Is Free Speech Over in America?

Summary

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The Find Out Podcast

Episode: "Is Free Speech Over in America?"

Date: September 23, 2025
Guest: Ian Rosenberg (First Amendment attorney, adjunct professor at Brooklyn College, author of Free Speech Handbook)

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Overview

This episode grapples with escalating concerns over free speech rights in America during Trump’s second term, with a focus on the recent suspension of Jimmy Kimmel by ABC—allegedly under pressure from the FCC. Through lively banter and legal expertise from guest Ian Rosenberg, the panel discusses the distinction between First Amendment law and values, government vs. corporate censorship, and the chilling effect on American speech. They also unpack the current media landscape, FCC chair Brendan Carr’s controversial actions, and strategies ordinary citizens can take to safeguard free expression.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. Jimmy Kimmel’s Suspension and the First Amendment

[00:43–05:03]

• Context: Jimmy Kimmel was suspended by ABC after comments some deemed “not particularly inflammatory.” Rumors suggest FCC pressure played a role.
• Ian Rosenberg explains:
  • The First Amendment restricts government interference, not private employers:
    “Very few people know that you really have no sort of freedom of speech at the workplace... if your workplace is ABC... these organizations have the right to punish speech. That doesn’t mean it’s not violating our First Amendment values. My wife calls it lawful but awful.” [01:25]
  • If government actors like the FCC Chair were involved, this could constitute illegal state action, referencing the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling in NRA v. Vulo, which held that government can persuade but not punish private speech.
    “It seems like this is a tremendously analogous situation... the government should not be able to punish or seek private actors to punish speech that they disagree with.” [04:26]

2. Legal Paths and Implications for Kimmel

[05:03–06:26]

• Kimmel’s main legal recourse against ABC would be contractual, but if government pressure is proven, there could be a constitutional claim against the FCC.
  • “There is a constitutional claim here. This is not just two private parties fighting... the government is trying to intercede. And that is what they are constitutionally prohibited from doing.” [06:13]

3. Supreme Court’s Approach to Free Speech

[07:53–09:40]

• The Court has protected free speech across the spectrum, even with its conservative majority:
  • “The First Amendment has always appealed to people on all sides of the political spectrum... the power of the First Amendment lies in the ability to apply it consistently, which the court is generally better about doing in the First Amendment context than in many other constitutional contexts.” [08:34]
• Recent conservative outrage at perceived censorship is contrasted with their historical stance:
  • “Now we have this flip where it’s the right who seems to all of a sudden have become snowflakes and can’t take a joke.” [09:14]

4. Satire’s Legal Protection

[12:13–17:27]

• Rosenberg underscores the Supreme Court’s explicit defense of satire, citing Hustler v. Falwell (1988):
  • “Chief Justice Rehnquist affirms the right to satire, upholds Flint’s right to publish this parody... there’s no way that outrageousness can work as a standard that will just punish views people don’t like. Without that, we would have no political cartoons.” [15:05–16:23]
  • Kimmel’s case is “squarely” protected if government pressure is proven.
• Notable Moment: Recounting the wild details of the Hustler/Falwell case demonstrates the breadth of tolerated satire under the law.

5. Brendan Carr, the FCC, and Politicization of Media Regulation

[17:38–26:19]

• Rosenberg details Carr’s history of pro-Trump partisanship, willingness to target media for political reasons, and selective enforcement against outlets like CBS and Fox News.
  • “Carr has shown a willingness to go far beyond what any FCC chair has ever done... to abandon the FCC’s bedrock principle, which is that they can regulate but not censor speech.” [21:27]
• Panelists highlight Carr’s troubling alignment with fringe figures, his involvement in Project 2025, and efforts to “tame” non-conservative media.
  • “What we have here is a situation where the FCC chair seems to think that his role is to tame the mainstream media... to repress or regulate... views he doesn’t agree with.” [25:28]

6. Legal and Social Consequences, Chilling Effect

[26:52–30:50]

• Discusses scale of possible lawsuits against government actors, recognizing massive damages may be claimed but are likely more symbolic.
• Rosenberg shifts focus to the broader dangers:
  • “If they can take away the speech rights of these people, this is just the beginning of the end of free speech in this country... At no time in our history has that chilling effect felt more real and understandable.” [29:07–29:45]

7. Media Consolidation and Targeting Smaller Voices

[30:50–34:49]

• The panel warns consolidation of media and platforms increases vulnerability to political targeting.
  • “I’m not worried for Kimmel... I’m worried about the kind of, you know, if they come for these people... because other individuals don’t have the right to fight back in that way.” [28:45]
  • “We are small fish compared to Jimmy Kimmel... But I think we're not far off from being targeted by the Trump administration.” [31:33 - Host 2]
• Large media conglomerates often “obey in advance,” self-censoring to avoid trouble.
  • “To give up a little is really, in this case, to surrender so much of our rights... these mass companies are just obeying in advance.” [34:19]

8. Hope and Action: Protecting Free Speech Grassroots

[36:12–39:57]

• Rosenberg finds hope in bipartisan condemnation and the tradition of individual acts defending free speech:
  • “Our rights were created not necessarily by the President... but by individuals who take small stands of conscience and had no idea that they would end up defining rights for the whole nation.” [36:34]
• Everyone can help preserve free speech by learning their rights and speaking up at the local level.
  • “Protecting free speech is a grassroots activity... we have to be protecting the free speech rights of all Americans.” [39:14]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “My wife calls it lawful but awful.”
  — Ian Rosenberg on private, but values-violating, workplace censorship [01:38]

• “You can persuade but not punish.”
  — Paraphrasing Justice Sotomayor’s NRA v. Vulo ruling regarding government persuasion versus pressure [05:25, 11:23]

• “Now we have this flip where it’s the right who seems to all of a sudden have become snowflakes and can’t take a joke.”
  — Ian Rosenberg [09:14]

• “Carr has shown a willingness to go far beyond what any FCC chair has ever done... to abandon the FCC’s bedrock principle, which is that they can regulate but not censor speech.”
  — Ian Rosenberg [21:27]

• “At no time in our history has that chilling effect felt more real and understandable.”
  — Ian Rosenberg [29:45]

• “Protecting free speech is a grassroots activity... we have to be protecting the free speech rights of all Americans.”
  — Ian Rosenberg [39:14]

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Key Timestamps

• 01:25: Rosenberg outlines public vs. private First Amendment application
• 04:26: Brennan Carr’s (FCC) pressure compared to NRA v. Vulo
• 07:53–09:40: Supreme Court’s ideological consistency and recent reversals
• 12:13–15:05: Legal history protecting satire, Hustler v. Falwell
• 18:11–21:27: FCC Chair Carr’s background and history of politicization
• 26:52–30:50: Chilling effect and dangers posed to all speech
• 36:12–39:57: How ordinary people can (and must) defend the First Amendment

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Conclusion: What Listeners Can Do

• Learn your free speech rights — Rosenberg recommends accessible guides like his Free Speech Handbook.
• Speak up at local levels — From schools to council meetings, small acts matter.
• Support independent media — Especially as consolidation increases threats to dissenting voices.

Rosenberg closes on an optimistic note: while the risks to free speech are real and pressing, everyday people defending their rights makes a real difference.

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For further learning:

• Free Speech Handbook by Ian Rosenberg
• On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder

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Note: This summary skips promotional content, ads, and non-content sections; focus is on the main discussion and actionable takeaways.

Transcript

[Ian Rosenberg]

Foreign.

[Host 1]

Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Find out podcast. We have a great show for you today. We have a great guest who is joining us. Ian Rosenberg, who is a First Amendment attorney, also an adjunct professor at Brooklyn College, also formally of ABC News, is joining us today. And he's also written a book called the Free Speech Handbook, which you should definitely check out as well. So, Ian, thank you for joining us.

[Ian Rosenberg]

Thanks for having me, guys.

[Host 1]

Great. Well, we were sort of joking before we got on that, like, we try to keep this show light, but unfortunately there have been some disturbing attacks on the First Amendment over the past couple of weeks. So, you know, we want to start with the biggest topic of the day, which is the ABC's firing slash, suspension, I guess suspension, we have to say, of Jimmy Kimmel over some comments that I would argue were not particularly inflammatory. And, you know, there's some rumblings that the FCC got involved. Can you, from your outside perspective, give us a little insight into how, how disturbing this is? And, and then we'll go from there.

[Ian Rosenberg]

Sure. Well, thanks again for having me, guys. And you know, the headline, of course, is that this is tremendously disturbing, not only from a political perspective, but First Amendment perspective, which is my area. I thought I'd start by just cutting through some of the misinformation that's out there because we have to remember that the First Amendment only applies to government action. Now, this is something you guys, I'm sure, know, but but is not commonly understood. Of course, the First Amendment begins, Congress shall make no law abridging, to paraphrase, abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, cutting out some of those other important parts of the First Amendment. But Congress, which means Congress now applied to the 14th Amendment and states, but it means government officials, the government themselves, state actors, which can be police figures, it can be school board members, but you need some type of government action. Private companies have the right to do what they want and they are in no way beholden to the First Amendment. Very few people know that you really have no sort of freedom of speech at the workplace. And if your workplace is ABC Entertainment, like Jimmy Kimmel, or if your workplace is the NFL like Colin Kaepernick, these organizations have the right to punish speech. That doesn't mean it's not violating our First Amendment values. My wife calls it lawful but awful. And, and that's sort of where we have to start off this analysis. But it's much more complicated because FCC chair Brendan Carr, the day before the firing, or maybe the day of the firing Said that, you know, to paraphrase what he said, a podcast, you know, ABC officials can make this, have this happen the easy way or the hard way, but, but they should do the right thing and get rid of Kimmel. And just as recently as last year, the Supreme Court has ruled in a case called the NRA versus Vulo that it's the unanimous opinion of the Supreme Court, but written by Justice Sotomayor. And what she wrote was that the state actors can use their bully pulpit, they can use their power to persuade, but not punish. And so in, in the NRA case, what was happening is New York government officials allegedly were pressuring insurance companies to move away from insuring the NRA and other gun clients. And the court, although that a preliminary stage and we don't have to get into the technicalities, the court said if those facts were true, that then the New York government had gone too far because they were not just saying were anti gun violence or were pro gun regulation, but they were encouraging arguably insurance companies to back away. And it seems like that this is a tremendously analogous situation. In fact, on a law school exam it would be too easy because it's just too similar to what the court has just reaffirmed last year, as recently as last year and again all members of the court, even with our conservative, ultra conservative supermajority that we have on the court right now. So what's, what's deeply disturbing and hard to make light of despite, despite the fact we're talking about satire, is that the government should not be able to punish or seek private actors to punish speech that they disagree with.

[Host 2]

So does that mean that Jimmy Kimmel has a case like is. Is he, he's a plaintiff and he would sue the government or ABC and the government. How does that work?

[Ian Rosenberg]

Right. Well the, the abc, the ABC element, you know, would be a contract matter. So he wouldn't have a constitutional claim against them. But you raise an interesting point. Whether he could bring what's called the 1983 action, an action to, to vindicate your constitutional rights against the, the government. He could in theory bring it against Carr or, or the fcc. You know, the procedural elements of that I think are both complicated and unlikely. Kimmel is either going to be reinstated or he's not. And I, you'll certainly have a contract fight that he's gonna, you know, win. I, I think but I don't know what his contract details are. But, but this, even if there's some kind of you can be fired for cause it seems to ridiculous to to say that this is somehow. Cause. But, but the point that I think that you're making, that's an important one, is yes, that there is a constitutional claim here. This is not just, you know, two private parties fighting. This is two private parties fighting with the government trying to intercede. And that is what they are constitutionally prohibited from doing.

[Rich]

I was, I was reading, I'm not a lawyer, but I have the Internet and I'm incredibly smart. So I'm pretty confident with my takes here.

[Ian Rosenberg]

I'm sure it's going to be correct. And I'll just, I'll just sit this.

[Host 1]

Oh boy.

[Rich]

Here we just, just plus one everything. No, I was reading about another case too that where the Biden administration was sued for allegedly censoring social media platforms regarding misinformation around Covid vaccines. And in this case they also cited this, the, the Republican Supreme Court, I believe it was this exact Supreme Court sided with the Biden administration with Amy Coney Barrett writing that there was a lack of specific causation findings with respect to any discrete instance of content moderation, which basically means there was no explicit link showing that they, that the government took action to specifically punish that individual social media platform for, for self censoring in that case. Covid misinformation. Covid. COVID vaccine misinformation. And so again, you know, Amy Coney Barrett, I mean, there's, there's no shortage of options for Supreme Court justices to be hypocrites. But it is much more difficult to be a hypocrite as a Supreme Court justice when you're invalidating a past majority opinion that you contributed to because then that becomes the case law right of the land. Until a new. Until you flip again.

[Ian Rosenberg]

Absolutely. And as you are alluding to, this court is not afraid to overturn precedent. You know, that's how they eliminated the constitutional right to abortion. But it is much harder to overturn precedent that you are directly a part of. And one of. If we're looking for silver linings or brighter spots to focus on one of the issues that we can have some hope, I think about the First Amendment is that the First Amendment has always appealed to people on sort of all sides of the political spectrum. So a Chief Justice Rehnquist considers himself the foremost defender, has written that he considers himself the foremost defender of the First Amendment. I think that's a bit of an exaggeration, but. Because he goes different ways, but, but he cares deeply about the First Amendment. That is absolutely true. Even the most conservative members on the Court will say that they do. And so, and you know, and for such a long time we had the right saying that it was the left who cared too much about feelings and wanted to restrict speech, and that was constitutionally not allowed. And now we have this flip where it's the right who seems to all of a sudden have become snowflakes and can't take a joke and is now saying, oh, maybe we can't restrict speech, but the power of the First Amendment lies in the ability to apply it consistently, which in general, the court is better about doing that in the First Amendment context than they are in many other constitutional contexts, particularly with this new six member supermajority.

[Rich]

I saw somebody refer to the woke, right, the rise of the woke, right. And I was like, I got to take a moment to applaud whoever came up with the. Whoever thought I should just call it the woke, right? Like they are going to very much not like being called their own little version of woke, but it's like somebody matched their energy and suddenly they realized that what they've been doing for like 250 years to the, you know, to the left with the. Your feelings and everything, it's a very unpleasant place to be when you feel badly and somebody calls you a piece of shit for it. It turns out.

[Ian Rosenberg]

Well, you know, there's so much. There's so much double speak going on from the administration. So just the day before, Carr had said that, you know, he implied that ABC needed to do something about Kimmel. Just the day before, he had actually been criticizing his own administration's Attorney General, Pam Bondi, for her claims that they were going to be targeting people involving, who engage in hate speech. And she's misusing what the legal meaning of hate speech is, which we can get into if you want to. But the point is that Carr himself, the day before had said, it's pretty clear that the First Amendment protects all kinds of speech and that the FCC and the government is very limited in what they can do in that regard. And then the next day, he seemingly completely contradicts that.

[Rich]

Well, he found a way to do it that wasn't making it illegal. It was manipulating.

[Ian Rosenberg]

Right. Well, so, you know, again, Sotomayor's line is that you can persuade, which I'm paraphrasing, but you can persuade but not punish. And it did seem like he was threatening punishment.

[Host 1]

So I'm glad that, I'm glad Rich brought this up because there was a whole thing about this about a year ago, maybe two years ago, about the quote, unquote the Biden administration was limiting free speech on social media platforms. And you know, as somebody who worked in social media in the federal government, and yes, did have contacts with social media companies, there is a very, very big difference between the federal government telling social media companies when there is questionable material on their site and forcing them to deal with it. Which the Biden administration did not do. Correct.

[Ian Rosenberg]

That was what the court said and it sort of was tossed out on procedural grounds. But, and I don't know the facts of that case so well. But, but the, but the outcome is what you've all been saying, which is again, there is nothing wrong with the Biden administration saying here are the facts on Covid. Vaccines are safe. We encourage you to promote this point of view online, which happens to be also truth. But, but even if it wasn't truth, there's nothing wrong with them pushing an opinion point of view without threat of sanctions. But I would argue that there's even despite the fact that he is the president of the United States, that Trump sort of just railing against comedians is not in and of itself enough to create state action. That's a tougher call, but that's a more complicated case. But here we don't have to get into the harder case. We have the chair of the FCC directly addressing the issue about this specific instance and, and implicitly threatening government action. To me, that makes up a state action case and it seems actually stronger perhaps than, than the NRA versus Vulo case. So, you know, this is not a case or this is not a situation where we had, you know, the Biden administration doing one thing and getting away with it, you know, allegedly, and then the Trump administration trying to do something similar. I do think there's a big distinction between, between Biden and social media policy regarding health issues and what we have here with Kimmel also, because something I would also like to get into is that satire is constitutionally protected. We don't, you know, this is not, again, something that we have to dig back into the mists of time or just it seems like it should be true, but who knows if it is. The Supreme Court, as recently as the late 80s, in a crazy case involving Hustler vs. Falwell, where Larry Flint had a parody ad attacking Jerry Falwell, the minister and founder of the Moral Majority, the political Christian right organization, had this really outrageous ad that was riffing on Campari, telling us about your first time ads, which were a real set of ads, but then they did a parody one with Falwell. Oh, and the couple entendre was, you were telling me, first time you had Campari, but in fact, it sounded like the first time you were having sex. In the Falwell ad that Flint had published, they said that Jerry Flint, that Jerry Falwell had sex for the first time in a drunken stupor with his mother in an outhouse. And that's the part I feel comfortable about.

[Rich]

This is the 80s, right?

[Ian Rosenberg]

You say this is the 80s, worse than that. And it goes up to the Supreme Court. So Falwell sues as a political move, one could argue, but he sues, had a financial issue. He sues for essentially emotional distress, wins at a trial, sort of mixed verdict at trial, but wins a trial. It goes up to the Supreme Court. And Chief Justice Rehnquist, no liberal fan of the media here, previously considered the most conservative chief justice in the modern era. Now, that's maybe debatable with Justice Roberts. Chief Justice Roberts, but Chief Justice Rehnquist affirms the right to satire, upholds Flynn, basically Flynn's right to publish this parody, basically holding his nose and saying that, you know, if we could get rid of this type of, you know, he doesn't want to call it comedy, but if we could get rid of this type of satire, we wouldn't be worse as a society. But in fact, there's no way that outrageousness can work as a standard that will just punish views that people don't like. And without that, we would have no political cartoons. That's his big concern, is sort of promoting keeping political cartoons protected, perhaps old fashioned even in the late 80s. But this is why in my book Free Speech Handbook, I have a whole chapter on when Trump used to rail about Saturday Night Live, the only president to ever be on the show twice. But when, but when they're attacking him, he likes to go off on how can this be allowed? And shouldn't the FCC do something? And I answer that they, they can't do something because the Supreme Court has already moved again, a conservative Supreme Court has already held that, that satire is absolutely protected. So these are not just my opinion kind of issues that this should be prohibited or that this, you know, is, these are, these are really conservative members of the Supreme Court answering these questions for us in a very clear cut and authoritative way that exactly what Jimmy Kimmel is doing, a much less outrageous and offensive and inaccurate version than what has already been confirmed as being protected. He is squarely in the protection of the First Amendment once the government is.

[Host 1]

So just so the people know, if you want to if you want to know more about the Flint thing, there was a movie in the 90s about this, the People vs. Larry Flint, which I think was Woody Harrelson and Courtney Love. Pretty entertaining movie.

[Ian Rosenberg]

It's pretty accurate too.

[Host 1]

It's. Yeah. So you should definitely check it out. So I want to move to this, to Brendan Carr, the FCC chair, who is the guy who, you know, suggested to ABC that their license could be at risk if they didn't, if they didn't get Kimmel off the air. Can you, can you give us a little bit, because I know a little bit about this guy but like, give us a little bit of his background. I'm going to guess that he would not have been your choice for the chair of the fcc.

[Ian Rosenberg]

No, he would not have been my choice. But tough calls like that don't come to me. But Carr has been a long time supporter of President Trump in and out of office. And you know, he has, has made no qualms about threatening media organizations for expressing either, in this case, entertainment opinions or news opinions that he doesn't like. And you know, the whole, the whole specter of the other late night comedian, it's, it's really amazing that we're in a world now where two of the biggest four late night comedians are taken off the air for arguably political reasons and cars, you know, tacit involvement in sort of refusing to say, well, first of all, for just the whole like lawsuit against cbs, which was what was holding up that. Brought by President Trump, which was what was holding up arguably Paramount's other economic ventures is ludicrous. And the fact that Carr kept focusing on that. First of all, the issue, the non issue, but the non issue was that CBS and that 60 Minutes had allegedly cut down an interview in inappropriate way to favor Harris. First of all, that's what every, you know, news broadcast news organization has done from the history of the media, including Fox News. Of course, you never show the whole interview. Very few things are ever just live, live in terms of interviews. There was also no showing that it was edited in any kind of misleading way. But for Carr to be basically say that this was something that they were looking into at the same time that he dismissed other complaints that had been brought before the FCC when he took over regarding Fox News and their lies in connection with the Dominion, both litigation and with Trump's false claims that Dominion had been involved in voter fraud or election fraud, the voting system company, he dismisses those claims as not worthy of looking into and then says that this non existent claim against CBS and Paramount would move forward. So there is no question normally that the chair of the FCC is a political appointee, is related to the party in power. The chair changes when another party takes power. So all that is very straightforward. But Carr has shown a willingness to. To go far beyond what any FCC chair has ever done, not only to serve the political interests of his patron of the president, but to just abandon the FCC's bedrock principles, which is that they can regulate but not censor speech. And that really the only regulation of speech is in context with indecency during an indecency window. So that's, that's cursing, essentially. But to regulate content is unprecedented, and to threaten the regulation of content is also unprecedented. Coming from an authority like the FCC chair.

[Rich]

I was just going to say, I got to put a little bit of this on Kimmel. He should have known that if he had, instead of doing this and getting himself in hot water, and now it's all ugly. If he had just put $50,000 in cash into a grocery bag, say whatever he wants and carried it and just, you know, delivered it to anyone really in the administration, they probably, like, would have just been like, oh, yeah, no, that's how we. That's how we do business here. So it would have been fine.

[Host 1]

So, so just. So for people who don't know what, what Rich is referring to, the, the Tom Homan who runs ice, it came out this weekend that he was actually recorded by two undercover FBI agents accepting a bag full of $50,000 and saying something to the effect of, I'm sure your contracts can get through, or something like that. And then Pam Bonney and the DOJ shut it down. This is not a First Amendment case. So I apologize, Ian, but like, but it just kind of shows that these people are. They're not adhering to any sort of moral ground or anything like that.

[Rich]

He made no effort to grease the wheels. I mean, that's just how you got.

[Host 1]

Straight up come corruption.

[Ian Rosenberg]

And then I think the other thing.

[Host 1]

That going back to Brennan Carr for a second, I think all you need to know about Brendan Carr is that the first interview he gave about this was to Benny Johnson. Now, if you don't know Benny Johnson, good, I'm glad you don't, because he's a miserable human being. He was a, quote unquote, mainstream reporter until he got caught plagiarizing twice at two different places. And now he makes all kinds of money on the far right. That's who Brendan Carr.

[Host 2]

And from Russia.

[Host 1]

And from Russia, he was one of the people that you heard about last year that received $400,000 per month from this shady LLC and they all, him and Tim Pool and some other people. Oh, we didn't know anything about this. It's like, yeah, I never know where my $400,000 a month is coming from, but that they decided to go to the far edges. And, and Benny Johnson, by the way, gave an absolutely insane speech at Charlie Kirk's memorial yesterday, which was not the only insane speech. A campaign rally, not a memorial, but that's a different story. But it's concerning to me that the chair of the fcc, that's his immediate go to, was to go to the far right, which kind of suggests that he doesn't really have a case here of what he's doing.

[Ian Rosenberg]

Yeah. So Carr playing devil's advocate. Carr's going to say that the media ecosystem needs, needs more, you know, more diversity and that's fully consistent with the First Amendment and he's just providing a corrective to the mainstream media being captured by liberal authorities, blah, blah, blah, blah. But, but what I think that your point indicates is that this administration is not only willing to, to reach out to organizations or pundits that they never would before, but more to me, more importantly is that they're willing to basically criticize the mainstream media for telling the truth. And that is something that Carr has repeatedly. You know, he's not saying it for telling the truth, he's saying that for the mainstream media for engaging in fake news. But, but that is, that has never been done. To have an FCC chair who is railing against the news media in general, basically sort of discounting Fox News and just talking about the rest of the broadcast news or streaming news ecosystem. So abc, cbs, NBC, MSNBC and cnn. And that is, I think, the most telling aspect. If he was just giving some podcasts to, to right wing organizations or right wing speakers, that would, that wouldn't trouble me so greatly. But what we have here is a situation where the FCC chair seems to think that his role is to tame the mainstream media. And what he seems to be meaning by that is to, is to repress or to regulate or to restrict or to kick off news organizations or entertainment people whose views he doesn't agree with.

[Host 1]

Well, he does all that while he tweets on X about how it was Project 2025 the whole time.

[Ian Rosenberg]

Like he did a whole little. Look at me.

[Host 1]

I'm so coy with this meme where.

[Host 2]

Somebody was like, yeah, this was in Project 2025 and it was the plan the whole time.

[Ian Rosenberg]

And I believe that Car wrote the chapter.

[Host 2]

He's a co author.

[Ian Rosenberg]

Yeah. 20, 25. Yep.

[Host 1]

Oh, yeah, that's great. File that under N for no fucking.

[Host 2]

Shit, Sherlock, because it's not a shocker.

[Host 1]

To anybody who was paying attention. Yeah, yeah, that's true.

[Ian Rosenberg]

Well, what.

[Host 1]

So you know, we talked a little bit about that. Kimmel has a case here. If he was to sue, like what, what, what would that look like? Because can you, I mean, you could sue the federal government obviously for financial damages if, if, if, if you were advising, which we know you are not. Like, what sort of dollar amount are we talking about from, for him to go after the government for? Because I've heard, I've heard massive numbers, but like, who the hell knows? I'm reading this on Social, so I don't know where it's coming from. But what kind of case does he have?

[Ian Rosenberg]

Well, I mean, you know, one of the things that you people, I think are maybe starting to realize about these numbers that are being put forth. It's like when Trump sues the New York Times For 15 billion, that number, which is more than their market cap, some figures, more than, you know, any kind of estimate of the value. These numbers are sort of picked out of the air. He sued the Wall Street Journal regarding their Epstein reporting, claiming that he had given Epstein a bawdy birthday card. He sued them for 10 billion, I believe. So, you know, you can write down any number you want in a complaint. That doesn't mean that it's going to be upheld by a judge or a jury. But, you know, his damages are not only the salary that he's losing, but you know, reputational damages that are extraordinary. But you know, I do not think, if I was his adviser, I wouldn't be advising him. Oh, the way to vindicate your rights is through the going, taking this all the way to Supreme Court because that's a multi year process. That is not really how most people vindicate their financial rights. He's going to engage in some kind of contract dispute with Disney at large. And you know, as much as I'm tremendously sympathetic to Kimmel and believe he has been treated not only unfairly but unconstitutionally in this regard. You know, I'm not worried for Kimmel. I mean, I know he will land on his feet. Right? Like I'm not worried for Stephen Colbert. What I am worried about is a kind of, you know, if they come for these people who have every resource, they have fame, they have reach, they have, you know, vast money they have good lawyers. If they can take away the speech rights of these people, this is just the beginning of the end of free speech in this country. Because not only because other individuals don't have the right to fight back in that way, but because of the understandable and real chill. People in the free speech world always talk about a chilling effect, but nowhere or probably at no time in our history has that chilling effect felt more real and understandable. That metaphor makes sense now. People are chilled by the actions that are taking place against Kimmel and Colbert because they know that means that it can happen to them. And it, it's not just happening in the arts. It's happening of course, in universities. It's certainly happening in the media lawsuits that I referenced. It's happening at the Kennedy center. It is happening all over. And these are not, these are not random unisolated incidents. It's part of a pattern. And the, the scare. One of the scariest things about it is it doesn't matter if ultimately Kimmel prevails. If ultimately Kimmel brings a lawsuit and gets fast tracked and goes to the Supreme Court and he's vindicated that the harm is already done. Not only the harm in him being off the air and not being a voice of creation critique for President Trump, but also just the harm to everyone else. And so I'm less interested in constitutional remedies for Kimmel than I am about the constitutional rights that are being taken away from us.

[Host 2]

What I think is, is one of the scariest things is just the consolidation of control of the media writ large. And I'm not talking about just like cbs, abc, the networks, I'm talking about social media. We are a substack first organization here at Findout. While the founders of Substack seem to be extremely confident that like nothing will ever happen to them, nothing will ever influence them. And they're trying to lure all of these recently fired journalists who've been targeted by the Trump administration saying you can come over to Substack. And there seems to be this, this belief for some reason that the Trump aligned conservative investors behind Substack and those who this some of the same people who are buying the American version of TikTok, that they won't drop the hammer someday and still come after the same people. I mean we are small fish compared to Jimmy Kimmel by orders of magnitude. But I think we're not far off from being targeted by the Trump administration. And I don't see a reason that, you know, Hamish McKenzie or any other executive at Substack is, is going to be able to fend off pressure from the FCC or any other regulatory agency as Trump continues to wield it against smaller actors like us. Because there's nothing that we can do if Jimmy Kimmel can't, can't hold on to his job. There's no way that we're going to be able to hold on to our little podcast.

[Ian Rosenberg]

Well, I think you bring up in terms of media consolidation and sort of media interests, I think you bring up, you know, a very important point, obviously. And one of the things that is most troubling is that, you know, an organization like the New York Times, okay, they, they can fight the good fight. They can fight not only for their own reputation, but for the reputation and continuation of a free press in this country if they're sued by Trump. But these conglomerates that own multiple interests, even if they have interests in keeping Jimmy Kimmel going forward because it makes money and because his ratings are pretty good, I think second to Kimmel, I mean Colbert, they have other financial interests. And once you get into these giant mega deals where they have this is going to be approved by that regular, these to be approved by this regulatory agency or that one, you're seeing that they're not just moving, sort of an economist would say they're not just moving in connection with the economic interests of one part of their company. ABC Entertainment wants Kimmel to succeed. They are looking at their overall economic interests. And in almost every case, they are. They are caving without even getting to a fight, even getting to an f. FCC regulatory action. You know, Timothy Snyder, the Yale historian who wrote on tyranny, which is unfortunately now more relevant than ever, he has a line that, you know, do not obey in advance. That's one of his maxims, one of his requests. And what just keeps happening here over and over again is that people are actually obeying not with what Trump is demanding of them, not because they lose a court case, not because they're losing a regulatory action, not because there's a law that's being passed that requires them to do something they disagree with, but because they are worried about other things. And they're just saying, like, we'll settle. And to give up a little is really, in this case to surrender so much of our rights. And it's because these mass companies are just obeying in advance. And that is what we really have to worry about on the micro and the macro level, I think, in terms of free speech.

[Host 1]

Yeah, I think just to piggyback on Chris's mention about TikTok. The people that are being mentioned disowning TikTok, the US version of TikTok, are Larry Ellison, who is a right wing MAGA guy, and Rupert Murdoch, who I don't need to tell you anything about him. And I think there was somebody else in the mix.

[Host 2]

Marc Andreessen.

[Host 1]

Marc Andreessen, another guy who used to be a lefty and has now drank the MAGA Kool Aid, which is obviously a very bad thing, but I'm gonna end on a positive. I'll give you one last question for you, Ian, but I have been very happy to see loud condemnation of this action across the political spectrum. And I think like having folks like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens and Ted Cruz agreeing with us for like the first time on something tells us something. And also the fact that I think we've seen that Disney has lost somewhere between 3.5 billion and 4 billion in market cap because Americans have stood up and they started canceling their Disney pluses and their Hulu and stopped watching ABC News. So obviously we are in a very dangerous time for the First Amendment in this country. Free speech as a whole. What makes you hopeful in this moment that we can defeat this? And what should average everyday people do to make a difference?

[Ian Rosenberg]

Well, I do see some hope here. And it's not just that the First Amendment has traditionally been embraced by both conservative intellectuals, people on the conservative end of the political spectrum, as well as liberals. And that does give me some hope. But in my book Free Speech Handbook, one of the things I talk about is that most of the time our rights were created not necessarily by the President of the United States suing the New York Times like in the Pentagon Papers, but by individuals who take small stands of conscience and had no idea that they would end up defining rights for the whole nation. So we have Mary Beth Tinker, a 14 year old middle school student during the Vietnam War in Iowa who wears a black armband to protest casualties on both sides of the war, both Americans and Vietnamese, which was considered a very radical notion in that time in the war, when the war was still basically popular. And she talks about how she had the small moment of courage and then she gets sent to the principal's office and they told her to take off the armband and she did. But that small moment of courage and the fact that she capitulated under this pressure in that moment didn't take away the fact that we have student speech rights, that students don't give up their right to free speech as they pass through the courthouse gates, as it says in the Tinker decision, because of small acts of conscience by individual. That goes to show how fragile our First Amendment rights are, but also how we really, truly can all make a difference. And in my books I talk about how Supreme Court cases can sort of answer the questions we have about the meaning of America. But like with Kimmel, we have things all the time that are real Supreme Court, real constitutional law issues, First Amendment rights issues that do not ever get to the Supreme Court for lots of reasons, but they are happening every day in our schools and in our houses of worship and at city council meetings and particularly at school board meetings. And that is where individuals can really make a difference in protecting our free speech rights. And I like to say that protecting free speech is a grassroots activity. And now people are more than, than ever needed to be part of the fight. The first step in that, I think, is knowing what your rights are. I hope Free Speech Handbook gives people a guide to understanding how established our First Amendment rights are from the 1920s to the, to the 2000s. Because unless you know what your rights are, you're going to be able to let other people take them away from you. So one, I think to learn about what our rights are, really are. And that's what I try and do in both a non legal and non legalese and hopefully not dry way. I think it's quite entertaining and fascinating. So learn about your rights and then speak up for them. And I think too often people have felt that, well, I'm, you know, I'm, as Nat Hentoff used to say, I'm in favor of free speech for me, but not for thee. We have to. If we are going to protect our rights for liberals or for conservatives or for whomever we want to maybe politically support, we have to be protecting the free speech rights of all Americans. And that might feel like an idealistic thing to say that this is the one area in which we should be nonpartisan, but I do believe it can make a difference. And I do believe that that is, is the glimmer of hope in our very dark free speech world that we're in right now.

[Host 1]

Great. Well, Ian, thank you very much. Everybody. Go pick up the Free Speech Handbook. Obviously, like, you know, we greatly appreciate you using your voice and your expertise to shine a light on these issues and letting people know that there are things that they can do about this. They could purchase your book. Chris has the Anti Fascist Book Club, which they should also check out. And then since everybody else is getting promotion, I'M going to promote our show for a moment. So one of the things, as Chris mentioned, is that we are listener and viewer driven. So if you could become a member on substack for $6 a month helps us keep the lights on. Like we said, we're all going full time. We're going into this. So you can do [e-mail] Also, you'll notice that Chris is wearing a beautiful, beautiful. He's looking pretty good.

[Ian Rosenberg]

Find out.

[Host 1]

And actually, so am I. I have the tree on today. Both these shirt.

[Host 2]

I have to say to our listeners that I am surprised that this shirt isn't more popular. I'm. I'm the guy who's, who's on the other end of Shopify and I'm watching the charts and, and Newton is, is a character that, like, I've always loved. I was a little nerdy kid. I just, I don't understand why more people aren't wearing the shirt. I think it's really, I think it's.

[Host 1]

Really, you know, guys, prove us wrong. Go purchase that shirt. Like I said, that one's in white, mine's in black. There's a whole bunch of options. We're going to put some sweatshirts in there soon. Also, as we always tell you, all of it is union made in America because we live our values here. And then the only final, the final thing I'm going to push is go follow our YouTube because we are a little afraid that our TikTok reach is going to go down. And Luke just sent me a text that said that Oracle, which is Larry Ellison, is going to control the algorithm in the United States, which just came out a few about an hour ago, which is not awesome. But we'll talk more about that later. So go to our YouTube channel and subscribe. So, Ian, thank you very much and as always, everybody else, thank you for listening and we will be back on Thursday. Have a great week, everybody.

[Ian Rosenberg]

Thanks, guys. A pleasure to be on the show.

[Host 1]

Yeah, thank you.