Twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton falsely accused the Trump administration of crushing free speech, even though she played a key role in fueling global censorship.
In a Sept. 24 interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Clinton asserted that ABC briefly suspended host Jimmy Kimmel because of pressure from the Trump administration, despite ABC affiliates testifying to the contrary. But legal scholar Jonathan Turley exposed Clinton this year for urging foreign governments to censor Americans.
Clinton sneered, “Good lord, the things that have been said about me, the lies that have been propagated. If I had only known I could call up the FCC chair and say: ‘Take this person off the air. Get that person out of my sight. Off with his head.’”
She asserted this is “contrary to the founding principles and values this country was built on. Why is the First Amendment the First Amendment? You know, it's because the people who constructed the, you know, architecture of this incredible country of ours understood what it was like to live under absolute power, where you would be told what to say, what not to say.”
Despite Clinton’s framing, President Donald Trump and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr actually applauded Kimmel’s suspension after the fact.
Contrary to her current virtue-signaling, Clinton has repeatedly endorsed online censorship. Over two months ago, Turley spoke to the Heritage Foundation about the international free speech crisis and pointed to Clinton as one of the key figures demanding censorship at the 2025 Berlin World Forum.
“The EU was red hot,” Turley said of the forum. “They gathered in Berlin, and it was the most anti-free speech gathering I've ever been part of. There [were] only two of us from the free speech community, and they are committed. And, you know, Hillary Clinton was there, and she really fueled the anger.”
Turley also mentioned how Clinton attacked Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, “she called on the EU to use the infamous Digital Services Act, which is one of the most anti-free speech pieces of legislation in decades, and she called upon the EU to use the DSA to force the censorship of American citizens, force people like Musk to censor,” he emphasized.
Turley insisted that this was an “extraordinary act by someone who was once a presidential candidate in the United States.” And after the World Forum, he added, the would-be censors, including Clinton, “further globalized this effort, and they are threatening companies like X with ruinous fines unless they resume censoring American citizens.”
