Politicians Demand Still-More Israel Censorship, w/ Brad Polumbo. PLUS, Lee Fang: Is Biblical Prophecy a Key Reason for GOP Israel Support? Have Conservatives Abandoned Free Speech? | SYSTEM UPDATE #171
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Welcome to a new episode of System Update, our live nightly show that airs every Monday through Friday at 7 p.m.
Eastern, exclusively here on Rumble, the free speech alternative to YouTube.
Every day that we get further away from the October 7th attack on Israel by Hamas, we have more and more American politicians demanding new and formal censorship programs against critics of Israel.
One of the most destructive mistakes we made after 9-11 is that we allowed political leaders to convince us that we had to relinquish long-standing political rights in order to be safe.
It was that trade-off which led to authoritarian infringements like the Patriot Act and mass warrantless NSA domestic spying.
As we have seen over and over throughout history, once you put a population into sufficient levels of fear, whether of a domestic enemy or a foreign threat, then they will not only be willing but eager to give up core liberties in exchange for promises to be kept safe from that threat.
This is exactly what numerous American politicians are doing now, led by Republican presidential candidates who are desperate to find a way to save their flailing campaigns.
People like Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, and Tim Scott.
Calls for more censorship and greater restrictions of free speech are coming on a virtually daily basis now.
Yesterday, the nation's most steadfast, principled, and nonpartisan free speech group, The thing that the ACLU used to be, but is now the Foundation for Individual Rights and Freedom, known as FIRE, issued a scathing criticism of Governor DeSantis after he ordered the University of South Florida to immediately ban a pro-Palestinian student group by claiming that they are providing material support to Hamas.
Fire, which has gained significant support over the years from the American Right due to repeatedly defending the speech right of conservatives on college campuses, lambasted DeSantis' order as blatantly unconstitutional in violation of the First Amendment, which it is.
And urge the university president not to comply.
Meanwhile, Nikki Haley today, last seen threatening Iran with a U.S.
attack and pronouncing that this is not only Israel's war but somehow our war, vowed that as her first doctor president, she would impose new censorship powers against what she called anti-Semitism on campus, meaning any questioning of Israeli orthodoxies involving Zionism that will no longer be allowed in the United States.
Meanwhile, Tim Scott today vowed to immediately deport anyone in the U.S.
on a visa whose pro-Palestinians, in his view, go too far.
We'll speak with the conservative journalist and commentator Brad Palumbo about the censorship calls from Republican candidates and what it says about the state of free speech in the U.S.
and on parts of the American right.
Then, after the killing of George Floyd and the spate of character attacks and firings it quickly fostered in 2020, the investigative journalist Lee Fong was one of the first targets of such smears, as he was widely vilified in the media as a racist.
Lee's crime?
He posted an interview with a black American, in which that interview expressed criticisms of the BLM movement for caring only when black people are murdered by white cops, but not when they're murdered by other black people.
That was it.
That's what Lee did and his career was almost destroyed because of it.
We'll talk to Lee tonight about how the current movement environment in which numerous people have not only been vilified for their pro-Palestinian views but also got put on blacklist and gotten fired, how now compares to that moment.
We'll also talk to Lee about an extraordinary series of interviews he conducted on Capitol Hill with passionately pro-Israel members of Congress, in which they described how their religious views, particularly their dogmatic belief that Israel must be strong in order to foster the return of Jesus and a rapture-like event, is a key reason for their legislative support in the United States Congress for Israel.
We'll examine how significant such religious views are in the strong bipartisan support for Israel and what other factors and motivations are at play.
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For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update, starting right now.
For years in the United States, For years in the United States, one of the primary and most vocal causes of the American right, of American conservatism, has been a defense of free speech and a denunciation of the various forms of censorship proliferating in the United States.
Both the soft form of censorship that takes root and takes fine expression in things like cancel culture, where people are fired or vilified or denied access to places because the political views they express are deemed warranting punishment.
Or the more formal kind such as when the United States government pressures Big Tech or even requires Big Tech and forces Big Tech to ban certain political opinions from being heard online.
And yet ever since October 7th, It is largely the Republican Party and the American right that has decided that one of the ways for politicians to get more popular, to get more attention for themselves, to become more powerful, is to exploit the anger over the Hamas attack.
As well as the anger toward various individuals and groups in the United States exercising their First Amendment right to defend the Palestinians, to criticize Israel, even on some occasion, although this is a minority of people doing it, a small minority defending Hamas, but they have the right to express those views, have decided that one of the ways that they need to show people that they mean business is to advocate for all new forms of censorship.
Attacks on free speech, limiting the way, the range of views that Americans are permitted to be heard and to express themselves on a crucial political issue, which is the question of Israel and Palestine, which is now a crucial issue precisely because the Biden administration, with bipartisan support, second straight war where the Biden administration got involved and has bipartisan support, the first of course being the war in Ukraine.
Has decided that it is going to feed and fund and arm the Israelis in this war the way it was doing for Ukraine in its war and that not only will do that but it also is deploying aircraft carriers and other military hardware to the region and threatening to get involved if either Hezbollah or Iran or other regional actors starts to attack Israel as well.
So if you're an American citizen You're not only right, but the duty to regard this as a crucial debate and to express your views on that debate.
And the First Amendment is there to safeguard your right to do that, to express the views even that the majority of people in this society might consider repellent.
That's the whole point of the free speech guarantee in the First Amendment.
And yet, every single day it seems like prominent politicians or prominent pundits insist that free speech has gone too far, we need to rein it in, and they're using exactly the same arguments That the left liberal advocates of censorship have spent years invoking in defense of their censorship campaigns.
And I know that because I've spent the last years fighting with them and arguing with them.
And now when I fight and argue with conservative censorship advocates, I feel like I'm arguing with the mirror image of that other group.
They're offering exactly the same theories.
Oh, these views aren't really free speech.
They're over the line.
These opinions are too hateful to permit.
They're too dangerous.
They're too likely to incite violence against marginalized minorities.
They're making members of marginalized groups so uncomfortable and feeling unsafe, so we have to protect those people, especially on campuses, from hearing those views.
It's all the same thing.
Yesterday, Governor Ron DeSantis, who is governing Florida but also waging a Very, at least so far, unsuccessful presidential campaign to become the Republican presidential nominee announced as Reuters here reported in the headline, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis bans a pro-Palestinian group from state campuses.
Quote, Florida's university system, working with Governor Ron DeSantis, ordered colleges on Tuesday to shut down a pro-Palestinian student organization, marking the first U.S.
state to outlaw the group whose national leadership backed Hamas's attack on Israel.
Now note, this group didn't, but their national chapter said, we think Hamas's attack on Israel was justifiable.
Now you obviously may find that repellent.
I do.
But there's no question, you have the right to say, I think Israel is entitled to kill every last Gazan.
As some people are saying, I think Israel is not only entitled, but should destroy all of Gaza and turn it into a parking lot and kill them all.
We've shown you protesters saying that.
That too is repellent, but that too is free speech.
And so is saying, I think Hamas was sufficiently justified because of the repression that the Israelis have imposed on the Palestinians.
Again, repellent though it might be, That's the liberal argument, is once a view is so repellent, it needs to be banned as hate speech.
Quote, the State University System of Florida said chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine had to be dismantled as part of a, quote, crackdown in the Republican-led state on campus demonstrations that provide, quote, harmful support for terrorist groups.
Quote, based on the National SJP's support of terrorism, in consultation with Governor DeSantis, the student chapters must be deactivated, the system's Chancellor Ray Rodriguez wrote in a memo to university leaders.
DeSantis, a candidate for the Republican Party's presidential nomination, has taken a hard line against Palestinians, suggesting Gazan civilians be denied water and utilities until Hamas releases hostages it took during its attack.
Now, a lot of people find that repellent.
Advocating that children, which remember is the majority of the people of Gaza, people under 18, be denied access to food, clean drinking water, and medications and fuel so that families are alive under rubble but can't be rescued because there's no fuel to remove the rubble.
Doctors in Gazan hospitals are operating on people, including children, With no anesthesia because medication can't enter Gaza.
There are children who are having limbs amputated because of infections they got from drinking dirty drinking water, which is the only water available.
And their limbs are being amputated to prevent the spread of that infection to the rest of the body because there's no antibiotics to treat it.
And when they amputate, they have to do so without even basic painkillers.
So if that's something you advocate as collective punishment on the Palestinians for Hamas's actions, which is supposed to be a war crime under the Geneva Conventions and the post-World War II order, that to me is pretty repellent, but I think Ron DeSantis has the First Amendment right to express it.
And yes, I think those are comparable.
Quote, Florida's university system said it based its SJP ban on a quote, toolkit issued by the national organization to chapters that referred to Hamas's attack as quote, the resistance and stated Palestinian students in exile are part of this movement.
Here's the letter itself written to the state university system of Florida.
It was a letter on October 24th from Roy Rodriguez that began with during a Jewish holiday, Hamas launched this attack and Governor Santis has condemned the attack.
Hamas is responsible.
And then it says, in response and leading up to a day of resistance, the National Students for Justice of Palestine released a toolkit which refers to that attack as the resistance unequivocally states Palestinian students in exile are part of the movement, not in solidarity with the movement.
And then They actually accused these students of committing a felony.
They're not charged with any crimes, but they're still accused of committing a felony of knowingly providing material support to a designated terrorist organization.
Material support is supposed to be when you give money to a terrorist organization or arms to a terrorist organization.
Not when your views end up somehow defending what they've done.
Your views are sacrosanct in the United States.
That's free speech.
It then concludes that based on the National SJP Support of Terrorism in consultation with Governor Stantis, the student chapters must be deactivated.
Now, when you get to a point when elected officials are banning student groups Because the views that they express, the political opinions about a war that the United States is now involved in, are criminal.
You've entered a very dangerous territory.
Thankfully, we have a civil liberties group that can be trusted.
It's not the ACLU.
We know the ACLU, with some rare exceptions, only invokes civil liberties and free speech causes when doing so advances the Democratic Party and the liberal cause.
And one of the ways to avoid copying the failure, the moral failure, and the fraudulent behavior of the ACLU is not to be like them.
It's not to weaponize free speech advocacy as a means of defending and advancing your political agenda so that you're only defending free speech when it comes time to views that you support and like, but you're also actually defending free speech when it comes to the views that you hate.
That's what it's hardest to do.
Everybody will defend free speech when it comes to the views that they like.
That's easy to do and meaningless.
Thankfully we have FIRE, and as I said, they built up a lot of credibility with conservatives because they spent years on campuses defending the rights of conservative voices.
They've also defended before the rights of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian voices on campus that have been long the target of censorship attacks as well, because that's what it means to be a consistent free speech group.
Here is a tweet from Alex Mori.
She is the director of the Campus Freach Project of FIRE.
And here's what she said about Governor DeSantis' actions.
Quote, FIRE urges Florida public universities not to comply with any state order to de-recognize campus chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine due to the group's views or ties to the national organization.
Silencing students' protected speech violates the First Amendment and is unlawful.
FIRE sent versions of this letter to the University of Florida President Ben Sasse and to presidents of other Florida systems including Florida State, FIU, FAU, and USF.
Florida Law, U.S.
Congress, and the Supreme Court's C. Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project all define provisions of material support to terrorism as conduct beyond pure speech.
DeSantis provides zero evidence the students targeted here engage in anything other than pure speech.
Here's a letter, and by the way, FIRE has a lot of conservative donors, and they're not captive to them.
They will denounce attacks on the First Amendment wherever it comes from, and that's why I have so much respect for them.
That's the only way to be a First Amendment defender, a genuine free speech believer, a genuine opponent of censorship.
is when you invoke it in all cases regardless of the views being proposed to be silenced.
Here's the letter that Fire wrote to Ben Sasse.
You may remember him.
He used to be the Trump-criticizing senator from Nebraska in the Republican Party.
He left to become president in the Florida State University system.
And there you see some of the text.
FIRE is deeply concerned by reports that Florida's public universities, including the University of Florida, have been ordered by State University System Chair Roy Rodriguez at the behest of Ron DeSantis to de-recognize campus chapters for Students for Justice in Palestine due to their affiliation with National Students for Justice in Palestine, which distributed a guide to protest to its student chapters.
By unsupportably alleging that communications about campus protests from the National Organization to its campus chapters constitutes material support for Hamas's terrorist activities overseas, the order unlawfully threatens students' clear, expressive, and associational rights under the First Amendment.
To avoid violating clearly established law, University of Florida must not comply with the order.
Denial of group recognition based on viewpoint, speech, or fear of disruption violates the First Amendment, particularly with regard to a campus, chapter, or group's ties to a national organization.
So the letter is incredibly steadfast and vocal.
And it even says, it's not only that you're trying to ban them, but accusing them of criminal liability when all you can prove is that they express views that you don't dislike.
That is what the First Amendment is there for.
Now, I know, as we've been saying, that a lot of you feel strongly about the war in Israel, and about Israel itself.
Don't let that emotion be exploited by politicians to convince you that the Constitution needs to be suspended.
It's bad enough when that happens because of wars the United States is involved in.
This is not a war the United States is involved in.
This is not our war.
This is Israel's war.
And it's far worse to exploit a foreign war to try and limit and abridge the free speech rights or other constitutional rights of American citizens.
And yet that's exactly what Ron DeSantis is doing.
He's not the only one.
Here is the South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who left the Trump administration, where she served as a diplomat, as ambassador to the UN.
And when she did, she got extremely wealthy by doing things like serving on the board of Boeing, as well as speaking and consulting with neocon groups in Washington, pro-Israel groups in Washington, pro-war groups in Washington.
And here's what she says will be one of the very first things she will do here in her tweet.
Nikki Haley, you can't fight anti-Semitism if you can't define it.
Joe Biden in the left refused to call anti-Zionism anti-Semitism.
As president, I will change the official federal definition of anti-Semitism to including denying Israel's right to exist.
And I will pull schools tax exemption status if they do not combat anti-Semitism in all of its forms.
In accordance with federal law, college campuses are allowed to have free speech, but, I've told you before, the hallmark of a tyrant and censor is when they say, I believe in free speech, but, because what follows the but is always an attack on free speech.
She said colleges are allowed to have free speech, but they are not free to spread hate that supports terrorism.
All she's saying there is that hate speech is not free speech.
Hate speech is not covered by the First Amendment.
Hate speech is absolutely covered by the First Amendment.
Hate speech is free speech.
And one of the reasons why it's so crucial that we preserve that is ultimately who decides what is hate speech?
Why should it be in the United States that under the law you are allowed to argue that the Palestinians do not deserve a state of their own?
That is a commonly held view.
In Israel and in the Israeli government, in the United States, the official position of the Israeli government, at least some of the parties in the government, is that they want to annex the West Bank and Gaza.
In fact, when Ron DeSantis now refers to the West Bank and Gaza, he won't call it that.
He uses the Israeli term for it, or at least the term that Israelis use who don't believe that the West Bank and Gaza are Palestinian territory, but believe it should be part of greater Israel.
So DeSantis is arguing that Palestinians have no state, they have no right to have a state.
Nikki Haley is saying you're allowed to have that view.
But in Nikki Haley's America, what you won't have the right to do is argue that Israel was an illegitimate creation, that once there are a majority of Palestinians from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, that Israel should no longer be a Jewish state, but should be a Palestinian state.
Again, you may find these views repellent, but there's a lot of people in the world having that exact debate as we speak.
All debates of political views are permitted under the First Amendment.
But here she is promising that as president, she will ban that view.
She will make it illegal on college campuses.
Quote, we will give this law teeth and we will enforce it.
Now, Her argument, which is that it's not free speech because it's anti-Semitism, do you recognize this as being exactly what the liberal left argues when they want to ban speech they hate?
Oh no, that's not speech, that's racism.
That's not free speech, that's transphobia.
That's not free speech, that's misogyny.
That's not free speech, that's xenophobia.
This is exactly the same thing.
Anti-Semitism is the American right's racism, transphobia, misogyny, the accusations they put on the foreheads of the people they want to smear and to justify why there should be no free speech.
She concludes there is no difference between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.
That is repulsive.
There are many, many Jews who are not Zionists.
And there are many Zionists who are not Jews.
To try and equate that and to say the only way you can be free of anti-Semitism is if you support Zionism, which is a brand new philosophy that was created in the early 20th century and that was for a long time extremely controversial.
That is exactly the kind of censorship and tyranny that the right claims forever to be opposed to.
of banning ideas because they're supposedly bigoted or a politician thinks they're bigoted.
Here is Governor DeSantis and we're going to get to Lee in a second.
I believe he's on the line.
Can someone confirm that for me so that we can get to Lee right after this?
Is that accurate?
Okay, here is Governor DeSantis as if shutting down a pro-Palestinian student group wasn't enough.
He's really gone all in on censorship over this war as a way to try and rejuvenate his failing campaign.
Here is what he said in a tweet.
He announced this, quote, Florida has placed Morganstar Sustain Analytics, that's a company, on our list of scrutinized companies that boycott Israel for penalizing companies that support Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria.
Companies that discriminate against Israel will be held accountable.
Now as I said, Judea and Samaria are the terms that are used for the West Bank and Gaza by the most radical Israelis who Make no bones about the fact that they intend to annex the West Bank and Gaza, who in many ways are bombing Gaza because they intend to drive the Gazans out of Gaza so that they can annex it, so that that can become part of greater Israel.
That's what Ron DeSantis is endorsing with this Judean Samaria.
So while Nikki Haley is saying it should be illegal to deny Israel's right to exist, Ron DeSantis is saying Gaza and West Bank have no right to exist.
They should be part of Israel.
And he's also saying that if you are a supporter of Israel, you get put on a list and you will be held accountable.
Now this is part of a series of a law that numerous states enacted, mostly red states, but not only.
Andrew Cuomo also enacted it by executive order.
And what this law says, just listen to this, it says that we are the state and we are going to hire people as contractors.
We're going to hire people to work with our students in the school district or on translations or to provide electrical services or engineering services to our schools.
All kinds of things the state hires people for.
And what these laws say is that in order to get hired as a contractor, you have to sign a pledge, a vow, that you do not support a boycott of Israel.
And if the state catches you boycotting Israel, or refusing to sign a pledge that you won't, it will put you on these lists that Ron DeSantis just touted, and refuse to hire you as a consultant.
You're free to boycott every other country on the planet.
You can boycott Peru, Brazil, South Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Germany, Greece, have at it.
Boycott any country on the planet, just not Israel.
In fact, you're allowed to boycott other American states.
Andrew Cuomo adopted an executive order saying that if, and as he put it in a tweet and at WashingtonPost.bed, if you boycott Israel, we boycott you.
And yet that same Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, also ordered the state to boycott Indiana and North Carolina.
He prohibited state employees from traveling to those two states except in emergency cases In order to protest their trans bathroom bill, Indiana and North Carolina both enacted bills prohibiting people from using the bathroom except the one that corresponds to their assigned sex at birth.
And to protest those laws, Andrew Cuomo boycotted North Carolina and Indiana and then turned around and said, the one thing you can't do, he said, you can boycott other states, you can harm the businesses of American citizens, what you can't do is boycott Israel.
And 24 states, largely red states, enacted similar bills.
And I wrote about a case, we can put this on the screen, when I was at the Intercept in 2019.
There was a American citizen who's Muslim, and she believes in a boycott of Israel to end the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.
She and her family believe in a boycott of Israel, they don't buy Israeli goods.
Particularly goods from the West Bank.
And she won't travel to Israel.
She supports the boycott of Israel as a political view.
She's an American citizen.
And I just want to say about a boycott of Israel, too, what's so interesting is right now we're hearing that Palestinians are violent and savage.
That they did this horrible terrorist attack on October 7th because they only know how to kill Jews.
Prior to this, the Palestinians adopted a non-violent means of protest.
They modeled their activism on what the South African, what black people in South Africa did to end apartheid, which is they urged the world to boycott South Africa, and the world did boycott South Africa, and that's part of what led to the fall of the apartheid government in South Africa in the 1980s.
And the way the West responded To this call for boycotting Israel is by formally pronouncing it to be anti-semitic.
And then making it illegal to advocate it in Western Europe on the grounds that anti-semitism is illegal, and since the boycott of Israel is anti-semitic, you can't advocate the boycott of Israel.
And in the United States, college campuses prohibited student groups from advocating a boycott of Israel by also calling it anti-semitic.
So the Palestinians tried nonviolent protest, and the West made it illegal, including here by refusing to Hire anyone who boycotts Israel.
Now, the person that we profiled, that I profiled, was a woman who had worked as a speech pathologist for elementary school students in the Austin, Texas school district.
And she worked there for 12 years.
She's a specialist in children with speech deficiencies, especially students who speak Arabic and the language of other Muslim countries.
And she got sterling performance reviews.
All her colleagues loved her.
And then suddenly Texas said, in order to get your contract renewed for the next year, you have to sign this pledge vowing that you don't support the boycott of Israel.
But she does support the boycott of Israel.
So she couldn't sign it.
And so they fired her.
They refused to renew her contract solely because of her political views.
And she sued.
As did other people in other states who were victimized by these laws, and every court to look at this said it's unconstitutional to refuse to hire people because of their political views, including a boycott of Israel.
Here is the article I wrote about that lawsuit after I profiled her.
In case brought by school speech pathologists, Texas federal court becomes the third to strike down pro-Israeli oath is unconstitutional.
And there you see the sub-headline.
Outlawing activism against Israel is one of the greatest threats to free speech in the West, but that censorship campaign is losing in U.S.
courts.
So this is the law that Ron DeSantis is touting.
Another blatantly unconstitutional law.
We're going to continue this segment.
I want to show you some other very disturbing proposals for censorship in the name of prohibiting people from criticizing Israel or defending Palestinians by attacking our First Amendment and the name of this foreign war.
But for the moment, we're going to bring on Our good friend, a friend of the show, the very intrepid independent journalist, Lee Fong, who went to Capitol Hill to interview members of Congress about why they support Israel and came up with some very surprising findings.
He was also, as I mentioned at the top of the show, one of the very first people whose character they tried to destroy in the wake of the George Floyd killing.
And so he's here as well to talk about what that experience is like and how it compares to the current moment, Lee.
Good evening.
Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us tonight.
We're happy to have you.
Hey, thanks for having me, Glenn.
Sure, so the first thing I want to ask you about in this video, you went with a video camera to Capitol Hill, and you found a bunch of members of Congress who are vehement supporters of Israel, and you asked them what their reason is for being so supportive of Israel, and many cited their religious dogma, specifically their belief that Israel has to be strong in order for Jesus to return as the reason.
I want to show the audience this video in a second and ask you about it, but before I do, what was the kind of Intention or the motive that you had to go to Capitol Hill and ask these questions?
Well, this particular clip is from last year.
I've interviewed a number of lawmakers as part of a film, Prayer for Armageddon.
It's a Norwegian documentary that looks at the influence of Christian Zionists in U.S.
Israel policy, looks at kind of the history there, at the kind of outsized influence of some of these evangelical voters and politicians in shaping the conflict.
But I just got back from another DC trip where I filmed and interviewed even more lawmakers and heard similar responses.
You know, there are probably about 40 or 50 Christian and Zionist, explicitly, Christian Zionist lawmakers in Congress.
These are people that are generally Republicans, that are in the House majority right now, that are shaping The decisions around what the US does in terms of this current conflict and the issue.
There's many issues here, but the primary issue is that rather than seeking the US interest or the human rights interest, or even the Israeli interest.
Many of these lawmakers say explicitly that they support Israel with weapons and money.
They want Jewish control of Jerusalem as part of an end times prophecy for the second coming of Christ.
They see a prophetic...
War of Armageddon between Israel and its enemies as a necessary moment for bringing about, you know, an end time scenario where there's a rapture event, where believers are raptured to heaven, where non-believers are slayed or converted.
You know, it's an apocalyptic event, but many of them take these prophecies in the Bible very literally.
Yeah, there's such an irony to it because for a long time these rapture theories were considered to be anti-semitic because when Jesus returns, what he does is he takes all the Jews and either gives them a last chance to accept him as Lord and Savior, which of course Jews under their religious beliefs don't, or he sends them all to hell.
In fact, I think a lot of these theories say, no, the Jews are going to hell.
And yet, the Israelis don't care because they don't believe in that.
And so they're more than happy to accept this theory as a way to ensure support for Israel and Washington.
And we interviewed, a couple of months ago, John Mearsheimer.
And then we interviewed, two weeks ago, Stephen Walt, the two co-authors of the book, The Israel Lobby, which talks about why US support for Israel has been such a successful bipartisan
Consensus, and they point out obviously there are American Jews who have affinity for Israel, and then there are people who just are national security hawks and warmongers who see Israel as an important partner, but there's a huge number of American evangelicals in the United States and in Congress who just support Israel for purely religious reasons, purely because of religious dogma involving the rapture.
So let's show this video that you posted and tell us which members of Congress you spoke to.
I talked to, in this clip, Pete Sessions of Texas, former NRCC chair.
Tim Burchett, he's a kind of populist Republican lawmaker from Tennessee.
And Lauren Boebert from Colorado.
Hey, let's listen to what they have to say about why they support Israel.
We're talking to members of Congress about Israel and the U.S.' 's relationship.
The U.S.
has an intrinsic interest in making sure that Israel not only receives our best prayers and offers of success, but our armaments, our money, and our ability to make sure that in a very dangerous reason, this democracy survives.
There are some biblical prophecies that say that control of Jerusalem by the Jews is important for the second coming of Christ.
This entire matter is based upon faith of our maker, of our creator, but it's also faith of a chosen people.
Can you ask why the Democrats are using our law enforcement officers?
There have been two nations created to glorify God.
Israel and the United States of America.
I will bless both.
I will honor both.
Would you like to see the Capitol place on there?
There's a new government in Israel.
Can you talk a little bit about the importance of the U.S. relationship with Israel?
There have been two nations created to glorify God: Israel and the United States of America.
I will bless both.
I will honor both.
I will do all I can to stand and defend them.
Thank you, Congresswoman.
Take care.
Thank you.
Gary, do you have a quick second?
Sure, man.
Do you think there's a role of religious extremism here in the U.S.
funding and shaping the conflict?
I mean, there are a lot of folks who are part of the evangelical movement that support Israel.
And we don't really kind of see that same kind of constituent group pushing the other way.
Yeah, I wouldn't label the Baptist or the evangelical community as extreme because I feel like they're following the scripture and what the scripture says about Israel.
Bless Israel will be blessed.
I mean, they take it literal, and I'm one of those people.
You know, there's some Christian Zionists that do believe in some of these biblical prophecies, and they're very controversial, even within the Christian Zionist evangelical community.
Yeah, and believing in Armageddon, that there will be a final battle, Around Jerusalem and that after that battle, you know, there's a judgment day Jews will be killed or converted Jesus will come back.
There's gonna be a rapture event What do you think about those kind of prophecies?
I believe Jesus will come back and I'm and I'm gonna be on his side So we've had interactions before with Congressman Burchett.
I find him very smart.
I find him very clever.
And all three of them, to their credit, were very honest and candid about the role that their religious beliefs are playing and why they support Israel.
What's wrong with that?
Look, I appreciate his candor too, but the issue here is that we need lawmakers who look at this from an American perspective, from a perspective of keeping peace and keeping America out of a gigantic escalation that brings us into war with Iran or Iraq or Lebanon.
There's talk on Capitol Hill now That we need war authorization to allow the U.S.
to launch a preemptive strike on the proxy militias allied and funded by Iran.
Those are Shia militias in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, on Hamas, and potentially even the Houthis in Yemen.
For some of these Christian Zionists, in their worldview, in this final war for Armageddon, In the Book of Revelations, they talk about this final battle with Og and Magog, these evil empires.
Some of these televangelists and Christian Zionist leaders say that the equivalent of these evil empires are Iran.
They say that to fulfill this prophecy, the U.S.
needs to be on Israel's side to strike at Iran.
So rather than look at what is the U.S.
or Israeli or Palestinian interest, what's the interest of the region, There are a large number of lawmakers who are looking at this through a lens of how do we bring about a biblical prophecy to bring back the second coming of Christ.
And by the way, Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Israelis have long exploited this.
In fact, Prime Minister Netanyahu announcing the ground invasion as imminent.
said, quote, we shall realize the prophecy of Isaiah, which is one of those messianic Old Testament prophecies that these preachers cite as seeing Israel and the strong Israel as a precursor to the Armageddon and to the rapture.
So they're purposely kind of feeding this because, as I said, even though it's sort of an anti-Semitic theory, it's a time when all Jews get vanquished to hell finally.
Since they don't believe in it, they're happy to humor it in this very jaded way because they know it results in support for Israel.
Well, can I just add one quick thing to that?
I'm going to publish a story on my sub stack, leafhung.com, tonight, that looks at this, and there are a number of Israeli ambassadors, it's not just Netanyahu, they're all kind of making this Very loud dog whistle to the American evangelical community.
The Israeli ambassadors to the UN also cited Isaiah and appeared at Christians United for Israel last Sunday, talking about the need for American evangelicals to stand with us on the front lines of this war, and in doing so not fighting Hamas.
Literally, but to lobby their lawmakers to support more military aid to Israel in this moment.
You know, this is a relationship that has been nurtured for 40 years.
You know, going back to Menachem Begin, who went out and flew Jerry Falwell to Israel back in the late 70s.
This is a very tight relationship.
Netanyahu works very closely with some of the most extreme right Christian Zionists in this country.
Yeah, and a lot of attention gets paid to the support for Israel in the U.S.
as a result of American Jewish affinity for Israel.
This is obviously a major reason as well why so many politicians To vote.
Incredible amounts of energy to pledging full scale support for Israel.
Nikki Haley said today, our position is when the Israelis ask her something, no matter what it is, you give it to them.
No questions asked.
And it's like, can't imagine why a politician would say something like that.
That's insane about a foreign country.
But the reason is because she needs these voters who feel very strongly.
I personally get a little nervous when we talk about a nuclear power.
And a war involving people who are very religiously convicted on both sides, and where rapture and Armageddon scenarios are a major part of at least some of the people's support for escalating this war.
All right, let me just switch gears a little bit and ask you about the current moment that we're in.
For a long time since it began, three weeks ago, I've been comparing it to 9/11, urging that the lessons of 9/11 be learned, that we don't want to acquiesce to fear mongering and give up rights in exchange for promises of safety, and that just because something is said to be necessary for combating terrorism doesn't mean it has that effect. and that just because something is said to be necessary It can also have the opposite effect.
Those are all the lessons we learned from 9/11.
I think, though, there are comparisons as well to what happened after the killing of George Floyd, where lots of people were vilified, put on blacklists, lost their jobs.
There was kind of this, like, intense idea that, no, this is a transform of the moment, it changes everything.
You were one of the people who was originally targeted for posting an interview with a black supporter of Black Lives Matter who criticized the movement for not caring enough when black people get killed by other black people, only when they get killed by white cops and there can be political exploitation to be had.
What do you think is the similarity between the aftermath of George Floyd when so little dissent was permitted, where anyone off-key was destroyed, where a lot of campus activism was built around the idea that we can't allow people to speak anymore in a racist way and what's happening now both on college campuses and our discourse generally?
I think the comparisons are stunning.
You know, obviously there are significant differences, but you look at the wake of 9-11 and then in the wake of George Floyd, a lot of the moral arguments, the rhetoric, are very similar.
That because of these traumatic events of the killing of Floyd, these traumatic videos of police killings of African-American men, Uh, that African Americans everywhere are at siege or being sieged that because of our history in the United States of slavery and the end of reconstruction, Jim Crow and various other forms of discrimination.
This shows that the problem never went away and that any critics.
of the activists or the groups leading the protests and riots in 2020 was akin to racism that was dangerous, that threatened people's lives, that needed to be shut down, people needed to be fired, people needed to be deplatformed and marginalized if they're voicing Uh, you know, critiques or, you know, concerns around collateral damage.
You know, before I was semi-canceled around, you know, just posting that interview of a young black man who wanted his voice heard.
You know, I also received a lot of criticism for talking about the The effects of these riots that I went to report in Oakland Chinatown and in San Francisco where immigrant stores that had nothing to do with police brutality were ransacked.
I mean people's livelihoods were destroyed and I just I didn't understand the connection to police brutality or to George Floyd.
There was a lot of collateral damage and the similarities here in that You know, this is a truly traumatic event, but people are using the Hamas attack on October 7th to connect to a long history, a very real history of anti-Semitism, of pogroms and the Inquisition and the Holocaust, and to say that, you know, any criticism of Israel or the war going on now is anti-Semitism, that critics need to be silenced, they need to be marginalized, any discussion of collateral damage
of civilians being killed in Gaza is harmful to Israel.
I mean, you're seeing people who just simply post solidarity for Palestine getting fired from their jobs, or people like, you know, there's Thomas Fazzi from UnHerd.
He posted a very nuanced, very fact-driven discussion around peace issues with Israel-Palestine.
His whole thread was basically deleted or de-platformed from Twitter.
I mean, it's almost a mirror image of the kind of de-platforming that we saw back in 2020.
And people are, you know, genuinely concerned that you're genuinely fearful.
I don't deny that.
for people experiencing trauma in 2020 or in 2023 with this attack.
It's just how these concerns around the trauma are being weaponized and politicized to silence dissent and to drive home an agenda.
Let me just ask you one last question and before I let you go about exactly that point.
One of the things we've seen when it comes to debates about college campuses is that there has been this kind of left liberal idea that people at college campuses are really like kids, they're They're more like children than adults.
And as a result, even though they're over 18 and of legal age and considered adults and they can vote, they can get drafted, they can go to the military, but somehow they're still kids.
And as a result, When there are particularly bigoted views or extreme views that can make them very uncomfortable or unsafe, they need to be protected from exposure to those views because they can be traumatized by them or made frightened by them through censorship.
We need to keep views off campus that can make them, I mean, there's probably nothing that provokes more mockery and derision from the American right than this idea that, oh, poor little snowflake college students need to be protected from hearing racist views or transphobic views because they're too fragile to hear it.
And yet here Lee was a protester, a woman at the University of Washington.
She's an undergraduate.
She's an adult.
She's a Jewish student.
And there was a peaceful pro-Palestinian protest going on and she was in front of it weeping and begging a school administrator at the University of Washington to immediately ban it because of how scared she feels from being around it.
Let's just take a little bit of a look at what she said.
All right.
So please end it.
They want us to end.
Now you see the protests.
There's no violence going on.
They're waving Palestinian flags.
There's this kind of tendency now to immediately insist that anyone who's pro-Palestinian or a critic of Israel is pro-Hamas, even though a lot of people there were just simply protesting the use of excessive force by Israel.
Maybe there were some pro-Hamas people there, maybe not.
That is perfectly legitimate free speech.
And yet, this woman got treated like a martyr and like a hero and somebody who deserved to be Honored and people are angry that this protest was permitted and you see these calls to ban pro-Palestinian protests from college campuses.
Ron DeSantis wants to ban pro-Palestinian groups and he says are providing material support for Hamas.
What does it say about the nature of the free speech Crusading that the American right has done the kind of free speech warrior posture they've adopted when they just turn around the minute there's a view that they really hate that they want banned and that they feel sympathy and support for this girl whereas if she were trans or black or an immigrant doing exactly the same thing she would be relentlessly derided and vilified
Well, I'm not surprised that there are many fair weather supporters of free speech.
We saw this with so many on the left who preached free speech and privacy rights during the Bush years and the early Obama years, only to flip on that once their cultural views became hegemonic in this country.
For many on the conservative side of things, many Republicans and others, As they saw themselves losing some of these culture wars, or saw some of their views kind of rejected by much of the mainstream, they kind of adopted free speech as a mantra, as a form of political expediency.
It's clear that many of them did not believe in the principle.
Because free speech matters the most in times of emergency.
It matters for unpopular views.
It matters for views that are viewed as dangerous or subversive.
For so many of these publications, and politicians that have been preaching free speech, including congressional Republicans.
They've held several hearings just in the last year on free speech issues.
Will they continue that oversight process, looking at the suppression of pro-Palestinian voices?
I'm not going to hold my breath there.
But the parallels with that video and what we've seen the last couple of years, I think are just incredible.
I remember back in early 2017, you had left-wing protesters who said that, you know, a far-right comedian who came to the Berkeley campus was threatening all trans lives.
You know, there would be a trans genocide in the East Bay if that speaker was allowed to speak.
And people were crying and actually engaging in violence and attacking students and demonstrators.
There were just three or four days of brawls in the streets over this speaker.
And perhaps rightfully so, many conservative pundits lampooned those crying leftist protesters.
But how is this any different?
I don't see a difference here.
Yeah, I think the most amazing thing is the involvement of Dave Chappelle because he became a conservative hero for criticizing aspects of the trans movement.
There were calls, left-wing calls for him to be canceled in terms of his contracts or even fired and they mock people for wanting to get Dave Chappelle fired or canceled and now he appears and he's critical of Israel and a bunch of people walk out and there's all this anger toward him, demands that he get reeducated by meeting with Jewish left-wing calls for him to be canceled in terms of his So even this one person, this one cultural celebrity, you see people radically switching sides the minute that the issues are different.
Lee, thank you so much.
I'm going to look forward to your article.
I hope people will look for that article on your sub stack and in general be a subscriber to your sub stack.
I think you do some of the most important.
courageous and principled journalism, investigative journalism, not just opining.
And you deserve as much support for the journalism you're doing.
So I hope you'll check out Lee's sub stack if you're not already a subscriber.
And Lee, we really appreciate you having you on.
Thanks for coming on.
Thanks so much.
All right, good night.
All right, we have one other person that we are very interested to talk to you about all of these issues.
He is Brad Palumbo, who is a, I would say, conservative, the editor-in-chief and co-founder of Base Politics.
He's also a Robert Novak journalism fellow.
He's been a contributor for the DC Examiner and the New York Post and Newsweek, which are kind of center, center-right outlets.
And he has a new article in the Daily Beast.
In which he defends the concepts of free speech, particularly when it comes to the attacks on it by Governor DeSantis trying to ban that pro-Palestinian student group that we talked to you about.
I've been on his podcast recently.
He is an LGBT activist and yet somebody who stands opposed to some of the excesses of that movement as well.
So he's a really interesting commentator, somebody who follows his principles and we are delighted to have him.
Brad, thanks so much for taking the time to speak to us tonight.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Absolutely.
You have this article in the Daily Beast, the headline of it is, Ron DeSantis' call to deport foreign students over anti-Israeli views is un-American.
And we covered it a little bit at the start of the show, the fact that FIRE, which is a group that's popular among conservatives, they've often defended conservative speech, came out and denounced Governor DeSantis' attempt to ban the student group, is what you called it, flagrantly unconstitutional.
And I want to get to that in just a second, the specifics of that argument.
Before we do, What has been your view of these free speech and censorship issues both generally and as they played out on college campuses before October 7th?
Yeah, frankly, I feel like I'm going a little bit insane right now because I'm somebody from the center-right who's worked in right-of-center media.
And for years now, I have heard conservatives and libertarians and people on the right scream bloody murder about free speech and the First Amendment and its importance against the woke mob that wants to cancel them and deprive them of their First Amendment rights.
And I was mostly in agreement with that.
I'm a free speech absolutist, right?
Every case is different, but I support free speech.
I don't believe in illiberal wokeism or those kinds of things where we see deplatforming, shouting down, that kind of thing.
But all these people have been with me saying the same message for years, are suddenly singing a very different tune.
I mean, I'm now seeing, you know, foreign countries are literally, like France, are just banning pro-Palestine protests.
Right-wingers, some right-wingers are heralding that as if it's not an Orwellian thing, just because on this one issue they have a strong emotional attachment to Israel.
But all personal views on Israel-Palestine conflict aside, Free speech is free speech, and it's needed for the unpopular views.
And I thought we all agreed on that.
But I've seen a lot of people suddenly defending the suppression of extreme or offensive viewpoints in their view, right?
This is always subjective.
Now that it's a question of, and of course, you know, October 7 attacks, horrible.
It's such a bizarre, surreal moment.
for the Jewish people.
I completely understand the emotion.
But just because something terrible happens doesn't mean you turn your back on free speech.
That's the time we need to defend it the most because it's the time it's in the most jeopardy.
It's such a bizarre, surreal moment.
I mean, all these people who I found myself in alignment with over the last four or five, six years on exactly this issue, who couldn't be more unrelenting in their mockery and derision, as we were saying, of people calling for censorship are now turning around and not only calling for it, Brad, of people calling for censorship are now turning around and not only calling for it, Brad, but using exactly the same rationale that, This isn't a legitimate issue because this is really hateful.
This is bigoted.
This is likely to incite violence against a minority group who are already feeling threatened.
Exactly the same views as the ones that they've been so vehemently opposing.
Let me ask you about the specific issue of Governor DeSantis, since that's what your Daily Beast article was about.
Talk about what it is that he did and why this bothered you so much.
So DeSantis has proposed two things.
The first one is he's proposed, as part of his presidential campaign, selectively targeting for deportation any international student who's participated in these pro-Palestine or, in some cases, pro-Hamas protests.
He's outraged by them.
I'm outraged by some of them, depending very much so on the specifics of the protest and what is being said.
But in all cases, these campus demonstrations, except in any area where they, you know, cross the line into violence or criminal activity, which I haven't seen, but with that exception, they're all free speech.
They're all First Amendment protected.
However, DeSantis has proposed the selective deportation of any student here on a student visa that engages in these pro-Palestine or pro-Hamas, depending on your perspective and which one we're talking about, protests, because he says there's no right to a visa, get them out of our country.
And I just have a hard time thinking of anything more fundamentally un-American than that approach.
I mean, the beautiful thing about America is our values and the values we haven't always lived up to, but at least we say we believe in.
How many times over the years have you heard Americans say, I may disagree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.
But Santa's like, unless it really hurts my feelings, that's different.
I mean, he is accusing them of supporting terrorism, which Obviously, it's a very contentious qualification of what they're protesting actually constitutes that in each and every case.
But more broadly, it's actually still First Amendment protected speech.
Unless it's inciting imminent lawless action and even calling for violence, Thousands of miles away across the globe is not calling for imminent violence.
So it's still First Amendment protected speech.
Now, he's arguing that that doesn't matter because immigrants don't have First Amendment rights and they don't have a right to a visa.
But the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that immigrants do have First Amendment rights if they're here legally in the country.
Now, it gets complicated because you are allowed under our current legal regime to deny people visas if they are a member of the Communist Party or based on different things we would never be able to do apply to American citizens.
However, I reached out to the folks at FIRE.
Like you said, they're about as nonpartisan a straight shooter of a free speech organization as you can get these days.
They're the new ACLU.
The foundation for individual rights and expression.
And they told me that once an immigrant is here, they have first amendment rights.
So they may or may not have them outside the country.
So you can sort immigrants when you're deciding who to give a visa to or not, but you cannot selectively deport people because you don't like what they're having, what they're having to say.
That's what DeSantis is proposing.
And I just asked conservatives and all my fellow free speech warriors on the right, Do you want a progressive governor doing that to Israeli foreign students or other foreign students who are protesting in favor of the actions of the Israeli government?
Because leftists think the Israeli government is an apartheid state and acting genocide, so they could make the same exact case you're making now that those groups need to be shut down, that those students need to be deported.
It's really a simple principle that I thought people on my side got, but apparently many of them don't.
You can't support power giving to the government that you don't want used by the other side against you.
So that means defending speech, even if it really hurts your feelings.
And the second thing that DeSantis has gone on about... Just before you get to that second one, which I want to talk about as well, just on the issue of deporting people.
I think people get confused sometimes because There are things that the government gives to people that they don't have to give them, certain kind of privileges, certain kind of benefits.
And a lot of people think, well, if you're not entitled to it from the government, the government is giving it to you, then the government can take it away from you anytime it wants.
But all you have to do is think about that for a second to see why that's wrong.
That would mean, for example, that the government could say, if you're unemployed, we're going to provide you unemployment benefits.
to help you ease the transition from having lost your job.
And everyone says, OK, great.
The government didn't have to give that to me, but now it's giving unemployment benefits.
The government can't then say, oh, but you know what?
We're only going to give you unemployment benefits if you support liberal political ideology.
But if you support conservative political ideology, you'll be denied those unemployment benefits.
Even though they didn't have to give it in the first place, once they give it, they can't condition it based on discriminatory policies about your viewpoint.
And the same is true of immigrants.
If you offer people the right to come here as a work visa or a travel visa or any other, a student visa, you can't then say, oh, if you're here and you express support for Donald Trump, you're going to get deported.
But you're free to support And say things positive about Democratic Party leaders, including Joe Biden, because obviously that would give the government enormous power to punish speech that they're not supposed to have.
So I think that's a crucial point that you made.
Yes, of course, you can screen them before they get here, but once they're here legally, they have all the rights of the Constitution because the point of the Constitution is to limit what the government can do regarding everybody who is here on American soil.
Legally, so I think that's an important distinction.
So let's get to the second issue, which is the one about banning the student group.
Yeah, so in this case, in consultation with different levers of the state government, basically Governor DeSantis and people in his administration are instructing the public college system in Florida to deactivate or disaffiliate Students for Justice in Palestine, their chapters that exist at a couple of these public college campuses, because it's accusing them of, in their speech, which
some of which I would say actually crosses the line from pro-Palestine advocacy to pro-Hamas defending.
But again, still free speech, as much as I might personally find that contemptible.
But so what DeSantis is doing is saying they must be formally disaffiliated, like they must be unrecognized by this.
Banned, basically, just not allowed on campus, not allowed to exist on campus.
Well, so they can still meet.
They could still meet, but they've just lost the recognition and privileges of a student group.
It's a little complicated, but it's a consequence that conservatives would never accept applied to a right-wing student group.
I mean, imagine if Governor Gavin Newsom described Turning Point USA as a uh, domestic terrorist group because they supported Donald Trump or something, and then instructed California state universities to disaffiliate and disassociate all Turning Point USA chapters.
I wouldn't be screaming bloody murder about that.
I think you would be because you're a free speech defender who is consistent.
You'd be screaming bloody murder about that.
So would all these right-wing people.
So would Governor DeSantis.
But because in this case it's really far-left activists that they find very offensive, they're singing a different tune and they're defending this, even though DeSantis is accusing these groups of materially supporting terrorism.
Materially supporting terrorism usually means you're recruiting for a terrorist group, you're giving them resources or money.
These are just college students who put dumb crap in one of their documents and have said things he doesn't like.
It's insane.
It's illiberal.
It's authoritarian.
And it's a mirror image of everything we've spent years decrying about the progressive left.
So FIRE has called this out.
They've pointed out this is not something you can do at public.
If private colleges wanted to censor student groups, I would disagree with it, but they might have the legal right to do so.
Florida's public colleges do not.
They are bound by the First Amendment and that includes student groups and they can't punish or disaffiliate some because they don't like what they have to say.
So if DeSantis, if they cave to this and they go through with this, DeSantis will be sued and I think he'll lose in court again.
He's lost time and time again on First Amendment issues in court.
And for a right wing that supports free speech as one of its biggest values in recent years, that should be a disqualifying track record to have.
Yeah, and I think, you know, one of the things I think people should take note of, especially people on the right, is that there's a big move inside the federal government to brand a lot of domestic groups, domestic terrorist organizations, including people who supported the January 6th riot that they consider an insurrection, people who in general they regard as being extremists.
And if you accept this view of Governor DeSantis, that you can be providing material support to a terrorist organization simply by your speech, A view that courts already have rejected.
It would mean that if you, for example, wanted to say, I think the 2020 election had fraud in it, or I think that we got to the point where the government is so repressive that an insurrection or a protest at the Capitol is justified, you can now be considered to be providing material support to domestic terrorism, even though you're not doing anything other than expressing your political views.
Now you mentioned Brandenburg and the crucial case, the ruling that established the parameters of free speech in the 1960s that is still the kind of seminal defining case for the outer limits of our free speech in the United States.
It's a very pro-free speech decision.
And you had this exchange on Twitter that I found very important and very interesting about Brandenburg where somebody was responding to your condemnation of Governor DeSantis where you were defending the right of people to have these protests even if they were pro-Hamas and somebody came along and tried to create example that they thought you would have trouble defending and they, we can put the tweet on the screen.
The person said to you, how about a rally supporting extermination of gay men?
Which they were obviously asking you because you're somebody who is openly gay.
You speak about gay issues.
You have a rainbow flag in your profile there on Twitter.
And he thought that would be a very hard question to say.
Would you actually defend a group of people saying we should extinguish gay people?
Let's put them in camps.
Let's put them in ovens.
I don't think that is an easy question.
The temptation is to say, wait a minute, that does sound very threatening, but you used your capacity of reason and you said, quote, "I would find that abhorrent and condemn it, yet as long as it did not meet the narrow exceptions established in Brandenburg, I would absolutely defend their right to gather and spew hatred." So, what do you mean there by the narrow exceptions established in Brandenburg?
Talk a little bit about what the Brandenburg case was, and why was it so important to you to say, yeah, I would even allow protests that call for my extermination?
I would, and honestly, in a sense it's a hard question, but in another sense it's really not, because you can't just support a principle but then not when it really affects you or your feelings.
But so in Brandenburg, they laid out this distinction between general calls for violence are protected free speech by the First Amendment.
I mean, this country was founded in a violent revolution, so there's always been a history of protecting that speech.
What is not protected is... Well, if I can just interrupt you there, if I can just interrupt you there.
I think the facts that led to that case are so important, which was the state of Ohio prosecuted a Ku Klux Klan leader, Brandenburg.
Because he stood up at a rally, at a KKK rally, and he advocated violence and threatened violence.
He said, if the leaders of the American government continue to be anti-white, we will take vengeance against them in the form of violence.
He threatened violence.
He justified violence.
He advocated violence against American political officials.
And the state of Ohio prosecuted him under a terrorism statute, just like Governor DeSantis is saying, that those threats amounted to terrorism, and the Supreme Court overturned the conviction and said, no, that speech was protected free speech because you weren't even allowed to advocate the desirability or the justifiability of violence as long as you don't fall into this very narrow exception, that speech was protected free speech because you weren't even allowed to advocate
So it's the difference in the original example between somebody out on the streets holding up a sign that says, kill all gays, is protected First Amendment speech under Brandenburg.
However, if I'm leading a crowd of homophobes and I point at Brad Palumbo and I say, go kill that gay guy, that is not protected speech because you're inciting imminent lawless action.
That's the difference.
Protected in this country, The right to call for violent acts.
So even the students in the most offensive of the campus protests who are calling for violent revolution against the state of Israel, against innocent Israeli civilians, something I may or you may agree or disagree with, that is still First Amendment protected speech under the Constitution as it stands.
And so I would absolutely defend the right of people who hate me to say hateful things because ultimately I don't want the government as thought police.
I don't want them deciding which ideas are too dangerous to be expressed because I'm well aware of how that works out for minority groups throughout history.
In reality, it entrenches the status quo.
It's always abused by the government that has its own interest, its own agenda, is very rarely I mean, I think back to the ACLU famously defending the right of Nazis to march through Skokie, Illinois, which had many Holocaust survivors living.
But I guess, have you just never spoken to a principled free speech defender?
I mean, I think back to the ACLU famously defending the right of Nazis to march through Skokie, Illinois, which was many Holocaust survivors living.
This was decades ago there at the time.
They defended that.
And that's one of, I think, America's most iconic moments in terms of our civil liberties history.
It's not a stain on our history.
It's a stain on our history that we ever had Nazis.
But in a society this large, you'll always have crazy and evil people.
It's beautiful, though, that we protect that right, because that's what preserves a free society.
As soon as you start to compromise and chip away at free speech because these examples really offend you, are really hateful, you chip away at the foundations and principles that preserve it in the long run.
Because you're undermining the black and white red line that the government is not allowed to cross.
If they can cross it a little, they can cross it a lot, and they can cross it against you.
And that's what I wish all my friends on the right would understand right now.
I understand why their hearts are broken after what's happened in Israel.
I understand why their emotions are high.
I don't understand why they're turning their backs on the principles that I thought we all agreed on.
Yeah, and one of the ironies as well is that there were calls on the part of Democrats for the Garland Justice Department to prosecute President Trump for that speech he gave on January 6th, which they believe incited the violence at the Capitol.
And at the time, we actually did a show on the importance of Brandenburg and laying out how narrow that exception has to be in order to say that that would be a massive threat to First Amendment rights.
For those who want to see that show, it's a June 26th show.
You see it on the screen.
The West wore on the right to dissent, and we talked about how Brandenburg and another Supreme Court case, Claiborne v. NAACP, would be violated and offended by any attempt to prosecute Donald Trump for that speech he gave.
Brad, I'm so happy that there are people out there like you who are trying to get these newfound censorship supporters on the American right to understand they're violating not just the principles of the Constitution but all the principles that they've spent years claiming they believe in and are defending and trying to kind of bring them back.
from the brink and get them to use not their emotions but their reason.
I think it's an incredibly important role you're playing.
I think any free speech advocate who's consistent and who makes the point that these principles have to prevail even when it comes to the views you hate most are performing a really important function.
So I hope you'll keep that up.
I'm sure you will, and I appreciate your taking the time to talk to us about it tonight.
Thanks, Glenn.
Yeah.
Yeah, have a great evening.
So that concludes our show for tonight.
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