WEBVTT - Hate Speech Is Free Speech 0:00:02.759 --> 0:00:07.000 This is Bloomberg Law with June Grossel from Bloomberg Radio. 0:00:09.200 --> 0:00:12.760 US Attorney General Pam Bondi threatened to go after hate 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:18.400 speech on a podcast last week. We will absolutely target you, 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:23.360 go after you if you are targeting anyone with hate 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:27.280 speech anything, and that's across the aisle. Bondy was wrong. 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:31.320 Hate speech is not a crime. In fact, hate speech 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:35.760 is free speech protected by the First Amendment. Just ask 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:42.080 the Supreme Court. Conservative Justice Samuel Alito wrote in twenty seventeen, quote, 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:46.239 the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:50.160 we protect the freedom to express the thought that we hate. 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:54.920 Bondi's remarks true criticism across the political spectrum, and she 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:58.560 tried to walk them back with some confusing posts on 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:03.480 x is. First Amendment expert Timothy Zick, a professor at 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:07.880 William and Mary Law School, Tim, can you define hate 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:09.000 speech for US? 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:12.640 Well, it doesn't have a definition in US law or 0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:17.400 First Amendment jurisprudence. There's no category of hate speech that 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:22.039 is unprotected under the First Amendment. That's in contrast to 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:26.720 European countries and other countries that do have statutory prescriptions 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:32.320 on speech that derrigates or criticizes people based on gender 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:35.920 or race or some other protected characteristic, but if the 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:39.840 Attorney General should know. In the United States in general, 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:43.000 hate speech is not criminally prescribable. 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:46.600 The Supreme Court has protected hate speech in more than 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:50.160 one case. The one that stands out in my mind 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:54.920 is Brandenburg versus Ohio, the case involving the Nazi Party 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:58.360 marching in Skokie, Illinois, in nineteen seventy seven. 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:01.880 Well, the Supreme Court, in that case and others, has 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:05.120 come down on the side of freedom of expression right 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:09.200 in the sense that the government cannot criminalize or otherwise 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:13.160 punish the expression of viewpoints, even if those viewpoints are 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:19.240 offensive or vile or derogatory. Right, So, even speach in 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:23.200 support of Nazism, this is a general matter protected speech. 0:02:23.440 --> 0:02:27.800 Speech that offends people based on race, or gender or 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:33.200 sexual orientation, that's also protected speech. And the Supreme Court 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:38.000 has been consistent in drawing that line where it has 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:40.840 in the sense that you know, whether it's Nazis marching 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:43.680 in skoki that case reached the Supreme Court is actually 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:46.280 a lower court case that decided, Look, the town of 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:49.200 Skokey cannot enact all these ordinances to try and prevent 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:53.240 Nazis from marching or displaying Nazi regalia. The Supreme Court 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:58.040 protects viewpoints even if they're vile. There are some narrow exceptions, right, 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:01.600 If you threaten another person's bothering or death, if you 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:05.799 incite other people to engage in imminent unlawful activity that's 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:08.760 likely to occur, those sorts of things are not protected. 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:12.639 The government cannot have the power to tell an audience 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:16.760 in the United States what speech is appropriate or too 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:18.200 offensive to be heard. 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:21.720 But the Court has recognized an exception to the First 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:25.600 Amendment for threats of violence. How are they defined? 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:29.919 That's a narrow exception to First Amendment protection. Right, So 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:33.040 if you communicate what the Court is defined as a 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:36.920 serious expression of an intent to inflict bodily harm or 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:40.960 death on another person, then you can be punished for 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:44.440 that kind of speech. But the narrowness here is sort 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:46.760 of like, you know, it has to be a serious expression. 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:48.800 It can't be something said in jets. It can't be 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:53.240 hyperbolic language where you say, well, this person should be 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:55.760 home for their crimes, right, that sort of thing. It 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:59.520 has to be more directed, more specific, and as a 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:03.840 Supreme has recently said uttered recklessly that you know there's 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:06.520 a risk when you say the words that a person 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:08.800 will perceive what you're saying is threatening, but you say 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:12.520 it anyway. So it's not just threatening language. That's not 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:16.920 unprotected speech. It's something far more specific than that. And 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:19.440 when the Attorney General said, well, what I meant to say, 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:22.279 it wasn't hate speech, really, it was threat Well, none 0:04:22.320 --> 0:04:25.599 of the speech that we've been talking about since Charlie 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:30.400 Kirk's assassination, you know, constitutes threats. Right when you praise 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:33.560 or celebrate someone's death, that's not a threat. So you know, 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:35.719 she got it wrong twice. Essentially. 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:40.000 She also said in her explanation, you can't call for 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:44.120 someone's murder. You cannot swat a member of Congress, you 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:47.320 cannot dos a conservative family and think it will be 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:51.120 brushed off as free speech. These acts are punishable crimes, 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:53.799 and every single threat will be met with the full 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:54.799 force of the law. 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:58.159 Are all the things she mentioned punishable. 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:01.000 Well, some of them are protected, right. It depends on 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:03.200 the sort of statute that you're looking at, you know, 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:08.400 how narrowly it's defining harassment, for example, or threat calling 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:12.560 for the murder of someone is not incitement. It is 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:13.360 not a threat. 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:14.320 Right. 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:17.560 I wish you know so and so would die is 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:20.400 a terrible thing to think, a terrible thing to say. 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:25.440 But it's not unprotected expression under our First Amendment doctrines 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:29.640 and jurisprudence. Yes, there's conduct that you can go after. 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:33.960 If I repeatedly harass someone, whether it's online or offline, 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:37.080 then that can rise to the level of harassment. But 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:39.240 there I'm not being punished for my expression. I'm being 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:44.600 punished for the act of repetitious harassment of another. And 0:05:44.720 --> 0:05:50.400 docting is difficult, right, because just publishing information about, say, 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:55.520 where someone lives, is not necessarily unprotected speech, right. A 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:57.680 lot depends on the contact. And again, as they said, 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:00.279 it's statute under which you're reviewing it. 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:03.159 And wasn't there a Supreme Court case a few years 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:07.240 ago involving threats on the internet. 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:11.279 Counterman versus Colorado. Yeah, that was this very recent threats 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:14.680 case the Supreme Court handed down. There was a singer 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:21.359 who had some uninvited online messages, tried to block the 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:24.560 person from contacting her. He just opened new accounts and 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:29.599 kept contacting her, and eventually this person was prosecuted for 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:32.040 form of harassment, which is really what the case sort 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:35.160 of set up as, but the court below and then 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:37.680 the Supreme Court treated it as raising the question of 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:41.440 whether this person had communicated we are called true threats, 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:45.640 as I described earlier, serious expressions of an intent to 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:49.400 cause bodiling, injury or death to another. And what the 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:52.280 court was wrestling with in that piece is the mental 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:55.520 state of the speaker. Well, how do I know whether 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:58.279 the person's communicating a threat? And they say, if the 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:02.240 person knows of a substantial risk that the person he 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:06.240 is communicating with is when it perceives the speech is threatening, 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:09.359 then that's the kind of recklessness that the First Amendment 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:13.320 requires before you label something a true threat. So the 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:16.320 court was grappling with a really important sort of technical 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:18.880 issue in that case, which was a mental state required 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:22.440 for the speaker, and a number of courts before that 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:26.040 had sort of adopted this subjective test. Well, if I'm 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:29.000 the audience for that speech and I perceive it subjectively 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:32.600 is threatening, that should be enough. And the court was worried, well, 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:36.560 that's not speech protective enough. That's going to cause misunderstandings 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:40.720 to be translated into criminalized threats. We don't want that, 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:44.080 but we also don't want a sort of lower standard, 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:46.040 so let's find something in the middle, sort of a 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:49.760 goldilocked standard. And they settled on recklessness. 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:52.760 And so the Supreme Court has been would you say, 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:57.000 particularly protective of free speech rights? 0:07:57.400 --> 0:08:00.280 I think that's its reputation right. I could probably come 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:03.440 up with exceptions to that, but in general, I think 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:07.240 it's fair to say that they're protective of freedom of speech. 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:08.800 Yet we have, you. 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:12.560 Know, the Attorney General's remarks. We had Todd Blanche, the 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:17.240 Deputy Attorney General, said in an interview that people protesting 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:20.640 while President Trump had dinner at a restaurant might have 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:25.880 committed a crime. You have President Trump saying to ABC 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:29.559 news reporter will probably go after people like you because 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:33.000 you treat me so unfairly. It's hate. Why is there 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:36.080 this misunderstanding of hate speech? 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:39.719 Well, I don't know if it's a misunderstanding. I mean 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:43.040 this has been sort of President Trump's a longstanding position. 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:43.360 Right. 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:47.760 He either doesn't understand or doesn't appreciate freedom of expression. 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:52.320 So his view is that negative press isn't protected. You 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:57.440 can pull the broadcast license of a broadcaster that publishes 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:02.360 critical coverage of him. It consistingly negative right, That, of course, 0:09:02.440 --> 0:09:05.920 is contrary to the First Amendment. Going after your political 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:09.360 enemies for things that they say is part of the 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:13.760 sort of Trump mantra, but it is unconstitutional. And you 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:16.079 know what's interesting to me is recently people have said, oh, 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:19.840 we've crossed some line here where the president is threatening 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:23.520 retribution at this political enemy. We are nine months into 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:27.719 a retribution campaign. It's gotten louder, but it's been there 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:30.280 the whole time. I mean they've gone after law firms, 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:36.120 international students, the American Bar Association, and plenty of others 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:39.800 up to this point. What's different is it's more explicit, 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:42.960 I suppose one could say, and the drumbeat is getting louder. 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:46.600 We're going to go after particularly so called left leaning 0:09:47.120 --> 0:09:50.680 speakers or organizations who say things that we don't like, 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:55.720 and the First Amendment stands in complete opposition to that position. 0:09:56.559 --> 0:10:00.880 So what's changed. I mean, the kirk assassination horrific event, 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:05.240 bound to create, you know, sort of turn and backlash, 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:09.680 but the administration's answer to that has been again, we're 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:12.960 going to go after the left so called and we're 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:17.560 going to punish speakers who say nasty things about Charlie 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:21.960 Kirk or President Trump, and the First Amendment just simply 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:23.200 doesn't allow them to do that. 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:26.240 Coming up next on the Bloomberg Lawn Show, I'll continue 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:30.000 this conversation with Professor Timothy Zick of William and Mary 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:34.319 Law School. People across the country, from teachers and lawyers 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:39.520 to airline pilots and healthcare workers, have been fired, suspended, 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:43.680 or disciplined over social media posts about Charlie Kirk and 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:47.720 his death. Why the First Amendment doesn't protect them. In 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:50.840 other legal news, today, the Supreme Court said it will 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:55.040 hear a Trump administration appeal that could topple a ninety 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:58.359 year old president and put the White House in control 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:03.120 of federal agencies that have long been independent. The Court's 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:07.000 conservative majority also refuse to let the person at the 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:11.360 center of the case, Federal Trade Commission Member Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:15.560 returned to her job during the appeal. Trump is trying 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:19.280 to fire Slaughter despite a law that says commissioners can 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:24.679 be removed only for specified reasons. The showdown gives conservatives 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:28.800 and regulation opponents the chance to achieve a long sought 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:33.280 goal of overturning the Supreme Court's nineteen thirty five ruling. 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:36.079 And remember you can always get the latest legal news 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:39.360 by listening to our Bloomberg Law podcast wherever you get 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:43.040 your favorite podcasts. I'm June Grosso and this is Bloomberg. 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:47.840 Last week, Vice President j D Vance encouraged people to 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:52.600 report anyone celebrating Charlie Kirk's murder to their employers. 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:56.520 So when you see someone celebrating Charlie's murder, call them 0:11:56.520 --> 0:11:58.400 out in hell, call their employer. 0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:01.600 We don't believe in political violence, but we do believe 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:02.640 in civility. 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:06.720 And across the country, people have been fired, suspended, or 0:12:06.800 --> 0:12:11.080 disciplined over social media posts about Kirk, from teachers and 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:15.960 lawyers to airline pilots and healthcare workers. Many employers have 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:20.240 cracked down on remarks they deem inappropriate. I've been talking 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:23.520 to Professor Timothy Zick of William and Mary Law School. 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:28.520 The rules are different for private and government speakers. Right, 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:31.160 So if you're talking about a private employee and at 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:34.240 will employee who can be dismissed for any reason at 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:38.319 all or no reason, then they can be dismissed for 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:42.560 speech that they publish or communicate. There are only a 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:47.240 few states where you get some statutory protection for political speech, 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:52.280 but in general, you speak at your peril. With respect 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:57.760 to private employment, public employment is very different. Public employees 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:02.320 retain some First Amendment rights as citizens to speak on 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:06.800 what are called matters of public concern newsworthy matters, which 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:10.240 certainly covers the speech that has been sort of debated 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:16.640 a post Charlie Kirks murder. And it's complicated. Right, So, 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:20.000 if you're a public employee and you say something offensive, 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:23.880 Let's say you praise Charlie Kirks murder, and you're a 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:28.240 university professor, let's say, and your employer says, well, I'm 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:31.079 going to terminate your employment. Well, putting aside the sort 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:35.640 of tenure and academic freedom problems there, as a public employee, 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:39.880 you have a First Amendment right to communicate that. Let 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:43.200 the Supreme Court has said, what you get as a 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:46.079 public employee if you speak on matters of public concern 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:48.440 is a balance. We're going to balance your right to 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:54.000 speak against the employer's interest in efficient operations. So across 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:57.760 a range of public employment, what you might find in 0:13:57.760 --> 0:13:59.960 some cases is that courts will side with the employer. 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:03.840 What you said was so offensive it created disruption in 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:07.520 the workplace, and we're not required to tolerate that. The 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:10.480 first women doesn't require that we tolerate that. So it 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:13.600 can be complicated to respect the public employment, but it's 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:15.640 much simpler with regard to private. 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:19.120 The Supreme Court has taken a lot of cases involving 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:22.360 the Trump administration on the emergency docket, but none of 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:26.720 them that I can recall, involved a free speech issue. 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:29.240 Are you confident that the Court, if one of these 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:33.000 cases on hate speech came up to the court, that 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:34.880 they would stick by their precedent. 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:39.040 I think they would. I think, you know, the likelihood 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:41.880 of the Court taking a First Amendment case out of 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:45.240 what i'll call the Trump two point zero era, it's 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:48.720 relatively high. It's not clear yet what the administration intends 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:53.160 to do with respect to so called hate speech investigations 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:56.920 or prosecutions. It's mostly what they're doing is threatening to 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:00.720 investigate people for core political speech. We wouldn't even be 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:03.240 talking about hate speech. It would be more you know, 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:07.240 I'm going to go after George Soros organization because it 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:12.600 supports left wing positions or its funds left wing political 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:15.440 activistm what's clearly unconstitutional. I don't even know if the 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:18.680 Supreme Court would be interested in a case like that. 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:22.400 I'm assuming a lower court would say that's unconstitutional. But 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:24.920 there are cases in the First Amendment realm that may 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:27.920 make it to the Court, some of them involving maybe 0:15:28.040 --> 0:15:31.360 the rights of non citizens under the First Amendment, which 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:34.080 the Court has been unclear about if they want to 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:37.560 clarify that. Some of the university cases, the Harvard case, 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:42.120 for example, or the administration is the terminating funds the 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:46.920 university says based on their speech, and the Court may 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:48.920 be interested in that. Or maybe there'll be a press 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:52.320 case who knows and involving a broadcast license or something 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:54.880 like that. I can imagine the Court being interested in 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:55.880 those cases. 0:15:56.400 --> 0:16:00.200 In those cases that you've mentioned, for example, the Harvard case, 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:04.480 let's just take one. Is it difficult to prove that 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:10.080 the administration is going after Harvard because of its speech? 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:14.440 Well, the administration is its own worst enemy with regard 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:17.880 to so called retaliation claims. Right, So one of the 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:22.280 things you asked is, well, why did the Trump administration 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:27.040 target Harvard for termination of funds? And let's add the 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:30.560 other ten investigations to Harvard and faith it can be 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:33.080 hard to prove, right, because the administration to that said, oh, no, 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:36.560 we did that because of anti semitism on campus. And 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:38.560 you start looking into that and say, well, you never 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:41.480 help an investigation. You never found any facts. She didn't 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:44.800 follow the law. What I'm left with is, you know, 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:48.280 public statements by the Education Secretary not to mention the 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:50.600 President of the United States that what we need to 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:54.080 do is bring these universities to heal because they're too liberal, 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:57.720 because their culture is too liberal, it's too less leaning. 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:01.040 Well that gives it away, I assuming you can take 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:03.960 the president's communications into account, but even if you can't, 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:07.320 the Education Secretary has said this is what conservatives they 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:10.080 wanted to do for a long time, to sort of 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:14.960 lean on these universities who are indoctrinating students as the 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:19.359 left wing ideology. So it's all very explicit. Right in 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:23.760 other contexts, and say past administrations or different governments, it 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:27.320 might not have been so explicit, but they're very, very transparent. 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:29.880 I think the Trump administration about what they're trying to do. 0:17:30.520 --> 0:17:33.800 ABC is putting the Jimmy Kimmel Show back on the 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:38.720 air tomorrow night. But would you say that FCC Chair 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:43.920 Brendan Carr's statements about Kimmel would fit into that category 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:45.120 you were just describing. 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:49.359 The difficulty here is that Brendan Carr, the chair of 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:55.040 the Federal Communications Commission, went on a podcast and threatened 0:17:55.640 --> 0:17:59.600 ABC if it didn't do something. He said, we can 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:03.040 do this the easy way or the hard way, and 0:18:03.119 --> 0:18:05.879 he's clearly threatening their broadcast license or at least the 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:10.080 licenses of their affiliates. That's who holds the licenses. So 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:13.240 the government inserts itself. It's another one of these examples 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:16.080 where you know, ordinarily it might be difficult to say 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:18.240 what role, if any of the government played. Well, here 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:22.200 he is on podcasts telling you I'm going to abuse 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:28.879 the fpc's authority by jaw owning and threatening licensed affiliates. 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:32.520 But for speech that we think we the Trump administration 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:37.120 think is offensive with regard to Charlie Kirk, Now they 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:40.080 pitched this sort of misinformation or he got it wrong. 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:44.080 Plenty of people got the facts wrong the early going 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:49.200 with respect to Kirk's assailants, So that doesn't single Jimmy 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:53.080 Kimmel out right. So there's sort of this sort of agenda, 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:57.679 particularly in the broadcast realm, by Brendan Carr, the SPC 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:02.919 and other agencies to come down on broadcasters in the 0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:08.160 press and to do so explicitly because of their coverage, 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:13.080 whether it's their editorial decisions they make as reporters or 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:16.520 in this case, comments about a matter of public concerns. 0:19:17.119 --> 0:19:21.360 And it's inconsistent with law, federal law for the FCC 0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:24.800 to intervene in that respect, and it violates the First Amendments. 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:28.920 And are there other business interests at work in these 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:30.320 cases as well? 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:33.320 And there's another twist to this, there's another layer. And 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:36.240 when you talked about the affiliates who do hold the licenses, 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:40.400 the corporations that own those affiliates, one of them has 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:43.520 a big merger application pending with the Trump administration. And 0:19:43.560 --> 0:19:46.439 guess what I really want that merger to go through. 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:49.880 I better play ball. I better do it the easy way. 0:19:51.400 --> 0:19:55.119 So it's layers of leverage here. It's not just brending cars, 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:57.760 you know, mouthing off about you know, easy way or 0:19:57.800 --> 0:20:00.160 hard way. It's behind the scenes. You've got people who 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:07.480 are interested in big time corporate mergers with these affiliates, 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:11.199 and their concern is, boy, I better not across some 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:14.160 line if I can figure out where it is with 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:16.159 regard to the Trump administration, or I won't get my 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:21.280 merger and that's already happened. Paramounts is the other example there. Right, 0:20:21.359 --> 0:20:25.600 they did it the easy way, They played ball and 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:31.080 they got their merger through. So it's it's very it's 0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:34.680 very mafia like as people have described it. Right, boy, 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:36.919 this is a really nice restaurant of the shame if 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:40.560 you lose, if you lost it. It's kind of like that, 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:44.919 but even more explicit. But you're right, of course, you know, 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:49.480 when it comes to comedy, people have been scuring presidents 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:52.400 for you know, since we've had television and even before, 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:56.720 and they haven't been punished for it. We are any different, 0:20:57.040 --> 0:21:01.000 darker place with regard to freedom of expression in the 0:21:01.119 --> 0:21:02.000 United States. 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:06.280 And tell us about the repository you're keeping all these 0:21:06.640 --> 0:21:09.160 lawsuits concerning the First Amendment. 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:14.159 It's that First Amendment watch, so they're hosting it. So 0:21:14.240 --> 0:21:17.480 what I've done is I've taken all of the executive 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:20.920 orders that relate to freedom of expression. So I've got 0:21:20.960 --> 0:21:24.480 all of those organized on the site by subject matter, 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:29.119 and then i have litigation with regard to the executive 0:21:29.200 --> 0:21:32.320 orders and also Trump's lawsuits against the press. So all 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:37.800 the litigation and the pleatings and then commentary broadly speaking, right, 0:21:37.880 --> 0:21:40.119 some of its legal commentary, some of it's what I 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:44.159 read in the press. Right, I can't capture everything, but 0:21:44.280 --> 0:21:46.560 if I see something and I have people sending the 0:21:46.600 --> 0:21:50.639 item and neches in the repository as well, and of 0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:54.960 course with regard to the Charlie Kirk murder in the 0:21:55.040 --> 0:21:58.240 fallout from that, it's that's its own avalanche of stuff. 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:01.399 You know. The media is quite rightly focused on it, 0:22:01.480 --> 0:22:03.680 but there is a lot of commentary and you can 0:22:03.800 --> 0:22:09.040 really miss things that are going on. For example, and 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:12.080 I'm doing this now on substack because I need another outlet, 0:22:12.680 --> 0:22:16.760 a district court just invalidated the National Endowment for the 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:20.080 Arts process for reviewing grant applications because they were weeding 0:22:20.080 --> 0:22:23.159 them out based on whether they can they promoted gender ideology. 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:30.960 So there's another sort of viewpoint based unconstitutional Trump administration policy. 0:22:31.600 --> 0:22:35.160 The zone is just so flooded. They are pressing First 0:22:35.200 --> 0:22:38.280 Amendment boundaries on purpose. They want to see how far 0:22:38.359 --> 0:22:41.600 they can go, and even when they lose in court, 0:22:41.760 --> 0:22:45.280 I think they just say, well, shrug. It serves its 0:22:45.359 --> 0:22:49.680 purpose anyway, because we're scaring people, we're chilling them. They're 0:22:49.680 --> 0:22:52.520 going to self censor. I think that's happening to the press. 0:22:52.720 --> 0:22:54.680 You know when I read headlines, and there are times 0:22:54.680 --> 0:22:57.760 they keep changing them and they get friendlier and friendlier 0:22:58.200 --> 0:23:01.440 to sort of right wing the almost as a way 0:23:01.440 --> 0:23:03.719 to sort of say, don't look over here. Well, they 0:23:03.760 --> 0:23:06.960 get sued anyway. The New York Times just got sued 0:23:07.200 --> 0:23:11.159 for ten billion dollars fifteen billion. I forget that ridiculous number, 0:23:11.320 --> 0:23:15.560 as did Penguin Press, because essentially they didn't report accurately 0:23:15.640 --> 0:23:16.919 how popular Trump is. 0:23:17.720 --> 0:23:20.040 Didn't a judge throw out that lawsuit? 0:23:20.880 --> 0:23:23.920 Well, he threw it out preliminarily, right, your complaint has 0:23:23.960 --> 0:23:28.560 to be succinct and state your claims, and it shouldn't 0:23:28.600 --> 0:23:31.919 be full of you know, basically all the lathering of 0:23:31.960 --> 0:23:34.720 Trump that this one was. So he gave him another chance. 0:23:34.720 --> 0:23:37.199 He said, you know, you have about a month to 0:23:37.320 --> 0:23:41.240 turn in a complaint that meets the Rule eight of 0:23:41.440 --> 0:23:44.439 the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which says here's what 0:23:44.480 --> 0:23:48.720 a complaint should include and nothing further. So, yeah, he 0:23:48.800 --> 0:23:50.560 threw it out, but it'll come back. But I think 0:23:50.600 --> 0:23:54.040 eventually Trump will lose if he loses every one of 0:23:54.080 --> 0:23:56.240 these cases. And again I don't think the point is 0:23:56.280 --> 0:23:58.399 to win the case. He doesn't need the money, He 0:23:58.440 --> 0:24:01.760 hasn't suffered reputational damage, but wants to be sued for 0:24:01.800 --> 0:24:05.040 fifteen billion dollars. You still have to defend yourself, and 0:24:05.080 --> 0:24:07.159 if you can bring a settlement out of The New 0:24:07.240 --> 0:24:09.800 York Times and or Penguin, all the better. 0:24:10.400 --> 0:24:13.600 A lot more papers for your repository. Tim thanks so much. 0:24:14.040 --> 0:24:17.359 That's Professor Timothy Zick of William and Mary Law School. 0:24:17.680 --> 0:24:21.880 Coming up next. Parents are suing alleging that AI chatbots 0:24:21.960 --> 0:24:27.840 are responsible for the suicides of their teenagers. This is bloomberg. 0:24:27.920 --> 0:24:31.760 In the United States, more than seventy percent of teenagers 0:24:32.119 --> 0:24:37.240 have used AI chatbots for companionship, and half used them regularly, 0:24:37.600 --> 0:24:41.560 according to a recent study from common Sense Media and 0:24:41.760 --> 0:24:47.119