Hate speech or protected dissent? Trump’s dilemma after Kirk slaying
In this battle between principle and politics the question is whether the White House gets the balance right or makes the mistake of overreaching – especially if it attempts to silence critics through a new crackdown on “hate speech” targeting left-wing organisations.
The administration says it will go after groups responsible for domestic terrorism, but this will require a finely tuned approach. And any serious response must apply to entities on both sides of the political spectrum.
Donald Trump clearly wants to deliver for his MAGA base, which, along with the White House, is rightly incensed by the murder of Kirk. But leading conservative and progressive figures have already expressed alarm about key aspects of the administration’s initial reaction.
Attorney-General Pam Bondi has, so far, attracted the strongest criticism after she used a podcast on Monday to suggest the Department of Justice would “absolutely target you – go after you – if you are targeting anyone with hate speech. And that’s across the aisle.”
Speaking on Fox News, Bondi suggested the DoJ’s civil rights division was looking at businesses that refused for political reasons to provide printing services to Americans who wanted materials to attend vigils for Kirk.
“We can prosecute you for that,” she said. “We are looking at that.”
The comments were made in response to the decision by Office Depot to fire an employee at one of its stores in Portage, Michigan, for refusing to print a poster of Kirk.
Matt Walsh, from conservative media organisation The Daily Wire, responded on social media by saying the comments from Bondi were “insane” and that “conservatives have fought for decades for the right to refuse service to anyone. We won that fight.”
On Tuesday morning, Bondi clarified her remarks by posting online that “hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is NOT protected by the first amendment”.
“Free speech protects ideas, debate, even dissent, but it does NOT and will NEVER protect violence. It is clear this violent rhetoric is designed to silence others from voicing conservative ideals.”
On her podcast, conservative political commentator Megyn Kelly also took aim at Bondi. She said the answer to hate speech in America was “nothing. The answer’s nothing. It’s fine. It’s part of being American. Too bad.”
She had “zero sympathy for the people who are getting fired because of their inhumanity in response to Charlie’s assassination”, but stressed this was not a crime.
“Those losers in the Office Depot … should be publicly shamed. And they should be fired … But they shouldn’t be prosecuted. We have to know where our lines are,” she said.
Kirk himself had declared in a social media post in May 2024 that: “Hate speech does not exist legally in America. There’s ugly speech. There’s gross speech. There’s evil speech. And ALL of it is protected by the first amendment.”
Stepping in to host the Charlie Kirk podcast on Monday, JD Vance – a close friend of the slain conservative influencer – made clear the administration was working on a plan to target the NGO network that “foments, facilitates and engages in violence. That’s not OK.”
The Vice-President said that maintaining a civil society was the responsibility of everyday Americans and that “when you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out. And, hell, call their employer.”
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told Vance the administration was aiming to specifically target “organised doxxing campaigns, the organised riots, the organised street violence, the organised campaigns of dehumanisation, vilification, posting people’s addresses, combining that with messagings designed to trigger, incite violence, and the actual organised cells that carry out and facilitate the violence – it is a vast domestic terror movement.
“With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people. It will happen. And we will do it in Charlie’s name.”
Trump leaned into the tough response on Tuesday morning local time before leaving the White House for London as he took questions from journalists.
Asked about free speech by Jonathan Karl from the American Broadcasting Company, Trump said Bondi would “probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly. It’s hate. You have a lot of hate in your heart.”
The response was typical Trump, but it also reveals something deeper. Unlike conservative political leaders who have strived to defend and preserve key US institutions, Trump has shown a willingness to overhaul them to better reflect his world view.
If Trump goes down this pathway and pursues a new agenda seen to limit or interfere with free-speech protections in America, it may cross a line even with some of his key conservative supporters. He should be keen to ensure that any response stops short of traversing this threshold.
Killers made trip to ‘terror hotbed’
A passionate and emotional conflict has embroiled the Trump administration: it is caught between its in-principle commitment to free speech – one of the pillars of US democracy – and the imperative of delivering a robust political response to the assassination of Charlie Kirk.