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free press
Report Tracks Trump 'War on Free Speech' and Urges Systemic Resistance
“Trump’s censorship playbook," said the report's author, "is to lie, distort reality for the public, and deploy a cadre of henchmen to carry out Trump’s threats of reprisal.”
Dec 08, 2025
The US advocacy group Free Press on Monday released a report examining how President Donald Trump and "his political enablers have worked to undermine and chill the most basic freedoms protected under the First Amendment" since the Republican returned to the Oval Office in January, and called on all Americans to fight back.
For Chokehold: Donald Trump's War on Free Speech & the Need for Systemic Resistance, Free Press analysed "more than 500 reports of verbal threats, executive orders, presidential memoranda, statements from the White House, actions by regulators and agencies, military and law enforcement deployment and activities, litigation, removal of website language on .gov websites, removal of official history and information at national parks and museums, and discontinued data collection by the federal government."
"While the US government has made efforts throughout this nation's history to censor people's expression and association—be it the exercise of freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly, or the right to petition the government for redress—the Trump administration's incessant attacks on even the most tentatively oppositional speech are uniquely aggressive, pervasive, and escalating," the report states.
The five recurring attack methods that Free Press identified are: making threats of retribution against would-be opponents; emboldening regulators to exact penalties; supercharging the militarized police state; leveraging heavyweight corporate capitulation; and ignoring facts, removing information, rewriting history, and lying on the record.
"Trump's censorship playbook is responsible for the administration's central retaliatory ethos and inspires a set of strategies that loyal actors in government use to silence dissent and chill free expression," said the report's author, Free Press senior counsel Nora Benavidez, in a statement. "This playbook is to lie, distort reality for the public, and deploy a cadre of henchmen to carry out Trump’s threats of reprisal."
Big new report out today @freepress.bsky.social chronicling the Trump regime's war on free speech and free expression. Heroic and harrowing work by @attorneynora.bsky.social and the team. Seeing all of the attacks together is astounding.
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— Craig Aaron (@notaaroncraig.bsky.social) December 8, 2025 at 11:12 AM
Free Press compiled a timeline of "nearly 200 of the most potent examples," including Trump's blanket pardon for the January 6, 2021, insurrectionists shortly after beginning his second term, the White House taking control of the presidential press pool in February, the president's alarming speech to the US Department of Justice in March, and the administration blocking the Associated Press from the Oval Office in April over its refusal to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
In May, Trump, among other things, signed an executive order to defund National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service. In June, he deployed the National Guard in Los Angeles. In July, he sued Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal for $10 billion over reporting on the president's ties to deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In August, he deployed the National Guard in Washington, DC.
In September, under pressure from Brendan Carr, Trump's Federal Communications Commission chair, ABC temporarily suspended late-night host Jimmy Kimmel. In October, the Pentagon's new press policy—which journalists across the political spectrum refused to sign—took effect (the New York Times, which faces a defamation lawsuit from Trump, sued over it last week). In November, Trump threatened to sue to BBC over its documentary about January 6, 2021.
The administration has also targeted foreign scholars and journalists for criticizing US policy, from federal support for Israel's genocidal assault on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to the president's pursuit of mass deportations. The report stresses that "no one is safe from attack in Trump’s quest to control the message, though the administration targets the press most of all."
Today Free Press released a report examining the Trump's efforts to weaken the First Amendment.Analyzing nearly 200 attacks on free speech, it's sobering. But the report also charts a path to resist the censorship campaign w/ collective action. Our statement: www.freepress.net/news/report-...
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— Free Press (@freepress.bsky.social) December 8, 2025 at 2:45 PM
The publication also pushes back against "Trump's claims that he's protecting people and defending free speech," and acknowledges that "the administration's censorial tactics are amassing tremendous resistance across political and geographic lines, with a majority of people worried about the government's attacks on free speech."
Benavidez emphasized that "if only one person speaks out against injustice, their speech is notable, but it is also more vulnerable to attack and subversion under this administration."
"If more people speak out against injustice, the collective drumbeat can more easily withstand government reprisals," she continued. "Democracies erode little by little; would-be dictators need to scare only some of us, and the rest will follow. The very reason we must speak out together is so we can leverage our collective power."
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Pete Hegseth Can't Handle the Truth
Trump's secretary of war is trying to make it harder for inspectors general and reporters to investigate what's really going on at the Pentagon.
Oct 17, 2025
On September 30, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth pontificated before his captive audience of 800 admirals and generals whom he had summoned from locations around the globe. The media reports of the event focused on soundbites: new physical fitness requirements, grooming standards (“no more beardos”—but don’t tell Vice President JD Vance or the president’s son), eliminating “woke” policies, and other elements of his department’s new “warfighting culture.”
Observing that the military's policy on “hazing, bullying, and harassment is overly broad,” Hegseth also said that the inspector general’s office “has been weaponized, putting complainers, ideologues, and poor performers in the driver’s seat.”
He dealt with that problem too.
Hegseth’s New Rules of Engagement: No. 1—Avoid Accountability
As with all IGs, the Defense Department’s inspector general operates independently to assure government accountability. The office pursues waste, fraud, abuse, corruption, mismanagement, whistleblower complaints, and more. With Hegseth in charge, its plate is full.
As Hegseth railed against the IG, it was investigating Signalgate—his massive national security breach. On March 15, he had used the Signal app to discuss with top Pentagon leaders the detailed plans for an imminent attack on Houthis in Yemen. But the chat mistakenly included the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. Another Signal chat that day involving similarly sensitive information included his wife, brother, and personal lawyer.
On September 30, Hegseth published new rules for inspector general investigations, including:
- Within seven days of a complaint, an investigation must be initiated or the complaint closed;
- An investigation can “be initiated only if the complaint meets credible-evidence standard [sic]”;
- The subjects of an investigation must receive status reports every 14 days; and
- “Command directed investigations must be closed within 30 days of initiation….”
The Signalgate investigation itself is evidence that thorough investigations of complex issues cannot occur before the 30-day deadline. That will kill them.
The new timelines and reporting requirements are part of the Trump administration’s ongoing effort to curtail oversight of legally questionable moves, according to Sen. Jack Reed (R-R.I.), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
But there’s more.
Hegseth’s New Rule of Engagement: No. 2—Suppress Facts
On September 19, Hegseth issued a new policy that every reporter in the Pentagon had to sign: They could access the building only if they agreed to publish information that was “approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified.”
Any reporter who violated the policy would face punishment ranging from the denial of press privileges to criminal prosecution. Reporters who failed to sign the new agreement by October 14 were required to turn in their press passes.
On October 6, Hegseth revised the policy so that it didn’t appear to be such a plainly unconstitutional prior restraint on a free press. The 21-page document clarified that reporters need not submit their materials in advance of publication. But it shifted the focus from punishing journalists who publish information that Hegseth doesn’t want disseminated to: 1) undermining journalists’ ability to gather it in the first place; and 2) inhibiting Defense Department employees from providing it.
Because Pete Hegseth can’t handle accountability or criticism, transparency is his enemy.
Specifically, the policy warned that journalists who “solicit” federal employees to disclose information that has not been approved for release may lose their press credentials. And according to the revised memo, “Solicitation may include direct communications with specific (Defense) personnel or general appeals, such as public advertisements or calls for tips encouraging (Defense) employees to share non-public (Defense) information.”
The Pentagon Press Association represents more than 100 news organizations that regularly cover the Pentagon. In a powerful statement, the Association said that Hegseth and his department were trying to “stifle a free press” with the new policy that “conveys an unprecedented message of intimidation to everyone within the DOD, warning against any unapproved interactions with the press and even suggesting it’s criminal to speak without express permission—which plainly, it is not.”
As Politico reported, it was “an unprecedented move that demands media outlets hand the department vast control over what they publish… The new rules give the Pentagon wide latitude to label journalists as security threats and revoke passes for those who obtain or publish information the agency says is unfit for public release.”
Every major news organization, including the conservative outlets Newsmax and Fox News (Hegseth’s former employer), refused to sign Hegseth’s document. Only the far-right, pro-Trump One America News agreed.
Here’s Fox News’ statement:
Today, we join virtually every other news organization in declining to agree to the Pentagon’s new requirements, which would restrict journalists’ ability to keep the nation and the world informed of important national security issues. The policy is without precedent and threatens core journalistic protections. We will continue to cover the US military as each of our organizations has done for many decades, upholding the principles of a free and independent press.
The Lessons
Two themes emerge from this sequence of events:
First, because Pete Hegseth can’t handle accountability or criticism, transparency is his enemy; and
Second, collective action to resist Trump administration assaults on the Constitution is possible.
Never give in. Never give up.
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Free Speech Defenders Demand FCC Chair Carr 'Resign Immediately'
"You know exactly how chilling and unconstitutional your statements have been," the coalition wrote.
Sep 30, 2025
Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel is back on air, but a coalition of free speech supporters on Tuesday called for FCC Chair Brendan Carr's resignation over his role in the comedian's temporary suspension earlier this month.
"The chair of the Federal Communications Commission should be the nation's defender of press freedom," said Robert Weissman, co-president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, in a statement. "Instead, FCC Chair Brendan Carr has fashioned himself into a MAGA-waving, free-speech-be-damned bully, ready to abuse his power to take down the president's opponents."
Public Citizen and Free Press led dozens of pro-democracy organizations that released a letter to Carr on Tuesday morning during the FCC's monthly meeting, which also drew protesters demanding that Carr resign over the Kimmel incident.
As the letter details, during a podcast appearance, Carr "made a barely veiled threat" against Disney-owned ABC in response to Kimmel's remarks about President Donald Trump and the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. Nexstar and Sinclair, which control over 60 ABC affiliates, swiftly announced they would not air "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" Then, the network suspended Kimmel indefinitely. Carr, the letter notes, "responded gleefully to these developments, sending celebratory GIFs to reporters."
Within days, as free speech advocates urged consumers nationwide to cancel their Disney subscriptions and vacations, Kimmel returned to his show. Nexstar and Sinclair initially pledged to still preempt his show, but they quickly changed course, too. Still, amid the Trump administration's broader assault on First Amendment rights, critics of Carr want accountability.
The coalition behind the letter to Carr includes Accountable. US, Fight for the Future, Freedom of the Press Foundation, Indivisible, MoveOn, Our Revolution, Progressive Democrats of America, Revolving Door Project, RootsAction, Stand Up America, and more.
What's happening at the FCC today?Free Press' Vanessa Maria Graber joins Candace and Julio to chat FCC 101."Direct action gets the goods!" - @newsjawn.bsky.social Join us on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMZ8...
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— Free Press (@freepress.bsky.social) September 30, 2025 at 9:59 AM
"As someone who has repeatedly inveighed against the dangers of government censorship and who has specifically defended the importance of political satire, you know exactly how chilling and unconstitutional your statements have been," the 41 groups wrote.
"Yet since being made chairman of the FCC by Donald Trump and even before his election last year, you have repeatedly threatened newsrooms and interfered with broadcasters and other media outlets, based on meritless complaints about their journalistic practices and the content these companies produce," the coalition continued.
"To mitigate the damage you have caused, we urge you to retract and apologize for your remarks and clarify that FCC regulatory decisions are not impacted by the views expressed by broadcasters or on their programs," the coalition concluded. "But those actions by themselves will not be enough. Your constitutional transgression cannot be adequately remedied simply with an apology. You should resign immediately."
Highlighting the stakes of the Trump appointee remaining in power, Craig Aaron, co-CEO of Free Press, noted that "Kimmel may be back on the air, but Nexstar and Sinclair—the same giant conglomerates who refused to air Kimmel's show—have megadeals still pending before Carr's FCC and long-standing regulations they are trying to eliminate."
"Carr should not be the one making these decisions," Aaron stressed. "He should resign to prevent any further damage to free speech, press freedom, and the rule of law."
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