Jamie Raskin Lays Out Examples Of Censorship Under Trump, GOP At Hearing On Threats To Free Speech

4 months ago

At today's House Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) accused President Trump and Republicans of stifling free speech.

Transcript

00:00We might hear from a Russian dissident about Putin's massive violations of political freedom

00:05or the death of Alexei Navalny in prison, or perhaps a Chinese pro-democracy activist about

00:12President Xi's attacks on free speech in Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjiang, or the persecution trial

00:18of Jimmy Lai, or maybe a journalist about the Saudi crown prince's assassination of Jamal

00:23Khashoggi, the Washington Post writer who demanded freedom from religious persecution and oppression

00:29in Saudi Arabia.

00:30But no, the dictators of the world have got nothing to fear from this hearing.

00:35The Republicans called it to attack our democratic allies in Europe.

00:40The star witness is not a human rights leader like Navalny, but a far-right pro-Putin politician

00:48who leads the UK Reform Party, a party that has four members out of 650 members in the

00:55parliament.

00:55He calls England an authoritarian regime, while saying that Vladimir Putin is the world leader

01:04he admires the most.

01:07Well, this hearing mimics Vice President J.D.

01:10Vance, who went to the Munich Security Conference in February, and the first two minutes of his

01:13speech whitewashed the world's leading autocratic regimes, proclaiming that the threat that worries

01:18him is not Russia.

01:20It's not China, he said, but rather it's our European allies.

01:24Amazing.

01:25Republicans are promoting far-right parties in Europe, like Alternative for Deutschland,

01:30Reform UK, and Rassemblement National Français, and ignoring massive repression in Russia, China,

01:38Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and among all the autocrats of the world.

01:42Republicans are vilifying European liberal democracies simply for engaging in the kind

01:47of line-drawing exercises that we Americans engage in under our First Amendment with respect

01:53to the epidemic of child pornography, protecting children from other harmful content, defamatory

02:00speech, online scams and false advertising, and speech inciting riots and imminent lawless

02:07action, all forms of speech that the First Amendment does not protect, and whose tricky

02:12contours must still be drawn by law.

02:15We could have a meaningful hearing on this complicated subject, but this hearing is just

02:20a drive-by hit against a strong democratic ally to benefit a Donald Trump sycophant and wannabe.

02:28But it's even worse than this.

02:30Not only are our colleagues ignoring intensifying repression in the world's dictatorships, they're

02:36also trying to distract the world from the attack on freedom taking place right here in America

02:42every single day.

02:43Americans aren't worried about the EU or the Online Safety Act in the UK.

02:49We're not worried about white nationalists not having enough license to incite lynch mobs

02:54to set immigrants on fire in their bedrooms.

02:58Americans are worried that Donald Trump is working to rewrite and whitewash American history

03:04in our museums, our textbooks in our national parks, to destroy PBS, NPR, and public broadcasting,

03:11to ban books in our libraries, and to censor any news stories critical of him by installing

03:18political henchmen in private broadcast rooms.

03:22Americans know that academic freedom is in danger when the administration cancels and withholds

03:27billions of dollars in scientific and medical research funding from American universities,

03:32even for urgent, life-saving studies about breast cancer or heart attacks, as a way to force

03:38schools to impose government orthodoxy on curriculum, hiring, admissions, and any student and faculty

03:45speech that MAGA considers politically incorrect.

03:50Americans see Trump trying to harass, intimidate, control, and shut down the press, like ABC, CBS,

03:57NBC, NPR, and PBS.

04:00The Republican-controlled FCC essentially blackmailed media companies Skydance and Paramount into agreeing

04:07to install a spy, a monitor, a minder, I think the Brits might say, to police CBS news programs

04:15to make sure that they are being sufficiently Trumpy in giving us the news in order to get

04:22approval of a merger from FCC.

04:24Meanwhile, Trump sued 60 Minutes and CBS personally for $20 billion for the frivolous cause of action

04:32that he thought, in an interview with Kamala Harris, was edited too favorably, and then

04:39walked away with a cool $16 million in a shakedown settlement for his library, all part of a now

04:46familiar pattern.

04:47When Trump doesn't like the news, he sues the broadcaster and unleashes the FCC on them until

04:53they pay up and agree to a government spy stationed in their office.

04:58Free speech is so much in danger in the U.S. today that if the government tries to violate

05:03our rights, we might not even be able to find a lawyer to defend ourselves because Trump is

05:08systematically exacting retribution against law firms that represent anyone on the other side of

05:15the case against him.

05:18Look, our country loves free speech.

05:21We fight for free speech.

05:22We fought for free speech.

05:24And we know it's in danger when students who are lawfully in the United States are taken

05:28off the street and arrested without warrants by masked federal agents in unmarked cars for

05:35writing an article or attending a rally that Stephen Miller doesn't like.

05:39Free speech is in danger when visitors to our country have their social media accounts screened

05:44at the border for any criticism of Donald Trump.

05:48Free speech is in danger when to kill a mockingbird.

05:51The Handmaid's Tale, 1984, and the Kite Runner are banned from our schools and libraries across

05:57the country.

05:58And even families defending our freedom abroad have to fight for their kids' right to read

06:04freely in public schools run by the Department of Defense.

06:08Freedom is in danger when the administration tramples the civil service rights of hundreds of

06:13thousands of nonpartisan expert civil servants.

06:17These civil servants have been protected against political discrimination for more than a century

06:22to maintain the excellence and independence of our federal workforce.

06:25But they're now being fired simply for doing their jobs, like prosecuting violent criminals

06:32and insurrectionists who try to overthrow our government and attack our police officers.

06:37Or because they honestly gave honest economic information and labor statistics to the public.

06:43These honorable civil servants are being fired because they won't be the political hacks Trump demands that they be.

06:50When private comments made by federal employees are scrutinized for anti-Trump bias and they can lose their jobs because of it,

06:58then we've entered the realm not just of Vladimir Putin, but of Joseph Stalin.

07:02Now, Mr. Trump and Mr. Farage both claim they're protectors of free speech, but they only want to protect speech they agree with.

07:09In the UK, Mr. Farage is openly promoting the abolition of the Human Rights Act of 1998 to be replaced with a British Bill of Rights

07:18that limits the right of free speech to British citizens and legally sanctioned residents.

07:24He complains that racist threats against immigrants are not protected free speech,

07:29while he proposes to strip migrants, tourists, and perhaps even visiting American congresspeople of any free speech rights at all.

07:37I had my own close encounter with that when Mr. Farage and his team presented for more than an hour in a conversation

07:42we had about free speech, and after three minutes of talking, he cut me off and terminated the meeting

07:49because he didn't like what I was saying.

07:51That's the kind of free speech he's committed to.

07:54There is a free speech crisis in America today, but there's no free speech crisis in Britain.

07:59UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has not shut down GB News, where Mr. Farage has his own show,

08:05just because Mr. Farage has used his airtime to call for banning peaceful protests that he disagrees with.

08:11No one has stopped him from going on Russian TV 17 times and saying also and repeating that the one world political leader

08:20he most admired was Vladimir Putin, even though Vladimir Putin is a war criminal and a dictator

08:26who has regularly interfered in other countries' democratic elections.

08:32No one has stopped Mr. Farage from parroting Putin's absurd talking points,

08:36like when Farage claimed that NATO, the U.S., and Britain provoked this war in Ukraine.

08:41For a man who fashions himself as some kind of a free speech martyr, Mr. Farage seems most at home

08:47with the autocrats and dictators of the world who are crushing freedom on Earth.

08:53Mr. Farage wants to get rid of the Online Safety Act in his country,

08:56a law shepherded by the Conservative Party and implemented by the Labour Party,

09:00which bans child pornography online, protects children from harmful content,

09:06forbids non-consensual pornography and other unlawful content.

09:09He should go and advance the positions he's taking here in Congress today, in Parliament,

09:14which is meeting today, if he's serious about it.

09:17To the people of UK who think this Putin-loving free speech imposter

09:21and Trump sycophant will protect freedom in your country,

09:25come on over to America and see what Trump and MAGA are doing to destroy our freedom,

09:31kidnap college students off the street, ban books from our libraries,

09:37militarize our police and unleash them against our communities,

09:41take over our universities, wreck our professional civil service,

09:45and turn the government into a money-making machine for Trump and his family.

09:49You might think twice before you let Mr. Farage make Britain great again.

09:56I yield back.

09:57The gentleman yields back.

09:59I would just point out that the encounter that...

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Jamie Raskin Lays Out Examples Of Censorship Under Trump, GOP At Hearing On Threats To Free Speech

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