On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order he claimed would protect freedom of speech and put an end to censorship. The announcement, however, has faced sharp criticism due to Trump’s history of threatening and suing journalists, critics, and political adversaries, actions some argue undermine his commitment to free expression.
Trump, along with his Republican allies, has frequently accused the administration of his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, of encouraging the suppression of free speech on online platforms. Much of their criticism focuses on the Biden administration’s efforts to counter misinformation regarding vaccines and elections.
Despite these allegations, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that the Biden administration’s interactions with social media companies did not infringe upon the First Amendment, which guarantees free speech. This decision served as a significant legal clarification of the boundaries between government influence and free expression.
Ironically, Trump himself faced restrictions on social media platforms following the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters. The insurrection occurred shortly after Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to Biden, and his repeated claims of election fraud were widely condemned.
While Trump now positions himself as a defender of free speech, his track record tells a different story. Over the decades, he has frequently targeted his critics through legal threats and lawsuits. For example, in 2022, Trump filed a lawsuit against his 2016 presidential campaign rival, Hillary Clinton, over her remarks about his alleged connections to Russia. The case was dismissed, with the presiding judge labeling it a misuse of the judicial system.
Trump has also demonstrated hostility toward the press, famously branding journalists as the “enemy of the people.” His legal battles with the media include lawsuits against five major entities: CNN, ABC News, CBS News, publisher Simon & Schuster, and the Des Moines Register. Of these, the lawsuit against CNN was dismissed, ABC News settled out of court, and the remaining cases are still unresolved.
David Kaye, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, and former United Nations Special Rapporteur on free speech issues, was skeptical of the executive order’s significance. “The federal government is already barred from interfering with its citizens’ First Amendment rights,” Kaye explained. “This order would not stop behavior that is already prohibited.”
He criticized the executive order as a “deeply cynical” move aimed more at bolstering Trump’s public image than enacting substantive change.
The White House, in its first official statement following Trump’s inauguration, accused the previous administration of suppressing free speech. “Over the last four years, the previous administration trampled free speech rights by censoring Americans’ speech on online platforms, often by exerting substantial coercive pressure on third parties, such as social media companies, to moderate, de-platform, or otherwise suppress speech that the Federal Government did not approve,” the statement read.
However, Kaye highlighted the contradiction in Trump’s messaging. “You cannot on the one hand say, ‘The media is the enemy of the people,’ and at the same time say, ‘It’s the policy of the United States to secure the right of the American people to engage in constitutionally protected speech.’ Those two things don’t fit together,” he argued.
This executive order, while symbolically significant for Trump and his supporters, raises questions about its practical implications and the consistency of its principles. The tension between the president’s professed commitment to free speech and his contentious history with the media underscores the ongoing challenges in navigating the boundaries of expression in a polarized political climate.