s death, to reach for that.
President Donald Trump is in the United Kingdom for a state visit, where he is expected to again lecture that country’s leaders about their civil and criminal policies on what should be free speech.
But first, as he was leaving the White House on Sept. 16, Trump exploited the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk to exert exactly the style of threatening governmental overreach on free speech that he upbraids the U.K. for.
Trump was asked about Attorney General Pam Bondi’s controversial comments on a podcast the day before, where she equated criticism of Kirk and his work to «hate speech» that she said could be prosecuted by the Department of Justice. The attorney general later tried to walk that back, claiming she was only talking about «threats of violence.»
That’s not remotely close to what Bondi said on the podcast, as critics were quick to point out. And it’s certainly not the message her boss took away from her comments.
Here’s what Trump chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl when he asked about Bondi: «She’d probably go after people like you. Because you treat me so unfairly. It’s hate. You have a lot of hate in your heart.»
Trump doesn’t want free speech. He wants favored speech. For himself. And he’s using our government, and now Kirk’s killing, to reach for that.Trump will use Charlie Kirk’s death for his agenda – not free speech
I learned two decades ago, when I was reporting on Trump as a celebrity businessman who lapsed in and out of bankruptcies, that he is always – habitually and compulsively – testing the limits of what he can get away with.
