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In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the president’s pledges to guarantee free speech have been replaced by efforts to suppress — and even criminalize — what their critics have to say.
Sept. 18, 2025Updated 5:00 p.m. ET
When President Trump returned to the Oval Office, he promised, unequivocally and emphatically, that he would protect free speech and ensure that no Americans — including his critics — would be punished for voicing their opinions.
But in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, those pledges have given way to threats and calls for retaliation, as administration officials promise to go after anyone they accuse of hateful or even uncivil commentary about the conservative activist and his Republican allies.
This promise to use the government’s power to police speech stands in contrast to Americans’ rights as espoused by Mr. Kirk himself, who emphasized that all speech, no matter how offensive, was protected by the First Amendment. But while the White House has argued that there is a difference between free speech and speech celebrating violence, the calls for retaliation are at odds with views the president and his advisers uttered only months — or in one case, one day — before. Here are how the views of Mr. Trump and top officials in his administration have changed, in their own words.
President Trump
What he said: Mr. Trump kicked off his second term with a promise, made during his inauguration speech, to “immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America.”
“Never again will the immense power of the state be weaponized to persecute political opponents,” Mr. Trump continued. Later that day, he signed an executive order doubling down on that promise, declaring that any kind of censorship of speech — even in the name of combating disinformation — was “intolerable in a free society.”
What he is saying now: This week, Mr. Trump used his social media platform to cheer ABC’s decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk show over comments he made about the assassination of Mr. Kirk, calling it “Great News for America” and calling on other networks to follow suit. On Thursday, Mr. Trump claimed without evidence that 97 percent of the coverage of him on network television was negative, suggesting that “maybe their license should be taken away” for airing such overwhelmingly negative content.
