Trump claims he’s a champion of free speech. He’s actually attacking it.

A list of the ways Trump has attacked the First Amendment during his short time in office.

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Even before taking office for his second term, President Trump claimed he was “restoring free speech in America.” In reality, his administration has waged an aggressive campaign against it, systematically attacking the First Amendment and weaponizing the federal government's power to intimidate critics and control public discourse.

Since his 2020 election loss, Trump and his allies have amplified a vast censorship lie falsely alleging that the Biden administration, tech, and academics colluded to censor conservative viewpoints online. Trump allies even brought a Supreme Court case making this allegation, but it got thrown out for lack of standing because, to put it in Amy Coney Barrett’s words: “The plaintiff cannot rest on ‘mere allegations,’ but must instead point to factual evidence.”

The irony of Trump’s continued free speech crusade is that—in his short time in office—he has overseen the biggest assault on the First Amendment in recent memory. Whether through the suppression of scientific research, the erasure of inconvenient historical truths, or the direct targeting of media organizations, the administration’s actions represent a full-scale attack on democratic norms and the foundational principle of free speech in the United States.

Below are some of the most egregious examples of this ongoing assault:

Suppressing Press Freedom

• Banning the Associated Press from the White House: The AP was indefinitely barred from the Oval Office and Air Force One after refusing to comply with Trump's demand to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.” (NBC News, AP News)

• Deciding who is in the White House press pool: The administration now determines which media outlets have access to the president, a role historically managed by the White House Correspondents’ Association. (Politico)

• Calling critical media “corrupt and illegal”: Trump has publicly declared that CNN and MSNBC should be considered "illegal" for their negative coverage of him. (Latin Times)

• FCC investigates media for ICE coverage: On February 5, the FCC launched an investigation into a media outlet for reporting on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). (Cato)

• Trump sues media for unfavorable coverage: The president has sued multiple news outlets, including the Des Moines Register and ABC, for publishing content he disapproved of. (AP News)

• News outlets IP-blocked by federal offices: New rules forbid employees at the Social Security Administration from accessing “general news” websites, including those that have been at the forefront of the reporting on DOGE and Elon Musk. (WIRED).

• FCC investigates 60 Minutes for interviewing Kamala Harris: The FCC has investigated 60 Minutes for “news distortion” after the network interviewed Harris in October, in advance of the 2024 election. (Reuters)

• Shutdown of Voice of America and the US Agency for Global Media: The administration accused VoA and USAGM of being “radical” and “anti-Trump” without evidence, shutting them down and furloughing 1,300 journalists. (BBC)

• Ukrainian VoA Journalist Fired by DOGE: Ukrainian journalist Ostap Yarysh was fired on March 7 following a DOGE ‘inspection’ of VoA, allegedly for having covered the first impeachment of Trump and the 2020 election. (Kyiv Independent)

• US Senator calls for violence against journalists: U.S. Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) romanticized violence against journalists for “fake news” on X. In response to a local Oklahaman news organization reporting on his comments, Sen. Mullin insisted his comments were a joke.

• Pouting about pronouns: The Trump administration is refusing to answer questions from reporters who include gender pronouns in their biographies or email signatures.

• WH censoring press pool: The administration effectively banned the AP by changing press pool rules. Reports claim that the White House is trying to censor the press pool’s reporting on this and other issues.

• Lawsuits and fired journalists: Trump seems to have pressured The Hill into firing one of its journalists in response to a lawsuit of his.

• 60 Minutes producer quits due to lost independence: Long-time 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens quit following CBS’ interference in the program’s content, presumably in response to the Paramount-Skydance merger needing Trump administration approval. Paramount is CBS’ parent company.

• Trump wants to punish pollsters: Trump said in response to negative polling from Fox, ABC, and others that he wants to investigate pollsters for “election fraud.”

• CBS News CEO resigns: Like 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens, Wendy McMahon resigned in response to the network’s moves to settle Trump’s lawsuit for the sake of a merger with Skydance Media.

Retaliation Against Critics

• Banning travelers for private criticism of Trump: A French scientist was denied entry to the U.S. after border agents searched his phone and found text messages critical of the administration. (The Guardian, LeMonde)

• Revoking security clearances for perceived political opponents: The administration stripped clearances from lawyers representing special counsel Jack Smith, as well as former Secretary of State Antony Blinken (Reuters), Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (NBC), and former President Biden (BBC).

• Sen. Lindsey Graham calls for consequences against anti-Trump lawyers: On March 16, Graham openly stated his hope that attorneys representing Trump’s political opponents “pay a price” for their legal work. (CBS News)

• Executive Orders target law firms: Trump signed executive orders targeting law firms Perkins Coie (AP News) and Paul Weiss, for the firms’ previous clients and cases that opposed or investigated Trump. The administration also instructed the Department of Justice to “seek sanctions against attorneys and law firms who engage in frivolous, unreasonable and vexatious litigation against the United States.” (NYT)

• More Big Law firms caving: The White House announced a deal with Skadden Arps, a major law firm that would supply the White House with $100 million in pro bono work in support of the White House’s efforts. The White House is seemingly bullying Skadden Arps because they are involved in litigation against conspiracy theorist Dinesh D’Souza, something Musk publicly took issue with on social media. Those who fight against harmful lies are bad, and therefore must be silenced.

• DOJ Threatens Congressman who criticized Musk: U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Ed Martin, sent a threatening letter to Congressman Robert Garcia (D-CA) after he mocked Elon Musk, calling Musk a “dick,” which is First-Amendment-protected speech. (Yahoo, House.gov)

• Border czar Tom Homan demands DOJ investigate AOC: After Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hosted a “Know Your Rights” webinar for dealing with ICE, Homan claimed he made a referral to DOJ, without citing any violation of the law. (Politico)

• Millbank caves: According to the American Bar Association, Millbank is now the fourth law firm to offer the administration pro bono representation on its agenda. Millbank offered at least $100 million in such services. Millbank’s apparent offense is having a partner who is a known Trump critic.

• Don’t call Trump a dictator: Former Costa Rican President and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Oscar Arias had his U.S. visa revoked after he publicly compared the Trump administration’s actions to that of the Roman empire on social media.

• Deporting U.S. citizens: White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on that the Trump administration is floating the idea of deporting U.S. citizens to El Salvador, despite stated uncertainties about the legality of such a move.

• Four more law firms cave: In a Truth Social post, Trump announced that four more law firms—Kirkland & Ellis, Allen Overy, Simpson Thacher, and Latham & Watkins—agreed to provide a cumulative $500 million in pro bono legal fees to exact Trump’s legal agenda.

• ICE wants to stop illegal “ideas”: In a since deleted tweet, ICE said that its job was to prevent illegal “ideas” from crossing U.S. borders. ICE said it made the tweet in error.

• No crime but thoughtcrimes: In the cases of both Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk, the Trump administration can’t provide evidence that either of these individuals did anything except express pro-Palestine views, which they are conflating with antisemitism. The administration claims that expressing those views interferes with U.S. foreign policy, and the government therefore has the right to detain and deport these individuals.

• Deporting U.S. citizens: Trump told El Salvador President Bukele that he needs to build five more prisons to hold people, including U.S. citizens, deported from the United States. This could mean that Trump will try to deport U.S. citizens who speak out against the government, as they have done with students who criticize the Israeli government.

• Arrest of Mohsen Mahdawi: Columbia undergraduate student and anti-Israeli protestor Mohsen Mahdawi was arrested by immigration officials after appearing for a citizenship appointment.

• USG sells out national security to fight fake censorship: The Trump administration offered no evidence for its claims that r/FIMI was censoring anybody when it shut down the office, leaving the U.S. government without any body to monitor foreign disinformation.

• GOP censors Democratic billboards: Ad companies took down Democratic PAC-funded billboards that called out GOP threats to Medicaid after the NRCC complained about them.

• More punishments for opponents of the Big Lie: Former Trump cybersecurity appointee Chris Krebs’ Global Entry status was revoked, seemingly in response to Krebs’ long-standing insistence that the 2020 elections were secure and fair.

• Copyright Office director fired: Shira Perlmutter, the Register of Copyrights, was fired last week after her office published a report that highlights concerns about AI training and potential copyright infringement—something Elon Musk has direct business interests in.

• Comey targeted for photo of seashells: Former FBI Director James Comey has been targeted by right-wing media and the Trump administration for his post on Instagram of seashells arranged to look like “86 47.”

• Trump obsessed with Beyoncé: Trump falsely accused Kamala Harris of paying Beyoncé $11 million for what he called an “illegal” endorsement during the 2024 elections. He also wants to investigate Harris’ other celebrity endorsements.

Crackdown on Academic Freedom & Research

• CDC forced to withdraw scientific papers: On February 3, all new research papers involving CDC scientists were placed on hold for administrative review to ensure they complied with an executive order recognizing only two sexes. (Reuters)

• US-funded researchers receive survey from the White House: All US-funded researchers—even those overseas—received a survey demanding they declare whether their projects comply with the Administration’s “gender ideology” restrictions, or focus on DEI or climate change. (Nature)

• HHS wasting taxpayer money on ideological purges: On February 21, internal reports revealed that government agencies were devoting resources to identifying and removing content deemed ideologically unacceptable by the administration. (404 Media)

• $575 million in funding revoked from Columbia and Penn: The Administration pulled back hundreds of millions of funding from Columbia and Penn over pro-Palestine protests and trans athletes (WSJ).

• Scientists decry censorship: Nearly 2,000 scientists and engineers associated with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine signed an open letter that described the Trump administration’s cuts in funding for education as censorship.

• Book purges in the military: Book bans and burnings are a telltale sign of authoritarianism, having occurred in the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and now the United States. The US Naval Academy’s library removed nearly 400 works in response to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s order to remove works that “promoted DEI.” Among the titles were books on the Holocaust and the Ku Klux Klan, because apparently our Naval officers learning about genocide and lynching is bad. You can view a complete list of the removed works here.

• SCOTUS upholds education funds freeze: The U.S. Supreme Court upheld for now the Department of Education’s freeze on $65 million in grants to mitigate teacher shortages. Among the recipients were training programs at non-profits and higher education institutions such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities. These grants were flagged as being part of federal DEI efforts.

• Harvard drama continues: The Trump administration claims it sent a list of egregious demands to Harvard in error, and faults the university for assuming the letter—printed and signed on official letterhead—was legitimate. The list of demands was so counter to academic freedom that the university felt compelled to fight back, and is now suing the administration for violating its First Amendment rights.

• Ideological loyalty tests in the NIH: A long-time NIH researcher on ultra-processed foods resigned after the government interfered in his ability to discuss or publicize his research. The researcher worries that this is due to the fact that his recent findings contradict RFK Jr.’s preconceived ideological narratives on ultra-processed foods.

• Trump targets university accreditation and funding: Trump signed a series of executive orders targeting the accreditation and federal funding of universities in relation to diversity initiatives.

• Sloppy cuts to educational grants: 430 National Science Foundation grants have been cut for seemingly superficial reasons, in line with other cuts made across the federal government. It seems that somebody searched for key terms such as “censorship” and axed any programs that had a matching term.

• Harvard scientist charged with smuggling: Kseniia Petrova, a Russian biologist at Harvard Medical School, was detained in February 2025 when she failed to declare frog embryos she had brought with her from a trip to France. The government trying to cancel her visa and deport her, and last week she was charged with smuggling.

• Scientists self-censor… or speak out: A news article by Science, the esteemed academic journal, detailed the lengths some scientists are going to self-censor out of fear that their labs and funding could be targeted. Other scientists argue that the community should speak out against administration’s actions and win over public sentiment.

• Administration halts Harvard’s ability to enroll international students: The president recently attempted to halt the university’s ability to enroll international students, but was quickly blocked by the courts. It would be financially devastating for the university if it could not enroll foreign students.

• State Department doubles down in its battle with Harvard University, ordering “advanced vetting” for anyone traveling there. Rubio also sent a cable ordering consular officers to “conduct a complete screening of the online presence of any nonimmigrant visa applicant seeking to travel to Harvard University for any purpose.” This is direct retribution for Harvard’s lack of capitulation to the Trump Administration’s demands, and its suing to block its unlawful orders targeting the university.

• Education Secretary Linda McMahon says colleges should “align” with the Trump Administration. McMahon made this reply to a question about federal funding of universities, sparking widespread backlash. Academic leaders and organizations like the American Association of University Professors warned that this rogue, authoritarian stance threatens the most basic notions of academic freedom.

• Department of Veterans Affairs requires scientists to get clearance from political appointees for research reports. The agency has mandated that its physicians and scientists obtain approval from political appointees before publishing research or speaking publicly, following a critical article by VA pulmonologists in the New England Journal of Medicine.

• Trump threatens Columbia's accreditation over campus antisemitism allegations. The Department of Education notified Columbia University's accreditor that the school is "in violation of federal anti-discrimination laws and therefore fails to meet the standards for accreditation" over its handling of campus protests following the October 7 attacks in Israel.

State-Sponsored Intimidation, Propaganda, and Unwinding Civil Rights Protections

• Absurd censorship of the word “gay”: Images of the Enola Gay—the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima—were flagged for deletion from Pentagon websites, reportedly because it contained the word “gay.” (AP News)

• PBS shutters its DEI office: Following a Trump executive order, PBS disbanded its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office on February 11. (NPR)

• FEMA workers forced to change language: Disaster relief workers were instructed to use the term "alien" instead of "immigrant" in official communications. (404 Media).

• DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman Eliminated: The offices, which safeguarded employee and civil rights, addressed complaints, and examined violations of detention standards and misconduct, were eliminated via Reduction in Force (Handbasket News).

• Permanent resident Green Card holder detained over political speech: Pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful permanent resident of the U.S., was detained without an arrest warrant by ICE per a direct order from Secretary of State Rubio, who claims Khalil’s speech undermines US foreign policy. (NBC)

• Hunted by ICE: Columbia Student Yunseo Chung was hunted by ICE, who visited several residences and searched her university housing in their so far unsuccessful efforts to detain her. She has lived in the United States since she was seven, and is a permanent resident (aka green card holder). Chung participated in a pro-Palestine protest at Barnard College–Columbia’s sister school–earlier this month. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is equating Chung’s pro-Palestine stance as “pro-Hamas”; this is a false equivalency often used by MAGA land without evidence to justify their oppression of free speech. A U.S. federal judge noted that nothing about Chung’s protesting was a danger to the United States.

• Op-eds get you deported: Tufts University graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk was detained in Somerville, Massachusetts and immediately whisked to Louisiana. Ozturk’s apparent offense was co-authoring an opinion piece that criticized the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza. Like protesting, writing is protected speech–not terrorist activity. According to the AP, this makes at least 9 cases of academics being detained or deported for what appears to be expression of protected speech without evidence to the contrary; the U.S. Department of State says it has cancelled at least 300 student visas in these efforts.

• California students targeted: More than three dozen visas of Stanford and University of California students and alumni have been canceled, per the U.S. Department of State. UC schools affected include UC Berkeley, San Diego, and Davis. Presumably, the students and alumni in question were targeted for expressing pro-Palestine views, though information remains limited on individual cases.

• Trump deletes history: President Trump signed an executive order called “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” that is focused on removing “anti-American ideology” from the Smithsonian museums and calls for the restoration of monuments and other historical objects removed since 2020.

• Intimidating lawyers at the border: Amir Makled, an attorney based in Dearborn, Michigan, was detained at the Detroit Metro Airport returning from the Caribbean. Makled represents at least one client allegedly involved in misconduct at pro-Palestine student protests at the University of Michigan.

• Criminal charges for feds talking to the press: Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer’s staff issued a memo declaring that Labor Department employees who speak to the press could face criminal charges.

• Deporting citizen critics: Axios caused a stir when it published a story claiming that Trump administration officials’ “immigration crackdown could expand to include deporting convicted U.S. citizens and charging anyone — not just immigrants — who criticizes Trump's policies.”

• Literacy is censorship now: Elon Musk seemed to suggest on Twitter that U.S. agencies such as USAID involved in promoting digital literacy were somehow engaged in censorship.

• Wikipedia is ‘propaganda’: The Trump administration is now accusing Wikipedia of harboring foreign disinformation and may challenge the site’s 501(c)3 status as a result.

• Trump punishes tariff truths: In response to reports that Amazon was including tariff-induced surcharges at checkout, both the White House and Trump complained about the issue until Amazon denied the reports.

• Ideological loyalty in the DOJ: Many Justice Department attorneys working on civil rights issues have quit in response to civil rights director Harmeet Dhillon’s focus on deeply ideological “civil rights” issues. These include attacks on transgender athletes, alleged anti-Christian bias, and so-called “woke ideology.”

• Tariffs on foreign-made films: Trump announced a desire to place a 100% tariff—a tax—on movies made outside the United States. This move could also be an effective ban on foreign films in the United States.

• Military book purge expands: Similarly Soviet in nature, the Pentagon has expanded its book purge beyond the Naval Academy to seemingly all areas of the military.

• Other censorship in the military: Philosophy professor Graham Parsons felt compelled to resign from West Point because of censorship. He detailed his resignation from West Point in a New York Times opinion piece titled, “West Point Is Supposed to Educate, Not Indoctrinate.”

• Librarian of Congress targeted and fired: Trump abruptly fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. Days before the dismissal, she had been publicly targeted by a conservative organization with a track record of creating dystopian “watchlists.”

• Intimidation of USAID employees: The vast majority of USAID employees were fired in February, though the actual dismissal of many of these employees has been delayed. The Trump administration is using those delays as justification for launching investigations into several such employees who spoke to the press.

• Progressive Twitch streamer detained at border: Hasan Piker, the country’s largest progressive political streamer on Twitch, was detained by Customs and Border Protection upon his return from a trip to France. Piker stated that he believes these detentions are meant to silence other media figures, activists, and lawyers that have also been detained.

• FTC targets Media Matters: The Federal Trade Commission opened an investigation last week into Media Matters, an advocacy organization that has conducted research into extremism on Elon Musk’s Twitter.

• Disinformation in the courts: U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes stated that the Trump administration might be trying to trick her in a lawsuit over the dismantling of three civil rights offices within the Department of Homeland Security.

• Interviews for foreign students stopped at all US Embassies. According to the New York Times, “The State Department is temporarily halting interviews abroad with foreign citizens applying for student and exchange visas as it expands scrutiny of applicants’ social media posts.”

• State Department restricts visas of “foreign nationals who censor Americans.” Marco Rubio issued a confusing, grammatically questionable cable — accompanying a State Department Substack post — seemingly going after any policymaker, researcher, or member of civil society in Europe who attempts to enforce local European laws regulating the tech and social media industry.

• FTC expands investigation into advertiser boycotts. The Federal Trade Commission has demanded documents from more than a dozen media and advertising groups to determine whether they "illegally colluded to boycott online content alleged to be hateful, false or misleading."

This ongoing assault on the First Amendment raises urgent concerns about the future of free expression in America. As the administration expands its influence, journalists, historians, scientists, and everyday citizens must remain vigilant and resist these authoritarian tactics.

We will update this list as the Trump administration takes further actions to curtail Americans’ free speech and First Amendment rights. This post last updated May 27, 2025, 2:42 pm.