Tucker Carlson Examines Free Speech Under Attack Two Weeks After Charlie Kirk's Assassination

Hey, it's Tucker Carlson. Charlie Kirk was 

assassinated two weeks ago today in an event   that clearly is going to change American history. 

Changed a lot of people inside. And there was a   moment in the first week where you thought to 

yourself, this is going to have effects. A lot   of them are going to be bad, but some of them are 

probably going to be good because Charlie's life   was itself so good. Charlie Kirk spent his life 

above all trying to live the Christian gospel and   trying to live the principle of free speech which 

is to say he talked and he also listened. He was   most famous for traveling from college campus to 

college campus and asking people who disagreed   with him to confront him. Ask me anything he said 

and he sat there patiently as they did and they   often attacked him. They almost always expressed 

views he found repugnant and almost always he took   those views seriously and answered the questions 

put to him as crisply and honestly as he could.   That's what he spent his life doing and in fact he 

was assassinated while doing that. So if there's   any lesson from Charlie Kirk's life, well the 

first lesson would probably be sincere Christians   tend to be really decent people. Maybe we should 

have more of them. But the more secular temporal   lesson is that free speech is a virtue. It is in 

fact the foundation of this country. Not only its   laws but its culture and that we should protect 

it. And maybe if we seek to honor Charlie Kirk,   we should emulate it. Maybe we should begin 

by asking our politicians to do what Charlie   Kirk spent his life doing, which is to answer the 

question. Just calmly answer the question. We'll   ask you anything and then you go ahead and answer 

it to the best of your ability. Like for example,   who blew up the Nordstream pipeline? What happened 

to all the money we sent to Ukraine? Why haven't   you released all the JFK files, etc., etc., 

etc., all the questions on your mind that slowly   drive you crazy because no one will address 

them? Why don't we just ask them directly to   our leaders and they get to answer? Nothing, 

nothing would honor Charlie Kirk's memory more   than that. That is free speech in action. 

But nothing like that happened. Instead,   the only real conversation we've had about free 

speech has been about Jimmy Kimmel, who is hardly   a champion of free speech. In fact, just the 

opposite. He's a nasty little sensor, talentless,   a person who has many times on camera over the 

years chuckled and applauded as other people,   his political enemies, have been silenced. a guy 

who has so little influence in American society   and so little audience. He was on his way out 

anyway, has the job only as a result of some kind   of weird political affirmative action where people 

who agree with studio heads get to have late night   jobs. He is hardly the person who should be 

taking up the cause of free speech or become   a symbol of it because of course he's the symbol 

of censorship and has been for most of his career.   And the other thing that we saw, maybe even 

more distressing than that, was politicians turn   not only against free speech, but actively and 

openly announced efforts to censor the American   population and use the memory of Charlie Kirk 

to do it as their justification. There are many   examples we could pick. Here's a particularly raw 

one. This is from Congressman Moscowitz just in   the House of Representatives. Eight days after 

Charlie Kirk died. Here it is. It's crazy what's   going on on the social media platforms. There are 

so many conspiracy theories on what's going on   with Charlie Kirk. Israel assassinated him, right? 

There are conspiracy theories about your personal   social life all day. It is totally rampant. 

Big names on the right, Candace Owens, right?   talking about how the what's been released as far 

as the dialogue between the perpetrator and his   roommate is manufactured by the FBI, manufactured 

by the administration. It is totally rampant,   allowing foreign governments to just perpetrate 

these platforms, all of these bots all of the time   to weaponize Americans. And so if we want to do 

something, then we should talk about section 230.   We should talk about how we're going to make sure 

that we don't let foreign governments poison our   children's mind. And so I will work with you on 

that, director. I'll work with you on 230 any day.   So there is the congressman talking to the FBI 

director and there's a lot there and we'll unpack   it, but the most telling line came right in the 

middle and he turns to the FBI director. He says,   "They're criticizing your personal life. They're 

airing conspiracy theories about your personal   life." Now, speaking for myself, I have literally 

no idea what the congressman was talking about. I   haven't seen that. Doubtless it exists. There are 

conspiracy theories, conspiracy theories about   everybody and everybody's personal life. If you're 

in public, people are theorizing about you on the   internet. Kind of the nature of the internet and 

kind of the nature of having authority. But you'll   notice that the congressman thinks this will be 

a compelling argument for the FBI director. He   basically just says, "They're criticizing you 

and me and they're not allowed to do that."   He's not even pretending that the purpose of 

censoring speech and that's what he's saying.   We need to censor the speech that the purpose 

of that would be protect any vulnerable group   vulnerable groups. No, they're criticizing us. 

They can't do that. And then of course he goes   on to blame unseen foreign actors. And by the 

way, that's something that I think most Americans   would get behind, but that the congressman is not 

behind at all. If they want to take the influence   of foreign nations out of our politics, most 

Americans would applaud. And that would start   with not taking money from their lobbies. um that 

would be a welcome change. But the idea that we   need to censor what you say because the people 

who run everything don't want to be called out   or have their personal lives misdescribed or the 

subject of conspiracy theories. Well, that's not   really reform as much as it's just kind of classic 

oldfashioned tyranny, isn't it? Shut up. We have   guns you don't. And we're going to make you. And 

how are we going to make you? That's the question.   So, you may remember that last week the attorney 

general came out right after Charlie Kirk's death   and said there is a distinction between speech 

constitutionally protected famously in the first   amendment and the bill of rights and something 

called hate speech a category that doesn't   strictly speaking exist under the law but which 

a lot of people seems seem to believe exists and   hate speech is never defined like most of the most 

powerful words uh that we use to punish people   terrorism for example racism it's never actually 

defined. What is that exactly? We don't know.   Other than it's speech the people in charge hate 

and therefore it should be banned. And most people   who understand the American story, who understand 

our government, who understand our culture, who   care about continuing all of those things, reacted 

with outrage when the attorney general said that   you can't pass a law that will strip from us our 

God-given right to say what we think is true. She   addressed it in such a ham-handed way that it was 

obvious to everybody exactly what she was talking   about, and they reacted. We did, too. But in real 

life, that will not happen. There will not be,   I can say confidently, in my lifetime, a 

law in the Congress that says explicitly,   any American who says something our leaders don't 

like. Anybody who traffs in a conspiracy theory   about our personal lives will be shut down, fined, 

imprisoned. An open, transparent censorship law   will not pass through the House of Representatives 

or the United Senate, United States Senate. will   not be signed by the president. Why? Because it's 

just too obvious. So instead, because censorship   is coming if these people can help it, instead 

they will invoke something called section 230. And   you're going to hear a lot more about this without 

question. It's never again explained very well.   And the reason it's not explained is because they 

don't want you to know exactly what they're doing.   So let me just give you the cliffnotes version of 

what section 230 is. Section 230 is a section 230   within the 1996 Communications Decency Act and 

it is the piece of legislation often credited   for creating the internet. It's the framework that 

Congress came up with at the dawn of the internet   to put parameters around what this is to protect 

companies as they grew to set laws around this   new technology. And one of the laws that they 

made, section 230, shields internet providers,   platforms from lawsuits. It gives them legal 

liability from lawsuits on the basis of slander,   obscenity, things that are on their platforms 

that they didn't create. In other words,   it creates a distinction between a publisher like 

a newspaper, a magazine, a television network,   and a platform. Google, Facebook, X. And the 

distinction allows the platforms to let other   people post whatever they want without getting 

sued for it. They cannot be held liable. These   big companies cannot be held liable for slander, 

hate speech, anything really on their platforms.   And as a result of this law, those platforms have 

come to dominate news and information globally.   In fact, when we talk about censorship, nobody's 

talking about censoring the New York Times, the   Washington Post, NBC News, because nobody cares. 

All meaningful information and all meaningful   social movements are influenced by social media. 

So, if you want to get people whipped into a   frenzy, if you want to change your government, for 

example, you're not going to take out an ad in the   New York Times, of course not. You're going to get 

something going on the social media platforms. So,   they are huge. They are completely dominant. 

information flows almost exclusively on them.   And all of this is possible because of section 

230. Now, there's been a pretty vigorous debate   for the last 20 years over whether this is a good 

idea. And there are arguments against it. One of   them is why would Google get a liability exemption 

when I don't have one? You run a business. You're   just an American citizen. You can be sued at any 

time under our famously loose and destructive   tort laws and you can go to business. You can 

be bankrupt. You can be destroyed. They can do   to you what they did to Alex Jones, for example. 

The FBI can join up with some activist group and   take your business away, wreck your life. So why 

should these big tech companies be exempt? Now,   that's a real argument. It's similar to the 

argument about the pharma companies. Why should   vaccine makers get a shield from lawsuits? If I 

make playground equipment, I'm vulnerable. If I   make the COVID vac, I'm not. That's a principled 

argument. But what's interesting about the 230   debate is that both parties had been on both 

sides of it at various times. The Republicans   for years were mad at the big platforms 

because they were censoring conservatives,   which they were. And so they often muttered about 

revoking 230 shield protection unless they opened   their platforms to all points of view. In other 

words, they wanted to use section 230 to end   censorship. There's no reason you she you should 

get a special carve out from the US government,   from the Congress if you don't treat people 

equally, if there's not fairness and neutrality   in the way you allow opinions to be broadcast 

on your platform. That seemed like a fairly   reasonable position. But things have changed. 

Now you're seeing Republicans invoke section 230,   pick up the cudgel that they hold over these 

huge tech companies and say unless you censor,   we will revoke section 230. And by the way, they 

are following in the footsteps of the leftward   edge of the Democratic party in doing this. In 

2020, Betto Oor of Texas ran one of his many   doomed campaigns for office. This one, I think, 

for president. and he said, "Unless they get hate   speech off the platforms, we're going to revoke 

section 230 and put these people out of business."   By the way, the threat is enough. That was the 

hope. If we threaten them, then we don't have   to do the censoring. We'll make Google, Facebook, 

Meta, and X do the censoring for us. That was the   idea. Then no one can accuse us of violating the 

First Amendment or being for speech codes. We'll   make someone else do it. He lost. But then Joe 

Biden that same year, 2020, said, "Actually, yes,   we should use this threat to force the big tech 

platforms to censor in ways that we like." And by   the way, they did. They did throughout the Biden 

presidency, Facebook, Twi, then Twitter, Google,   all censored opinions the Biden administration 

didn't like. And they did this ultimately because   they feared having their legal protection revoked. 

That's why they did that. That's what got them to   act. And Republicans, the sensible ones, looked 

at this and said, "This is completely wrong.   It's totally immoral. It's illegal for the US 

government to be imposing censorship on its   citizens. It's against the Constitution of the 

United States, and it's against, more important,   natural law. These are not rights we were given by 

the Biden administration. These are rights we were   born with, and when you take them away from us, 

you are the criminal." And they made that point.   All of a sudden, you are seeing Republicans take 

the position that Betto Aor and Joe Biden took   just 5 years ago. Here, for example, and this will 

come as no surprise to you at all. You will not   be shocked to hear this. Here is Senator Lindsey 

Graham of South Carolina running for reelection   making exactly the same case that Beta Ror made. 

Watch. Section 230 needs to be repealed. If you're   mad at social media companies that radicalize 

our nation, you should be mad at a bill that will   allow you to sue these people. They're immune 

from lawsuit. Oh, it should be repealed. Now,   it's not clear from that clip exactly why Lindsey 

Graham is calling for the repeal of section 230.   Why is he threatening the tech platforms? And by 

the way, the pretext always changes. They'll tell   you, "Well, we're against child sex trafficking, 

as if anyone is for it. We're against terrorism,   a term once again they never define and don't have 

to. We're against drugs. We're against foreign   influence. We're against bigotry. Whatever. 

They will always give you an excuse. And that   excuse will make them sound like the virtuous 

party, like the good guys. We're here to save   the vulnerable. But that's never the real reason. 

Censorship always and everywhere is imposed with   the intent and always has the effect of shielding 

the powerful. They're the ones who don't want   to be exposed. Free speech, by contrast, and 

this is the reason it's in our Bill of Rights,   is the one great power that the powerless have. 

Especially in a world where your vote may or may   not matter. All you have is your voice. All you 

have is your opinion. And that's infuriating to   Lindsey Graham's donors. And make no mistake, when 

he's calling for invoking section 230 and taking   it away, threatening the big platforms, he's doing 

that on behalf of his donors who feel criticized   by random accounts on the internet. And they hate 

it because the people in charge always hate to be   called out. Censorship has one goal, and that's 

to preserve secrecy. And secrecy has one purpose   and that's to abet wrongdoing. So people who are 

doing nothing wrong are transparent. People who   are committing evil hide and censorship allows 

them to hide. It's literally that simple. And   those people are the most powerful people in the 

country. So who's encouraging this? The donors,   whoever they are. But there are lots of 

lobby groups, all of them on the left,   pushing the Republican le Congress to get behind 

censorship initiatives, using the cover of the   section 230 debate to get it done, to pressure 

the tech companies into making you shut up,   into taking your opinions off the internet using 

algorithms designed to censor you without even a   human being entering into the equation. No person 

will decide that your opinion is offensive and   pull it off. The computer will decide that and it 

will be aided by the massive exponential growth in   computing power that is at the very center of tech 

right now. AI that is the goal to make certain   that opinions that are disruptive to the people in 

charge never see the light of day. What's amazing   and what's especially infuriating is that many in 

the Republican party, the party that controls all   branches of government right now, are completely 

for this, strongly for it. Where did they get this   idea? Is this a betrayal? Oh, it's a betrayal. 

How profound a betrayal? Listen to Congressman   Don Bacon of Nebraska, a former Air Force 

general, describe who he's been talking to   about censorship. And I appreciate Jonathan Gri 

what hit him and his ADL stance board. Uh I I know   you you made us better with your feedback and and 

ideas and recommendations and it's been a trick   to get to know you. We we want to be in a country 

that makes clear that anti-semitism or any kind of   racism is repugnant, unacceptable, not allowed 

in my space and we just zero tolerance for it.   So we need to hold these companies accountable 

and work with them to take it off the airwave.   It's hard to believe that's a real clip. We 

actually checked. Is that real? Congressman   Don Bacon of Nebraska, a great and sensible state 

with tons of normal people, a former Air Force   general. Is he really colluding with Jonathan 

Greenblat of the ADL to take away your right to   say what you think? Oh, you bet. That's exactly 

what he's doing. And make no mistake, the ADL   is not an anti-defamation organization. The ADL 

practices defamation and slander and bullying and   not in service of protecting a marginalized group 

but in acrewing power and by forwarding its goals   which are ideological. And if you don't believe 

that go's website and take a look at what the ADL   considers hate speech. Hate speech another one of 

those terms never quite defined but the ADL has   actually taken the time to define it. What do they 

consider hate speech? Well, among other things,   complaining about drag queen story hour is 

hate speech according to the ADL. Huh. Not   being enthusiastic about the COVID vax. That's 

hate speech and it's dangerous. Noticing that   the American population has changed completely in 

the past 30 years thanks to immigration. That's   dangerous hate speech. You should be punished 

for that. For noticing it in your country that   you were born in, no noticing. You can't notice 

that it looks completely different because of   decisions that someone who never consulted 

you made without your knowledge. Shut up,   says the ADL. You not only don't have the right 

to speak, we're going to scream at you and call   you a Nazi and imply that you are the dangerous 

one. The people who opened up the borders to 50   million foreigners, but you're the dangerous 

one. Sure. You know what else is hate speech,   by the way? Reading the Gospels of Matthew or Mark 

or Luke or John. The gospel itself, Christianity   itself, is hate speech. I know that because three 

nights ago, I recounted the Christian story in its   essence over like five minutes and was immediately 

denounced by the ADL as someone who is dangerous   and inspiring murder. But I'm not the only one. 

The ADL has actively attacked the Christian gospel   for years, has gotten behind a definition of hate 

speech that includes the Christian story. That's   not an exaggeration. That's not a fid conspiracy 

theory. That's a fact and you can look it up. So   this is the guy that's the guy Jonathan Greenblat 

of the most aggressively left-wing democratic   aligned but much more important than that lunatic 

antihuman anti-American group the ADL completely   corrupt. He's consulting that guy to decide how 

much speech you should have because there are   ugly opinions on the internet. Yeah, that's your 

Republican party. Was he denounced by his fellow   Republicans in the House? Was he denounced by 

the Speaker of the House, Speaker Johnson? No,   he wasn't. They barely even noticed because 

they had the same views. Not all of them,   but an awful lot of them. It's unbelievable. 

And it's counterproductive because once again,   censorship is never enacted to help the 

powerless. It is always and everywhere an   effort to shield the powerful. Always. and in fact 

has a counterproductive effect on the people it is   supposedly designed to help. How would you feel 

about any person you're not allowed to criticize?   Would that make you like the person more? No. 

It would make you resentful and suspicious and   would give you the well-deserved opinion that 

this is not an egalitarian society in which   we're all citizens. It's a hierarchal society in 

which the government has decided some people have   more rights than others. So, if you find out 

you're not allowed to criticize someone else,   maybe the first question you might ask is, "Well, 

then why are people allowed to criticize me?" And   the answer is because some people have more 

power in our society or being used to pit   different groups against each other or who knows 

what's going on. But none of it is consistent with   the core promise of this country, which is we're 

all citizens under our government and we're all   equal before our God who made us. It says that, 

but increasingly that's not the country we live   in. We live in a country where some people have 

more rights than others. And that's exactly the   kind of message you would send if you wanted 

to ferment a revolution against your government   because it enrages people and it divides them 

from each other. Oh, we have to protect this   group. What does everyone else think of that? They 

secretly don't like the group. You're not ending   bigotry by enacting censorship. You're creating 

it, Dumbo. And this is specifically aimed at   Congressman Bacon, who was somehow an Air Force 

general. He can't be dumb, but he's obviously not   very thoughtful because this is very obvious. 

People don't like other people who get special   treatment. Were you never a child? You never 

learn that. Who knows what the purpose here? It   doesn't even matter. It is happening right before 

us. The people who are elected to protect us,   who say they're our friends, are selling us out. 

And you can theorize as to why. And by the way,   all of that theorizing is itself unhealthy. Where 

do conspiracy theories come from? Where do you   think they come from? They come from living in a 

country where the government will never explain   anything and lies constantly. So the next time 

you see someone in power complain about malicious   conspiracy theories, stop him in mid-sentence and 

say they exist because of you. If you would just   tell the truth, if you would live like Charlie 

Kirk and answer the question politely, reasonably,   fully, there wouldn't be a vacuum into which 

lunatics would rush. We would have a plausible   answer to basic questions like, "What the hell is 

going on?" But because you haven't provided that,   what do you think's going to happen? People are 

going to have some pretty far out explanations.   And maybe some of them are true. By the way, we 

don't know. Your behavior is so suspicious because   you can't answer any question straight any. And 

you're spending your time talking to Jonathan   Greenblat, one of the darkest, most corrupt 

people in our society. Truly a divisive figure.   Speaking of divisive, how many Americans have made 

fellow Americans hate each other more consistently   over the years than Jonathan Greenblad? Very, 

very few. Very few. and you're talking to him. So, if this sounds like a paranoid rant, like, 

"Oh, that could never happen." Well, you should   know that it is happening right now in the state 

of California. The state of California like two weeks ago, 10 days ago, 8 days ago, 

something like that, has passed a law in   the state legislature, both chambers of the 

state legislature. It awaits a signature from   Gavin Newsome that would ban hate speech on 

the internet in California. Hate speech. Now,   how do they define hate speech? I actually 

have the definition. I actually wrote it   down because I was so shocked by it that 

this is happening. the state of California,   if Gavin Newsome signs this law, and he has until 

October 13th to do it, he people will be fined if   the sensors determine that speech constitutes, 

and we're quoting now, violence, intimidation,   or coercion. What's intimidation or coercion? 

Right. Right. Or coercion based on race, religion,   gender, sexual orientation, immigration status, 

or other protected characteristics. Obviously,   white Christian men are not covered under that. 

And so, this the society becomes ever more   hierarchical with a Brahman class and untouchables 

at the bottom. The opposite of the country all of   us over 50 grew up in that had an egalitarian 

spirit where some were rich, some were poor,   some were smart, some were dumb, some had good 

jobs, others were unemployed. But all of us were   considered equal under the law and equal in the 

eyes of God. And that concept is the basis of a   stable society, any stable society. And it was the 

basis of stability in this country. And laws like   this and the attitudes that give birth to them 

to laws like this have made it wildly unstable,   wobbly. It's so unstable. So as of October 13th, 

that could become law. Now that's a censorship   law. Now they'll say, "No, no, no. We're just 

we're actually getting the platforms to censor."   Well, right. You're getting someone else to do 

the job for you. But if you hire a hitman and   he carries out the hit, you're the murderer. 

He participated in it, but you hired him. And   that's exactly what's going on here. The state 

of California under Gavin Newsome is about to,   we think, censor the opinions of Americans, not 

to protect anybody, but to shield themselves   from criticism so they can continue to do 

what they want to do in secret. [Music] Jonathan Greenblat, the head of the ADL, 

applauds this. And in case you're not familiar   with Jonathan Greenblat, and in case you want a 

sense of what he's like and what he considers hate   speech, let's just go right to the tape so you 

know that we're not exaggerating. This is Jonathan   Greenblat video. When you look at the prevalence 

of antivaxer accounts that have been amplified and   spread across Facebook, they don't show up on your 

network, but they show up every day to billions of   people because Facebook profits from amplifying 

these voices which are literally killing people.   And freedom to express your opinion isn't the 

freedom to incite violence. But but for Facebook,   it is. And that needs to change. That's all. It's 

simple. There's nothing wrong with keeping all of   us safe from violent white supremacists or hateful 

people. So criticizing the COVID vax is tantamount   to murder. There's never been I mean obviously 

that's primopacia insane. It's untrue. It's a   deranged perspective. But more than anything 

you're seeing who Jonathan Greenblat really is.   He is a faithful Ptorian guard for the people in 

charge. This is not someone who's ever challenged   actual power. Not once in his life. That's who 

he works for. That's who he takes money from. That's what hate speech looks like. Anybody in 

charge can make you shut up when you criticize   them or stand in the way of their aims. So, 

in case you don't think this can come to the   United States, one final clip, and it's a sad 

one, and it comes from the UK. Now, the UK,   obviously, the country that gave birth 2 hours, a 

cousin, a country so similar to ours and so close,   6 hours by plane overnight, that we don't really 

think of it as fully foreign. It's not like going   to Malaysia or Burundi or even France. It's an 

English-sp speakaking country whose customs are   recognizable, whose government and common law 

form the basis of our government and our law.   Everything about England seems like home but 3° 

off. And yet the UK has become a police state.   And if you don't believe that, if you think that's 

just hyperbole designed to whip you into a frenzy,   here's a stat that we checked and it's 

it's hard even to believe this is true,   but this is true. 2023, so like a year and a half 

ago, how many people do you think were arrested in   the United Kingdom for speech violations? Arrested 

by the police, handcuffed, and brought to jail in   2023. Couple dozen. You know, the ones you see on 

X, the ones Fox News talks about. How many people   in that year were arrested for saying things the 

government didn't want them to say? What's your   guess? Is it more than 12,000? Cuz that's the 

answer. More than 12,000. Wow, that seems like   a lot. Is that a lot? I mean, it's kind of hard 

to know, right? Okay. Well, let's compare it to   the number, the widely agreed upon number from 

the most totalitarian country in the world. A   country so lacking in basic freedom. A country 

run by a mad man. A country that's so evil,   we're literally at war with that country right now 

just on principle because we so disapprove of how   they treat their people. And that country 

of course is Russia under Vladimir Putin.   So, if the UK handcuffed 12,000, 

more than 12,000 people in one year   for saying things the government didn't 

like, how many were arrested in Russia,   a country with twice the population of the 

UK? Oh, we happen to have the number. 3,319. So to restate, more than 12,000 

people arrested in the United Kingdom,   England in one year for speech code violations, 

3,300 arrested in Russia, a country with twice   the population. So that tells you you don't think 

totalitarianism can come to the Anglosphere. Oh,   it already has. We haven't even touched on 

Australia, New Zealand, Canada. In some ways,   even worse. But what does it look like? What is 

the face of hate crime prosecution? What does   it actually look like when a citizen is arrested 

for saying something the government doesn't like?   This video is not from China. It's from the United 

Kingdom. This is a British veteran being arrested   for offending the government. Watch police would 

realize how ridiculous this is. It is ridiculous.   It is to come to this what did it need to come 

to? Tell tell us why you escalated it to this   level cuz I don't understand. I posted something 

that he posted. You come to arrest me. You don't   arrest him. Why has it come to this? Why am 

I in cuffs? Because of something he shared   then I shared because someone has been caused 

obviously anxiety based upon your social media   post. That's why you've been arrested. Oh yes. 

The velvet wrap jack boot of British fascism.   You're being arrested because someone has been 

caused anxiety by your views. Notice that someone   has never identified. And of course, the answer 

is someone in power. Someone in the government or   someone who funds the government, someone close 

to the government, someone who's a lot more   power than you. Didn't like what you were saying, 

felt anxious about what you were saying. And so,   unfortunately, we're going to have to 

handcuff you and bring you to jail. That happened this year. That happened in That's 

from January. And it happens every single day.   more than 12,000 people arrested every single year 

for criticizing their government in the UK. Our   closest ally with whom we share intelligence 

on every level, British intelligence. I know   everyone's spun up about MSAD, very close to 

MSAD. We're closer to British intelligence.   That's the country we're partnering with to spy on 

our respective populations. Yeah. So, it's really,   really simple. If a government, if your government 

is willing to arrest you for saying things that   they don't like, if your government is arresting 

you for criticizing them one way or another,   you need a new government. If there is any 

justification for revolution, it's that that's   unacceptable. That's tyranny. A government that 

does that is not a legitimate government. has   absolutely no right to do that and it should be 

stopped from doing that immediately. That's the   red line right there. Michael Shelonburgger is 

one of the great reporters in the United States,   a friend of ours and someone who as a former 

liberal has probably thought about speech   uh for more years and with more clarity than 

probably anyone I know. And so we're so grateful   to have him on to assess the state of free 

speech in the United States 2 weeks after   Charlie Kirk's assassination. Mike, thanks 

very much uh for coming on. Are you worried? I I'm very worried. I mean, I think what's 

maybe under said recently is that, you know,   assassination is the ultimate form of censorship. 

You know, you and it comes from the same place.   You know, I think that's what everybody senses 

about it is that there had been efforts, you know,   to censor, you know, and and and they had, 

I think, censored Charlie Kirk, obviously. I   mean the Twitter files we discovered that he 

was on a blacklist. There was obviously huge   attempts to keep him out of universities. He had 

already had you know many death threats which is   uh not a direct form of government censorship but 

these are societal demands that he be silenced.   And then at a global institutional level yeah it's 

a very disturbing trend that we're seeing. I mean   I think there's two things happening. And there's 

both a organic kind of demand from powerful people   like the kind that you were describing where a 

politician just really, you know, I think it was   the Moscowitz where he just kind of can't stand 

something and they just want to see something   taken down and you see that from groups and 

politicians. And then there's more of an inorganic   demand for censorship which we've labeled the 

censorship industrial complex. You can call it   the censorship industry. And that is in place 

in the European Union, in Britain, in Brazil,   California would like to have that. Basically, 

all the five eyes countries are pursuing that.   And their strategy, I think, is pretty clear at 

this point, is to encircle the United States and   to make our tech platform censor along the 

lines that they would like to so they can   achieve censorship through the back door. And this 

has always been their strategy because they know   that the first amendment is a major obstacle for 

them since it requires that the people have really   radical levels of free speech that no country has 

ever come close to. And as you said based on this   idea of natural rights that we are granted by 

our creator, not given to us by the government.   The speech comes before the government. The 

speech is how we constitute our government.   Whereas in Europe and everywhere else, the 

government had gradually, you know, let people say   certain things. You have to petition the king. Oh, 

king, can we criticize you for sleeping with Anne   Boland? And the king would decide whether that 

would be okay or not. And and that's how it would   occur. And the creators of this amazing country 

and as you work on free speech, I've only worked   on it now for really two and a half years. I'm a 

new newbie to the issue, but one of the things you   just really appreciate is really how radical and 

powerful and strong that commitment to the First   Amendment was. It's not just hype. You might just 

think, is that just patriotic hype from Americans?   It's not when you read the history of free speech 

over 2500 years going back to Socrates who was   put to death uh for things that he said, also an 

act of censorship. um then you realize just how   radical the first and how beautiful it the first 

amendment is because the Americans that created   our country said we don't want to have a country 

we don't have a government if we can't have full   free speech with some very narrow exceptions 

and so the exceptions now they sort of say well   the internet changed everything that's what you 

hear from that's what I hear from my progressive   friends heard it on Martha's Vineyard of all 

places it's all changed with the internet it's too   dangerous to allow this high level of free speech 

we have to change things. Well, Tucker, to to put   into to put in context how crazy that is. Our 

Supreme Court has ruled not once but twice that   Nazis can march through neighborhoods not only of 

Jewish Americans but of Holocaust survivors. And   that the line where you the the line that gets 

crossed between speech and actual violence is   when I say go kill that person there or go light 

that house on how it's when the speech becomes   part of the action, you know, or coordinating an 

assassination or something. Of course, language in   that context has to be illegal because it's part 

of it's part of breaking the law. But marching   through a neighborhood with the most vile ideology 

is something that the Supreme Court has twice   upheld. Well, now we're supposed to believe that 

some racist comments on a on on a Facebook post   or as you said, it's really political. It's really 

about stifling the conversation around migration,   gender, climate. Uh I mean, it's actually been 

less on race, more, you know, huge amount on   on trans issues. I mean, we just saw a British 

gentleman, Gran Linham, a famous uh television   comedy writer, get arrested when he landed in 

Britain for having urged uh biological women to   defend themselves from biological males that come 

into their bathrooms. So, it is a very serious   threat. Uh Tucker, I think that the thing to keep 

our eye on is they've been trying to basically get   governments to empower a mostly secret group 

of so-called NOS that would be financed by   the government and who would be telling the social 

media companies what to take down. In some places,   they're more subtle with it than in others. That's 

the big threat. The Trump administration has done   some great things to defund that. It was all 

going to work through NSF and then Congress   would have to bless it and that was the way 

that they were going to do it. So the the Trump   administration has done a great job defunding that 

and also holding a strong line on both Europe and   Brazil putting, you know, demanding that free 

speech protections uh be there. But obviously,   you know, we see some some backsliding and some 

behaviors over the last couple of weeks that   were lamentable. Certainly the attorney general's 

comments, which she then later kind of went back   on and said she didn't mean what she had said. And 

then obviously or maybe not obviously but a dust   up over the the FCC chair and his comments around 

Jimmy Kimmel which I got to say as the days go by   and you look in retrospect it just seems absurd. 

I mean you had Democrats trying to create this   elaborate censorship system and then you had some 

bad mouthing of Jimmy Kimmel. It wasn't really it   it wasn't great. I I I think it was a it was 

inappropriate. Um, but I think there was a lot   of other complicating factors too and there was, 

you know, economic concerns around Jimmy Kimmel   and just sort of this demand that, you know, 

that he have to be carried on every television   station. I think in retrospect, uh, we won't look 

back on as it's not a great moment. I don't think   the Trump administration covered itself in 

glory over the last couple of weeks on that.   But on on the European side of holding strong on 

free speech and also in standing up to Brazil,   uh, I do give the Trump administration credit. 

All it did was save Jimmy Kimmel. I mean, Jimmy   Kimmel is on his way out. Nobody watches that. 

It's crap. I mean, it has no effect on American   society. It's just murbbitatory. It's really he's 

he's playing for an audience of one himself. And   um this kind of allowed him to pose as a free 

speech defender. I got to say, I'm the Tik Tok   thing. I think I sort of missed that. I don't know 

why I wasn't paying attention. I should have been,   but Tik Tok was banned by the Congress uh for 

forced to sell. Chinese owned company by dance   owned Tik Tok and the argument in the Congress was 

well we can't have foreign ownership of you know   a critical service like social media in this 

country and so it has to be owned um at least   51% by Americans. Okay. I just I don't know why I 

missed the significance of this. Then it turns out   and they said this openly. It had nothing to do 

with China and members of Congress said this. I'm   v a lot of Republicans. I'm voting to shut down 

Tik Tok because people are starting to like Hamas   when they watch it. Now, I'm not endorsing Hamas, 

obviously. I'm not pro Hamas at all. But Americans   have a right to like anything they want and to 

come to their own conclusions about some foreign   conflict or even domestic conflict, any conclusion 

they want because they're not slaves. So, is it   okay for the Congress to decide, I don't like the 

effects, the radicalization of this one social   media platform, so I'm going to shut it down? 

I mean, is is that allowed? Can they do that?   Well, this gets to let me let me come to it 

by addressing the one of the things that you   I thought rightly discussed in your monologue, 

which is this uh very wonky but important issue   of this law called section 230 and the nature 

of these platforms that we have. And I think   it's helpful to think of these platforms at this 

point as utilities. They're monopoly utilities,   right? You could say there's some competition 

between Instagram and Tik Tok and and X and   there's truth to that, but there's often 

situations in in monopoly environments where   there's some competition. Uh but they really do 

operate, I think, functionally as monopolies.   And they're they're already regulated monopolies 

by section 230. They're already saying to them,   you're a different category of business. Um you're 

not liable if you take down illegal content.   you're not you can't be sued for having had that 

content on your website. It still requires them to   take it down. I think my view and I've published a 

couple of white papers on it. I've testified on it   uh hasn't exactly caught fire. My uh proposal 

I've got a lot of views like that too. Yeah. But   I think like I think that uh you know I mean look 

one thing you have to understand about these these   big tech companies they're so powerful. There's I 

I I was shocked when I learned that like Facebook   has a different lobbyist for House Republicans 

than for House Democrats and a separate lobbyist   for Senate Republicans, Senate Democrats. I mean, 

these guys really put a lot of money into having   that control over Congress. So, uh that's a little 

bit like the utilities uh power uh at the state   level, the electric utilities power at the state 

level. So, it's a regulated environment, but I   do think public interest voices like yourself 

and Joe Rogan and others uh out there carrying   this message is really important because I think 

what's in the public interest is that we actually   do keep 230 but make it contingent on allowing 

all adult users to filter our own content, our own   legal content. So in other words, all the child 

exploitation stuff obviously still being policed   as we do now. All of the, you know, copyright 

violation, all that stuff still being policed   as is now. But when you would go into social 

media platform, you'd have a chance to basically   decide what you wanted to see and what you didn't 

want to see. And there was even some talk among   uh Republicans who I respect, but I disagree on 

this issue that were upset that the the video of   Charlie Kirk being assassinated was on X. I mean, 

it was quite shocking. I have to agree with that.   But I don't think the solution is to necessarily 

take it down, but you could certainly create your   own filter that I want to filter out any scenes 

of people being physically harmed. You could have   a lot of different filters. You could have the 

Tucker Carlson filter. You could have the Greta   Tunberg filter, but the the users would be able to 

do that. And then, of course, the platforms like X   already does can feed you their own platform, a 

separate stream. I think Elon has gotten pretty   close to that at X. Not as close as I would love 

to see it, but we're so grateful because I mean   the impact that he's had has been so enormous in 

terms of ending this censorship fa fact-checking   mafia. Mark Zuckerberg at Meta earlier this year 

decided he was going to copy the Elon Musk model   of crowdsourcing, which is what the spirit of 

the first amendment is. We crowdsource truth   with the first amendment. And then we just saw 

Google yesterday uh in a letter to chairman Jim   Jordan in the house said that they would move to 

something more like that. So those are those are   good directions, but for me that's should be the 

only issue of section 230 reform is to actually   uh expand the speech that's allowed not 

restricted. What they want to do is they want to   basically give the deep state, you know, for lack 

of a better word, DHS, NSF, DoD, the power to kind   of choose the the people that will decide what 

the truth is as these NOS's who would then get NSF   money, which is, you know, public money, national 

science money, and that they would then get   special access to the data. I mean, this was their 

whole vision, and they were close to achieving it.   We only really discovered it with the Twitter 

files. That's their holy grail is to be able to   control it that way. It's they're they're set 

back in the United States, but they are moving   for sure in that direction in Europe, uh, Britain, 

uh, Brazil, and certainly California would like to   do the same. I hope that if Gavin does sign that 

atrocious legislation that you were describing,   Tucker, I hope that the Supreme Court or that the 

courts strike it down. They struck down the last   California censorship initiative which was aiming 

at uh banning uh AI, you know, parodies and that   got struck down by a judge in a very eloquent uh 

decision. But that's kind of where we're at and   why I think your special on this is so important 

because we're on a knife's edge. On the one hand,   I think we're making some good progress here 

in the United States in exposing the censorship   um and shutting and defunding it, but I think 

worldwide the trends are in the wrong direction.   and on college campuses with young people. 

Unfortunately, we've seen an increase of support   among censorship. Really, every generation from 

baby boomers to Gen Xers to millennials to zoomers   that we see support for censorship going up. And 

it's exactly like what you were saying. It's about   protecting feelings. It's this, you know, to use a 

bit of jargon, it's this expressive individualism,   which is that my feelings are like the most 

important thing in the world, and if my feelings   are hurt, then somebody has to pay a price. That 

sadly is the ideology and that's why I think the   censorship is in this broader you know cultural 

decline you know where it's like the intolerance   and the entitlement that people feel are these 

big forces that have been I think driving those   demands for censorship. I think it's I think 

everything you've said is absolutely true. I think   it may even be more insidious than that. However, 

I think that there are decent people who've had   their best impulses hijacked by totalitarians and 

used against them. In other words, I think there   are like good people, Americans, mostly women, 

to be totally blunt about it, who are like, "Oh,   we can't be mean to this or that group." Well, I 

think that's a good impulse, by the we shouldn't   be mean to any group, and the weaker they are, the 

more careful we should be about being mean to them   because you don't want to be a bully, right? 

Like, that's a good impulse. But that impulse   is hijacked by the sensors who are acting on their 

own behalf, not on behalf of whatever marginalized   group they claim they're acting on behalf of. 

They don't care about those groups, obviously.   The lives of black people in inner cities did not 

improve after the George Floyd riots, obviously.   But they they hijack that and they say, "If you 

care about the weakest among us, you will get on   board with censorship." I I think that's really 

clever and insidious and evil, but effective.   Yeah, I think that's right. I think it's um 

it's a manipulation. You know, it just shows how   emotional the culture has gotten, you know, that 

you can appeal to those feelings. I mean, Tucker,   it's so easy to show how much of an abuse of power 

you can get with these hate speech laws. I mean,   it's worth considering. For example, you'll 

get people that will be like, "Oh, well, are   you defending the right of people to like call for 

genocide?" And you kind of go, "Oh my god, well,   no. I mean, that's horrible. I don't want people 

to call for genocide. And so you kind of go,   so we'll carve that out. But then you kind of go, 

well, wait a second. So the same people that are   saying that to you are the ones that point out 

as soon as you talk about the American experiment   of the 17th and 18th and 19th centuries that the 

that the European settlers committed a genocide to   create the United States of America. So how hard 

would it be to criticize somebody that say praised   America, praised the western expansion, praised 

the the west opening up and the European settlers   uh frankly taking over the United taking over this 

land from indigenous people. Someone could say   that's defending genocide. So you see how easy and 

quickly it comes. I'll give you another example.   Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which is one of 

these deeply sinister I mean they would not return   any phone calls or whatever and they personally 

uh uh smeared me and a lot of others. Can I ask   you to stop? So the the Center for Strategic 

Dialogue didn't want any dialogue. Yeah,   the Institute for Strategic Dialogue refused 

to have dialogue. I'm not surprised. Um creepy   creepy group close to British intelligence. I 

mean it's just like I mean close to I'm being   generous you know like clearly an intermediary uh 

with deep state British organizations that is very   interested in censoring Americans and we see this 

dynamic a lot where they you know the Brits you   know pick on Americans the British groups pick on 

Americans um because you know the US intelligence   uh uh community can't directly go after Americans 

so they get their British uh allies to do it and   this is a group that labeled along with the 

center for countering digital hate, which is   equally sinister organization, very connected to 

the Labor Party of Britain. They label criticism   of George Soros as anti-semitic. And and Tucker, 

I'm not saying criticism of George Soros and even   noticing that he's Jewish. It wasn't even 

that. It wasn't like they said the Jewish   philanthropist George Soros. They'd be like, just 

criticizing George Soros was anti-semitic. That's   how crazy it is and got that. And you know you 

look at the number of institutions that have been   putting this. It's the European Union. It's NATO. 

It's the United Nations. It's Germany, France,   Britain. United States is really powerful. And I 

think that the president did a good job pushing   back against those types of people around the 

world. But it is important to remember that the   European economy is bigger than the United States 

economy. And certainly when you go and kind of   look at a world with this incredible economic 

power of China and the gravity it exercises and   all these other countries in the world including 

Europe including Brazil. I mean it was notable   that when Trump punished Brazil with tariffs for 

its censorship and banning their their their lead   their opposition party leader and the leading 

presidential candidate Bolsinaro that China   made up the difference in the loss of trade. So 

you sort of start to see the world, you know, and   particularly get this kind of organic, you know, 

decline of real belief and support in free speech   with a kind of global move towards this censorship 

industrial complex system of censorship by proxy.   It is disturbing because they can exercise 

economic power over our platforms. And you know,   I mean, I I I think Elon has shown good reason 

that we can, you know, basically trust what he's   done. I think he's made great decisions um for 

the most part since he's taken over the platform.   But you know if anything were to happen to Elon 

I mean these companies Mark Zuckerberg, Google,   Sundar Pashai, they've shown themselves to be 

quite cowardly. Facebook um was worried about   the lack of help from the Biden administration. 

It was enough to get Facebook to censor because   they were worried about not having enough help 

from the Biden administration to retrieve their   very valuable user data from Europe, which their 

laws require. And that's why they agreed to do   censorship that even their own social scientists 

within Facebook said would backfire because they   were like, look, if you go censor mothers sharing 

information about the about the COVID vaccine side   effects, it will make mothers more nervous. 

That's what the internal people at Facebook   said. And the Facebook execs were like, "We better 

just give the Biden administration what they want,   otherwise they're not going to help us with 

our data in Europe." So, it doesn't I mean,   it's it's not hard to imagine, you know, the power 

that these states can exercise on these platforms.   And I don't think that that threat has gone 

away. It doesn't seem like a good system if one,   you know, South African-born naturalized American 

is the only thing standing between us and tyranny.   I mean, I really think that the media wouldn't be 

I mean, I I work in the media. My whole life I've   worked in the media. Elon Musk did this. Elon 

Musk did all this and he did it because I I   think he says because he believes in it. What 

whatever the cause, he did it. He opened up   everything. Yeah. So, but which I'm will never 

stop being grateful for obviously. However,   that's a pretty thin thread kind of holding your 

civilization aloft. No. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I the   things I really worry about are those numbers, you 

know. I mean, you've had, you know, um, you know,   just those numbers of young people that I mean, 

the number of young people, the number of college   students, the share of college students that said 

that violence may sometimes be necessary to stop   a campus speaker was under 20% in the year 2020. 

It's 34% right now. That means onethird of college   students think that violence might be necessary 

to stop a campus speaker. That is I mean that's   pathological. I don't know there's another word 

for that's bonkers, crazy scary behavior. And   so you know remember George Orwell he was uh you 

know a leftist um wrote 1984 because he had read   James Bham who's this very famous you know former 

Trosky who becomes a conservative and writes u you   know this book about the managerial state which 

is basically about how this totalitarianism would   kind of emerge out of the society and out of the 

state in these in these very specific safetist you   know harm reduction demands that that you would 

sort of get a whole kind of state of busybody   you know nanny state people that wanted to police 

the speech I mean that was his prediction in 19   whatever that was 1947 I think or you know when 

1984 came out that is was so brilliant I mean   it's terrifying brilliantly pressing it because 

that's what I worry about and I think you know   I saw the obviously very moved by all the Charlie 

Kirk what's the response to the Charlie Kirk perk   assassin and the desire to go into universities. 

I think we need to figure out how to move that   number down so that people really do be the young 

people become and the everybody becomes more   comfortable with Yeah. I mean look I mean Charlie 

really was um inspiring in the way that he would   go into places and of course the sign said prove 

me wrong. He was saying look I'm open to debate   is exactly he I mean it's so I don't know ironic 

is not the right word. It's so powerful that the   person that was assassinated was the person doing 

what we need the most of. That the person that   was killed was the person who was doing what we 

need to see much much more of at the high schools   and the colleges, which is getting people very 

comfortable with having difficult conversations   and with having conversations with people whose 

values you don't share and who believe things   that you find reprehensible. And that is at 

the heart of it. And I don't know. I mean,   it's sort of what's terrifying is that, you know, 

those numbers of intolerance kept increasing over   the last 10 years. I hope that we've hit 

an inflection point. I will say, Tucker,   one number that did change that gave that that I 

felt some hard in was that Pew had found that the   share of Democrats that thought the government 

should be involved in censoring misinformation   online had risen from 40% in 2018 to 70% in 2023. 

They did the stud the same question earlier this   year and it's now declined to 58%. So I do feel 

like there is a chance at which the I mean it's   still terrible but like the the the sense in which 

that trance has broken you know that hypnotic we   have to fight misinformation that just bonkers 

anti-American unamerican impulse. It feels like   it was broken but I still think there's a lot 

of that you know cultural work that we need   to do to really educating kids because I just 

don't think free speech is intuitive. I mean,   you go to a playground and you see little kids 

playing and they just are yelling shut up, shut   up at each other all the time. It's our natural 

instinct. You hear something you don't like,   you want to shut them up. And the alternative 

to listen to somebody and actively disagree   with them and maybe think about how to respond 

or just figure out if you agree or disagree. It   take it's like a muscle. It just takes practice. 

And I think we have to teach the kids, you know,   both the K through 12 and the college students how 

to do that. and that doing that is a core value   that will be rewarded in life and we should be 

celebrating rather than the opposite which is this   desire to silence and shut down. Are you concerned 

that technological advances that we're in the   middle of really um will be harnessed to affect 

censorship without people even knowing it? I mean,   you did the Twitter files with mental and found 

what I don't think anyone knew. There was this   vast censorship program at Twitter and but 

most users had the sense that, you know,   it's a liberal website, whatever, they're 

taking the conservatives off, but had no idea   uh about the specifics until you brought 

them to light. Does AI increase the power   of the platforms to take information off the site 

without anyone even knowing it's been taken off?   Yeah, I mean just to answer that question, I'll 

preface it by saying of course I watched very   closely your interview with Sam Alman where you 

asked I think some very important questions which   is what is the moral framework with which uh his 

AI will follow. That is the right question and of   course it remains an everpresent question. It's 

not like it'll it will never go away. Ultimately,   these decisions about what gets censored and what 

the AI censors for us are made by people. And so,   you look at the worst episodes of censorship over 

the last, you know, 5 to 10 years. You can find   the people that were demanding the censorship. 

You can find the groups they created to demand   it. you know that it was it was human decisions 

and that in fact at the company level in the   Twitter files. There was a huge amount of debate 

around I mean not enough a huge amount of debate   around deplatforming the president of the United 

States like removing the account of the president   of United States which is so insane. They it 

was a big deal. Obviously, it was talked about   and then of course you could see it. Same thing 

with the Hunter Biden laptop where the FBI ran   a deception operation against the social media 

platforms illegally in an illegal conspiracy. Uh   that included spreading disinformation about the 

laptop. Um that was obviously a very elaborate   thing that a lot of people could see and were 

getting kind of glimpses into. There was also   just the the the humrum or the ordinary kind of 

deamplification. So you remember Twitter famously   said, "Oh, we don't shadowban." That was the 

language that people had used. Well, of course   they did. They called it something different. It 

was called like uh you know, do not ampl amplify   lists for examples, like a kind of blacklist that 

they ran or a trends blacklist. Don't let them   show up on the trends thing. So there's just all 

a million dials of course uh as you know, Tucker,   to like kind of turn these things up and down. 

Yeah, the AI can help, but sometimes, you know,   like they wanted to go after a QAnon conspiracy 

at one point. I reported this in my Twitter files   on the decision to deplatform Trump and there was 

something around like the Kraken which I guess is   like a giant like squid in the ocean. I think 

it's uh you know they were like the Kraken was   somehow tied into QAnon conspiracy theories and 

they wanted to censor that which is also insane.   like they wanted to literally stop people from 

talking about Kraken like on Twitter and then   somebody figured out that the Seattle I think 

hockey team is the Kraken and that all these   tweets around hockey were getting like swept up in 

it. So it's like you know it's like I worry about   it but ultimately it's not a bunch of sensors 

in like the Philippines or even I think PaloAlto   these like the worst forms of censorship are being 

decided at at the executive level. But as I said,   my view is that if you have section 230, which 

is what gives you the power to be a monopoly.   It's like literally like the p like the permit 

to operate as a functional natural monopoly. I   think that that you should have to um give the 

user the adult user complete control over all   legal con content and you can censor the illegal 

content. And I do think we should there's a whole   separate thing on kids, you know, which I think is 

complicated because they're using the kids right   now in Australia. They're literally using the kids 

in Australia to create digital identifications   as a way to censorship, which I think you we 

should be alarmed about. But nonetheless, as   a father who's seen the impact of social media on 

adolescence, I do worry about it. But I do think   like if you're going to have section 230, that's 

that should be the agreement. Yeah. And I thank   you for describing it as using the kids because 

it is the most obviously transparently cynical   uh attempt to censor political speech by using 

the suffering of children about whom they care   nothing obviously. Um there's no demonstrated 

care for kids like how are the schools you know   they don't care. Um right and any pretext will do. 

I mean the terrorism thing was huge as you know um   under the Bush administration was terrorism what 

is that exactly? Can you can you define it for me?   No they can't. Um I'm wondering though what's 

the recourse? So these are decisions you just   described that are being made at like the highest 

level of well global society. I mean the richest   man in the world decided to restore free speech 

to the United States. The president of the United   States helped him. um judge, federal judges rule 

on these things, but let's say we have a different   president and there's no Elon or his commitment 

changes and there's a different Supreme Court. Uh   like where's the power to fight back against this? 

Is can you imagine a kind of civil disobedience   that people could use to regain their speech? I'm 

trying to think through what that would look like.   Well, look at the top of my list is that we are 

in something called the NATO organization and it   has a treaty that requires that we only have as 

members free democracies. Dem we only are going   to defend countries that allow free speech and 

that allow candidates uh people to choose the   candidates of their choice. Currently that is 

absolutely under attack in Europe. Romania has   already pr