If Vance Calls the Truth “Incitement,” Then We’re Guilty As Charged.

Summary

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Bulwark Takes: “If Vance Calls the Truth ‘Incitement,’ Then We’re Guilty As Charged.”

Podcast: Bulwark Takes
Host: The Bulwark (Will Saletan)
Date: September 26, 2025

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode, hosted by Will Saletan, delivers an urgent analysis of how the Trump administration—particularly Vice President J.D. Vance—is escalating its assault on dissent and freedom of speech. Saletan highlights how labeling criticism as "incitement" is becoming a tool to intimidate, remove, or prosecute those who call out authoritarianism and fascism in the government. The episode unpacks a series of chilling statements by Vance, recent events involving Jimmy Kimmel and media pressure, and the administration's wider aims to silence opposition, especially through manipulation of legal interpretations around incitement.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Escalating Authoritarianism and Government Overreach

• [00:30] Will Saletan sets the stage by outlining the Trump administration's recent abuses, including defying court orders and using the military domestically:

  "The Trump administration has defied court orders. It is sending troops into cities against the will of local and state officials."

• He recounts a sham indictment of former FBI director Jim Comey and contextualizes it as part of a broader, authoritarian campaign.

2. Criminalizing Speech About Authoritarianism

• Saletan warns:

  "They are trying to criminalize anyone who points out that they are authoritarian." [01:54]

• He then plays clips of Vice President J.D. Vance accusing the left of inciting violence simply for naming authoritarianism.

3. Vance’s Rhetoric on Speech and Incitement

• After a shooter attacked a government building in Dallas, Vance blamed not just the perpetrator but critics of the administration, charging that calling the government "authoritarian" or "fascist" is what leads to violence.
  • J.D. Vance [02:03]:

    "When Democrats like Gavin Newsom ... say that these people are part of an authoritarian government ... what they're doing is encouraging crazy people to go and commit violence."

• Vance argues that even asserting the government is fascist or holding the right responsible for violence is itself “incitement.”
  • J.D. Vance [02:46]:

    "A reasonable response to fascism, to Nazism would be violence, right? So what they're saying effectively is that you should engage in violence because the regime...are so bad."

4. Media & Targeting of Jimmy Kimmel

• Vance falsely claims that Jimmy Kimmel accused right-wing America of killing Charlie Kirk. He also asserts there was no coordinated effort to suspend Kimmel—contradicted by government pressure revealed in statements by FCC Chairman Brendan Carr.
  • J.D. Vance [03:26]:

    "You accused them of killing Charlie Kirk. ... you're actually apologizing for his murder. You're encouraging more of that violence to happen."

  • Will Saletan [03:54]:

    "Vance is lying about Kimmel. Kimmel did not accuse right wing America of killing Charlie Kirk."

• Saletan points out the orchestration—after Carr’s veiled threat, ABC suspended Kimmel.
  • Brendan Carr [05:51]:

    "We can do this the easy way or the hard way. ...there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead."

  • Will Saletan [06:29]:

    "This was totally the administration using the power of government to intimidate a network into taking somebody off the air."

5. Broader Crackdown on Dissent

• Vance suggests broadcast licenses and federal funding for universities could be at stake if “incitement” occurs.
  • J.D. Vance [07:23]:

    "If you are using federal dollars to incite violence against conservatives, you're not going to get those federal dollars anymore."

  • J.D. Vance [07:50]:

    "We really have to dismantle the entire network of left wing violence in this country."

6. Stretching the Definition of ‘Incitement’

• Saletan argues that Vance is weaponizing the legal definition of incitement to silence political opponents, violating First Amendment norms.
  • J.D. Vance [08:41]:

    "But the First Amendment does not protect imminent incitements to violence."

  • Will Saletan [08:54]:

    "Vance and the rest of these goons in the Trump administration are, are stretching the definition of incitement to criminalize dissent."

7. Hypocrisy on Rhetoric: Trump’s Incendiary Language

• Trump, at Kirk’s memorial:
  • Trump (quoted by Brendan Carr, [09:16]):

    "He did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them. That's where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent."

• Vance dismisses this as a joke, highlighting the double standard.
  • J.D. Vance [09:30]:

    "Well, I think the President was joking ... highlight how hard it is for us to forgive our enemies."

• Saletan’s commentary:

  "So the comedian is serious. But the President is just kidding."

8. Direct Targeting of Individuals and Donors

• Trump named George Soros and Reid Hoffman as people to be targeted by this new paradigm.
• Implication: The administration is building a justification to prosecute or otherwise punish dissenters and funders of the opposition.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Will Saletan [01:54]:

  "They are trying to criminalize anyone who points out that they are authoritarian."

• J.D. Vance [02:46]:

  "So what they're saying effectively is that you should engage in violence because the regime...are so bad."

• Will Saletan [03:54]:

  "Vance is lying about Kimmel."

• Brendan Carr [05:51]:

  "We can do this the easy way or the hard way."

• J.D. Vance [07:50]:

  "We really have to dismantle the entire network of left wing violence in this country."

• Will Saletan [08:54]:

  "Vance and the rest of these goons in the Trump administration are, are stretching the definition of incitement to criminalize dissent."

• Trump (quoted) [09:16]:

  "He did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them. That's where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent."

• J.D. Vance [09:30]:

  "The President was joking ... highlight how hard it is for us to forgive our enemies."

• Will Saletan [10:09]:

  "That is authoritarian. Donald Trump and JD Vance are imposing authoritarian government in the United States."

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [00:30] – Introduction: Trump administration’s recent authoritarian moves
• [01:54] – Saletan warns of criminalizing criticism as “incitement”
• [02:03 – 02:46] – Vance’s statements tying left-wing criticism to violence
• [03:26 – 05:05] – The Jimmy Kimmel controversy and government/media pressure
• [05:51 - 06:29] – FCC Chairman Carr’s pressure on ABC regarding Kimmel
• [07:23 – 07:50] – Vance on using federal funds to punish “incitement”
• [08:41 – 08:54] – Vance: “First Amendment does not protect imminent incitements to violence”
• [09:16 – 09:48] – Trump’s rhetoric at Kirk memorial, Vance’s defense
• [10:09] – Saletan’s closing statement on authoritarianism and criminalizing dissent

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Summary

Will Saletan delivers a fiery exposé of the Trump administration’s push to define criticism as criminal incitement, highlighting Vice President J.D. Vance’s deliberate conflation of dissent with violence. The episode methodically dissects how the administration is leaning on media companies, universities, and donors to stamp out opposition, all while maintaining a hypocritical and selective attitude toward incendiary rhetoric from their own side. Saletan’s warning is clear: If calling out authoritarianism is incitement, “then we’re guilty as charged”—and civilization’s foundational right to speak truth to power is under dire threat.

Transcript

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[Will Saletan]

Hey, it's Will Salatan from the Bulwark. We've been telling you for some time that Donald Trump is an authoritarian. And now there's a new threat which is we might not be allowed to tell you that anymore. So here's where we are. The Trump administration has defied court orders. It is sending troops into cities against the will of local and state officials. And on Thursday night, Donald Trump was, by issuing threats and demands and removing honest people who stood in his way, forced a sham indictment of Jim Comey, the former FBI director who documented Trump's blatant obstruction of justice in his first term. And all this is on top of the coup that Trump attempted to stay in power after he lost an election. This is authoritarian government. And by corrupting law enforcement and using the military to seize more power, it is a fascist government. What I want to talk to you about today is the next stage of their seizure of power. They are trying to criminalize anyone who points out that they are authoritarian. I want to show you what the vice president, J.D. vance, said this week. Here he is on Wednesday after a shooter attacked an immigration enforcement building in Dallas and killed a detainee. Vance didn't just blame the shooter who acted alone. He used the shooting to go after Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California.

[J.D. Vance]

When Democrats like Gavin Newsom did say that these people are part of an authoritarian government, when the left wing media lies about what they're doing, when they lie about who they're arresting, when they lie about the actual job of law enforcement or what they're doing is encouraging crazy people to go and commit violence.

[Will Saletan]

That is a clear warning from the vice president. If you use the A word, if you say this is an authoritarian government, you are inciting violence. And that's not the only forbidden word. If you use the F word, fascism, you are also guilty of inciting violence. Here's what Vance said on Thursday in an interview with Laura Ingraham.

[J.D. Vance]

A reasonable response to fascism, to Nazism would be violence, right? So what they're saying effectively is that you should engage in violence because the regime, using Jasmine Crockett's words, are so bad.

[Will Saletan]

And never mind the A word or the F word. If you so much as suggest that people on the right are responsible for political violence, you just, by saying that, are, according to Vance, inciting violence on the left. And specifically, Vance went after Jimmy Kimmel, the comedian who got forced off the air, for what he said about Charlie Kirk. Here's what Vance said about that.

[J.D. Vance]

He was actually accusing right wing America, conservative America, of killing Charlie Kirk. We now know that is false. Charlie Kirk was murdered by a left wing assassin who was radicalized by some of the rhetoric that we see coming from the far left. When you accuse the people who have been holding prayer vigils, who've been praying about Charlie Kirk, you accused them of killing Charlie Kirk. When we know it was a left wing assassin, you're actually apologizing for his murder. You're encouraging more of that violence to happen.

[Will Saletan]

Now, first of all, Vance is lying about Kimmel. Kimmel did not accuse right wing America of killing Charlie Kirk. Here's what Kimmel actually said.

[J.D. Vance]

We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying.

[Brendan Carr]

To characterize this kid who murdered Charlie.

[J.D. Vance]

Kirk as anything other than one of.

[Brendan Carr]

Them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.

[Will Saletan]

Look, to be fair, I wish Kimmel hadn't said that. It's easy to see how somebody like Vance might perceive that as implying that the shooter was maga. But to call that an accusation and to say that it's inciting violence is stretching the definition of incitement to the point where almost any joke or statement that Trump doesn't like could be prosecuted. Now, the crackdown doesn't start with prosecution. It starts by forcing people off the air. And that is what happened to Kimmel. But Vance says nothing happened to Kimmel.

[J.D. Vance]

That's actually totally separate from the Jimmy Kimmel issue because nothing happened to him. He's currently on the air. And to the extent that he's not, it's because advertisers don't like him because his ratings aren't very good.

[Will Saletan]

Again, Vance is lying. Nothing happened to Kimmel. Kimmel got suspended from ABC right after he made that crack about MAGA and Charlie Kirk. So it wasn't a sudden plunge in the ratings. It was a political backlash. But Vance says the administration had nothing to do with the backlash. Here's what he said on Wednesday in an interview with NewsNation.

[J.D. Vance]

The FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, put out a couple of tweets but the government took no action. We did literally nothing to try to take Jimmy Kimmel off the air.

[Will Saletan]

We did liter nothing. You've got to be joking. Here's what Brendan Carr did to take Kimmel off the air. This is Carr, who regulates TV stations in an interview last week.

[Brendan Carr]

I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or, you know, there's going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.

[Will Saletan]

And just in case ABC wasn't clear about what Carr meant by the easy way or the hard way, he suggested explicitly that ABC should suspend Kimmel.

[Brendan Carr]

There's calls for Kimmel being fired. I think, you know, you could certainly see a path forward for suspension over this. And again, you know, the FCC is going to have remedies that we could.

[Will Saletan]

Look at just hours after Carr said that ABC suspended Kimmel. So this was totally the administration using the power of government to intimidate a network into taking somebody off the air. And Kimmel is just the beginning. Listen to what Vance told Ingram.

[J.D. Vance]

There's something else that's important here, Laura, which is that these broadcast companies, abc, NBC, cbs, they enjoy the public airwaves because they serve the public interest. So I actually think that we should be having a conversation about whether these companies are serving the public interest.

[Will Saletan]

Abc, NBC, cbs, who's next? And they're not just going to take people off the air. They're going to use the power of federal funding to pressure universities to crack down on free speech that Vance considers incitement.

[J.D. Vance]

If you are using federal dollars to incite violence against conservatives, you're not going to get those federal dollars anymore. And we're looking at that right now. So Georgetown needs to make sure that it's actually making it for everybody, whether they're liberal or conservative, to express their views.

[Will Saletan]

And then they're going to dismantle that network of people who, according to Vance, celebrate violence or apologize for violence. They're going to treat these people as accessories to crime.

[J.D. Vance]

The person at the top of the pyramid who's pulling the trigger, that's the person that we're prosecuting. That's the person that we're going after that has to see justice. But there's also all the people who apologize for that violence. There's the people who celebrate for that violence. There are the people who fund the networks that actually encourage and promote that violence. Violence. We really have to dismantle the entire network of left wing violence in this country.

[Will Saletan]

Who does Trump think is running this network? On Thursday, he named some of the people he wants to target. George Soros, who funds organizations that promote democracy, and Reid Hoffman, a major donor to Democratic candidates. Now, you might think that the Constitution of this country protects you from being prosecuted for speech, but Vance is making it clear that they're going to use the term incitement to void that protection and go after you.

[J.D. Vance]

But the First Amendment does not protect imminent incitements to violence. If you are actively promoting your fellow man to kill other people, that is not protected by the First Amendment. And we have to be clear about that. We have to go after that stuff.

[Will Saletan]

Look, this is complete bullshit. Vance and the rest of these goons in the Trump administration are, are stretching the definition of incitement to criminalize dissent. And on the other side, they're totally blowing off incendiary language on the right. Remember this line from Trump at the memorial service for Charlie Kirk?

[Brendan Carr]

He did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them. That's where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent.

[Will Saletan]

Is that incitement? No, says Vance. That's just a joke.

[J.D. Vance]

Well, I think the President was joking, and I think it's interesting if you go back and watch the full speech, what the President was trying to do in his very humorous and very unique way, was highlight how hard it is for us to forgive our enemies. I don't think that he was saying we should hate our enemies. I think what he was saying is Christ's commandment to love our enemies is very tough.

[Will Saletan]

Oh, so the comedian is serious. But the President is just kidding. I mean, Trump doesn't really hate. He wouldn't really do anything about it. Right. Like when he said this on Thursday about prosecuting Comey.

[Brendan Carr]

I can only say that Comey's a bad person. He's a sick person. I think he's a sick guy, actually.

[Will Saletan]

Just hours after Trump said that his former personal attorney, installed by Trump to indict Comey, did exactly what the president wanted. That is authoritarian. Donald Trump and J.D. vance are imposing authoritarian government in the United States. And now that it's obvious, they're taking the next step. If you speak the truth, if you call them what they are, they're going to say you're inciting violence and they're going to come after you. See you next time.

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