No, Trump Did Not ‘Bring Back Free Speech’

In President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, March 4, he bragged about restoring “free speech” to the United States. “I’ve stopped all government censorship and brought back free speech in America,” Trump said. “It’s back.”

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But this claim couldn’t be further from the truth. Trump has consistently rewarded speech he likes while punishing speech he doesn’t. That kind of “viewpoint discrimination” is exactly what the First Amendment seeks to prevent. In fact, Trump’s actions run counter to the spirit—if not the text—of the First Amendment.

While colloquial talk about “censorship” abounds in contemporary discourse around the internet and how private companies host speech, the First Amendment’s protections guard against the overreach by the U.S. government against its citizens and even its companies when they engage in free expression. And since taking office on Jan. 20, Trump has operationalized his long-held animosity for the tenets of the First Amendment, attacking the independent press, free speech, and peaceful protest.

Read More: Trump Uses Big Speech to Spin Alternate Reality of ‘Astronomical Achievements’

First is Trump’s fight with the Associated Press (AP), the country’s preeminent news service and grammatical standard-setter. On Inauguration Day, Trump issued an executive order “restoring names that honor American greatness.” He renamed the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America,” and Denali’s name to Mount McKinley after the Obama administration changed the name of the Alaskan peak to its Athabascan name in 2015. While the AP decided to honor the McKinley name change since the mountain lies specifically within U.S. borders, it detracted from the administration on the Gulf of Mexico decision due to the body of water’s nature as an “international body.” 

“As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences,” Amanda Barrett, the AP’s vice president of standards and inclusion wrote on Jan. 23. She noted that the AP Stylebook, which many news organizations follow for guidance on such decisions, would make these changes.

The White House retaliated against the AP, kicking its reporters out of presidential briefings in the Oval Office and aboard Air Force One. On Feb. 21, the news organization sued three White House officials over the blocked access, saying the decision would infringe on its First Amendment right to freedom of the press as well as its Fifth Amendment right to due process. A Trump-appointed federal district judge in Washington, D.C. declined to immediately grant an injunction ending the policy. “It might be a good idea for the White House to think about whether what they’re doing is really appropriate given the case law,” Judge Trevor N. McFadden said in court.

Among the case law is a suit from former CNN reporter Jim Acosta, who successfully sued to get his White House press credentials restored in 2018 after he was unceremoniously booted from the premises after repeated clashes with Trump. (The judge—another Trump appointee—only ruled that Acosta’s due process rights were violated, declining to weigh in First Amendment questions.)

Additionally, Trump moved to further cement his control of the White House press corps on Feb. 25 when the White House announced it would decide who covers Trump day in and day out in the rotating press pool, the small group of reporters on duty to track and report on the president each day wherever he may be. “This move from the White House threatens the independence of a free press in the United States. It suggests the government will choose the journalists who cover the president,” said Eugene Daniels, president of the White House Correspondents Association, which has independently controlled the press pool for decades.

The White House insistence to control the press might not create legal problems for the government, but it demonstrates that the administration is unwilling to cede control of its image to the reporters it has contempt for. Moreover, it’s willing to dangle the promise and threat of access over reporters’ heads in seeking compliance and lenience.

Trump’s animosity toward the First Amendment also extended to its guarantee of peaceable assembly. “All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday, hours before his speech. “Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on on [sic] the crime, arrested. NO MASKS! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

Trump has repeatedly criticized protests on college campuses, particularly those taking issue with Israel’s war in Gaza. “Trump’s latest coercion campaign, attempting to turn university administrators against their own students and faculty, harkens back to the McCarthy era and is at odds with American constitutional values and the basic mission of universities,” wrote Cecillia Wang, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, in a statement.

The First Amendment is meant to protect people from the government telling them what speech and ideas are acceptable. Our freedoms are robust, but Trump is seemingly chipping away at them in whatever way he can. At minimum, he’s a thorn in the side of Americans’ civil liberties. And at worst, he’s seeking an Orwellian level of control over what Americans say and write in public.

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