00:00Well, moving on to some other news for you now this Friday.
00:02One word dominated late-night TV comedy in the U.S. between Thursday and Friday,
00:07and it's not exactly a humorous one.
00:09That's censorship.
00:10Several comedian hosts grilled the U.S. president for what they described as censoring Jimmy Kimmel
00:16over his comments on the MAGA movement's reactions to the murder of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk.
00:22Well, after threats from the chair of the Federal Communications Commission,
00:25the ABC network suspended Kimmel indefinitely, a decision, of course, that the U.S. president hailed.
00:32Take a listen.
00:34I read someplace that the networks were 97 percent against me.
00:38I get 97 percent negative, and yet I won easily.
00:43I won all seven swing states popular.
00:45I won everything.
00:46And if they're 97 percent against, they give me only bad publicity or press.
00:53I mean, they're getting a license.
00:57I would think maybe their license should be taken away.
01:00Well, so how did the MAGA Republican Party go from framing itself as the ultimate protector
01:07of free speech to widespread, really, accusations of censorship?
01:11For more on this, we're going to speak now to Julien Labar.
01:15He's a political scientist at the University of Zurich.
01:18Thank you very much for joining us today, Julien.
01:21To get started, I want to talk about kind of the legal ramifications or perhaps the legal
01:24battle that could be ahead in the wake of this decision.
01:29What do you expect to happen now?
01:33Well, you know, I think most of these lawsuits are not brought up against those channels to
01:38actually go to the end of the procedure.
01:40I think those lawsuits are brought up as a as a as an intimidation tactic, as a way to tell
01:47those media giants that, you know, you have to weigh your editorial independence versus
01:52whatever commercial ambitions you have.
01:55And when, you know, some of these lawsuits jeopardize billion dollar mergers, media giants
02:01understand that they have to make a choice to be on the good side of the president.
02:05I mean, is the law on the FCC side in this case?
02:11No, but I don't think that really matters because Brendan Carr, who heads the FCC before being,
02:18you know, an expert in media regulations is a Trump loyalist.
02:22And if the president wants him to go after those channels, I think he will do that.
02:28And if you I mean, you say it might not matter, but if this case like this or those similar
02:33to cases like this were to reach the Supreme Court, how would you expect this to play out
02:38there, given, of course, the conservative makeup of the Supreme Court, but also the reality of the
02:43First Amendment?
02:46Well, sure, justices come and go right now.
02:48We have a conservative bench, but they come and go.
02:51But, you know, I'm not convinced that the Supreme Court wants to revise its interpretation of the
02:55First Amendment.
02:57That being said, I'm also not persuaded that the president cares what the Supreme Court has
03:01to say on the issue.
03:03And that really speaks to a problem that we've known for a very long time since Andrew Jackson's
03:08presidency, which is that, you know, the Supreme Court does not have an enforcement mechanism to
03:13enforce its rulings.
03:15Andrew Jackson said, you know, the Supreme Court made its decision, let them enforce it.
03:19And so, you know, I am particularly worried that President Trump will not do what other
03:24presidents have done in the past, which is submit his political ambitions to democratic norms,
03:30such as respecting what the Supreme Court says.
03:33The legal elements aside, Julien, I want to kind of talk about the ideological element to
03:39this, because what's interesting to me is that Kimmel isn't actually being punished for his
03:43comments on the murder of Charlie Kirk per se.
03:46He's obviously not glorifying his violence.
03:48He's not justifying his murder.
03:50He's not defending the killer.
03:52He's instead commenting on the way that MAGA reacted to it.
03:56Do you think that nuance is important, in your view, to understanding the way that this
04:00is playing out and the apparent ideological shift, then, of the MAGA Republican Party on
04:06free speech?
04:08Very much so.
04:09And, you know, I think Jimmy Kimmel probably expressed himself in a way that was a little
04:14bit inconsequential.
04:15First of all, we don't have a lot of information on the killer of Charlie Kirk.
04:20But, you know, this nuance that you bring up is extremely important, and I think he just
04:23didn't express it very clearly.
04:25What he was trying to convey was that, you know, MAGA has encouraged political violence
04:31for a very long time.
04:32He was—I don't think he was saying that Tyler Robinson was necessarily a member of the
04:37MAGA coalition, but he certainly was fueled in his instincts by years and years of a sort
04:44of cult of violence.
04:45Now, you know, to the shifts within the MAGA coalition towards freedom of speech, it's really
04:51interesting.
04:51Generally speaking, the right has traditionally been very much in favor of defending the traditional
04:57conception of freedom of speech, which is that in America, you cannot constrain speech
05:01and certainly not viewpoints unless they pose an imminent and credible threat to public order.
05:06Today, we're seeing some people in the Republican Party have a sort of variable or flexible view
05:14of freedom of speech.
05:15That is to say, they support it when it fits their goals, and they suppress it when it doesn't.
05:20I mean, it begs the question of whether or not, you know, the MAGA right really ever was
05:25interested in free speech.
05:28Do you think that that was its aim or its aim was to seize upon a moment, notably when,
05:32you know, the woke left, as it's often called, was blamed for threatening freedom of speech?
05:37Do you think the real objective was simply to seize on a moment where its electorate would
05:41hear that argument and then leave it there?
05:44I think there's both.
05:47I think within the Republican Party and today's Republican Party, you still have a few remnants
05:52of the traditional Republican, Reagan Republican Party.
05:56But at the same time, the Republican Party today really gravitates around President Trump.
06:00And President Trump does not believe in freedom of speech.
06:03He only believes in freedom of speech insofar as it supports his goals.
06:07We can think about plenty of examples of such tension.
06:11You know, just a few days ago, the president said that he would sign an executive order
06:16to prosecute flag burning, for instance, which is, you know, no matter what you think about
06:21this, is a constitutionally protected activity.
06:25Just this morning, he was saying we should go after channels that are critical of him.
06:29And a few months ago, he delivered a speech at DOJ where he said the activities of CNN and
06:36MSNBC were illegal.
06:37And what we see in today's Republican Party is that there aren't too many voices to stand
06:42up against that.
06:43I want to talk about the way that the so-called protectors of free speech now in the United
06:50States is changing.
06:51Do you think that there is a credibility issue for the left?
06:54I see that Democrats have introduced a bill now to protect free speech after the suspension
06:59of Kimmel's show.
07:01But for many years, the left largely indeed defended things like refusing to allow speakers,
07:07the likes of Charlie Kirk included, from talking on campus because their ideas were offensive,
07:12because they were based in racism, a host of other issues.
07:14So is either party, in your view, better at genuinely protecting free speech, notably when
07:20it comes from its political enemies?
07:21Well, you know, this is a philosophical question in the sense that there isn't a right or wrong
07:28answer.
07:28The question is, what do you prioritize?
07:30Do you prioritize a healthy democracy where people are able to express themselves but constrained
07:36by, you know, some civility standards or some safety standards?
07:42Or do you prioritize an absolutist view of free speech, in which case you don't believe those
07:47restrictions are legitimate?
07:50I don't think that there's a right or wrong question.
07:52Different democracies have approached this question differently.
07:55The U.S. traditionally has approached it from an absolutist perspective, right?
07:59But it is true that both parties in some way now have tried to restrict free speech in this
08:07country, in the United States.
08:09The left has tried to do that on the grounds that, you know, some forms of political discourse
08:14is harmful.
08:14I believe some people have gone as far as trying to restrict speech that is ultra-conservative
08:20or anti-democratic or crypto-autocratic.
08:24But, you know, the Republican Party is trying to do that just on the basis of a disagreement.
08:30Julian Labar, a political scientist at the University of Zurich.
08:33Thank you very much for joining us today.
08:35That's all we have time for.
08:35Thank you very much for having me.
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