In January 2025, on his first day back in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order “to restore free speech and end federal censorship.” More than a year and a half later, his administration is busy using its powers to hunt down speech it doesn’t like.
Last year, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr urged broadcasters to take action over comments Jimmy Kimmel made following the killing of Charlie Kirk. In September, Kimmel said the FCC stepped in again to prevent Kimmel’s late-night show from airing an interview with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico.
Also last month, Trump banned three news outlets, including CNN, MS NOW and Politico, from entering the White House due to their reporting. The ban was quickly blocked by a federal judge, but both CNN and Politico were barred from participating in Trump’s travels with their press corps.
Beyond the White House, the battle over free speech is raging on college campuses. In states like Texas, Republican lawmakers have limited the time students can protest and given college boards appointed by governors more say over what is taught. In 2025, 15 states passed laws limiting what can be taught on college campuses or weakening protections for free speech.
To break down what this all means for the state of free speech in America and the future of our First Amendment rights— Today, explain Co-host Noel King talks with Greg Lukianoff, President and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).
Below are excerpts from their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s more to the full podcast, listen Today, explain No matter where you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora and Spotify.
How would you describe the state of free speech on campuses today?
The status of free speech is in grave danger, both on and off campus. I’ve been doing this for 25 years and this is the worst I’ve ever seen.
When it comes to Charlie Kirk’s backlash cases, we’ve seen about 90 cases. This is a very high number. We saw a former police officer sentenced to 37 days in jail for retweeting a Trump meme in response to a request to attend a candlelight vigil for Charlie Kirk. This is not good.
If you look at the last two years, we’ve done a lot of episodes about free speech issues. have jimmy kimmel; CNN was banned from the White House.
have student protesters They protested what was happening in Gaza.
Indeed, we are in a moment where many different types of people are claiming many different types of restrictions on their speech. What is happening in the country?
My concern is that I am very much a petty liberal. I come from an old ACLU background. That’s where I interned in law school. I went to law school to study the First Amendment. I’m very focused on that. This is my passion.
For most of my 25-year career, you could rely on the civil libertarian side of the left and the libertarian side of the right, and they tended to agree on almost everything except for things like free speech. Now, I think we’re always in a culture war, where we have more of the progressive left and more of the populist right.
The only way to show that you believe in free speech is to say, “I hate that guy, but I think you should have free speech.” If you say, “I think there should be free speech on my side,” that’s just self-interest. That’s not all.
All the worst people in history want their own freedom of speech. So I worry that we are losing – or even, I don’t want to say this dramatically, but may have even lost its shared values as a society.
Well, that’s pretty grim.
Yes. My mood is a bit grim.
The Trump administration made a promise when it took office. I remember it sounding like this: “The woke left has gone too far. They’ve eliminated personnel. They’ve restricted speech. They’ve lost control. President Trump will come back and we will restore sanity to the country. And as part of that sanity, that will include your right to express yourself freely.”
How do you think the commitments compare to what we’re seeing?
I think Trump being Trump is constantly frustrating everyone around him. I think there were probably people in the administration who said, “Yes, we’re going to support free speech.” And then Trump decided to announce — I mean, I think the recent White House press pool case was hysterical in a lot of ways because he had to have his team provide some kind of constitutional justification for why he kicked him out of the press pool. But on Truth Social, he said, “It’s because of their point of view,” which, by the way, is something you can’t do under the Constitution.
“I’m hopeful about the long-term future of free speech, but in the short-term I’m concerned.”
His instincts are very autocratic. They are very top down. So maybe there are some in the government who support free speech deep down, but Trump does not. That’s why when it comes to a new administration, there’s a lot of people on the right, but also some on the unorthodox left, who say, “Oh, this will be good for free speech.”
I was like, “Guys, stop kidding yourselves. This is going to be bad.” Although I will say, it was worse than I expected.
President Trump is going to step down at some point. What happens then? What do you think? Is there an optimistic scenario where we say, “Okay, we’re kind of tired of this crap. Let’s go back to the 90s ways”?
In a way, it’s cyclical. American society has become dysfunctional, and one of the things that usually brings us together is that we are lucky… Let me just say, we have a wonderful Constitution. It’s incredibly smart about human nature and the Constitution itself—you can say whatever you want about the Founders, but it’s something to be proud of. Many times, these values bring us back together.
That’s my hope. But here’s the other thing I’ll say about Trump: He’s wreaked havoc on my ability to predict anything. So what will things look like in the event horizon of 2028, I hope it will be better and we will do everything we can to make sure things get better for FIRE, but will it be better? I’m not sure it would be better if we thought of free speech as belonging to my side rather than your side.
One of the reasons I have hope for free speech in the long run is that free speech does work well. This is how you find out what your fellow humans are thinking. That’s how you get ideas. This is how you truly become your authentic self.
Societies with true free speech always have advantages, real, serious advantages, over societies without free speech. So I’m hopeful about the long-term future of free speech, but in the short-term, I’m concerned.