There's free speech and then there's hate speech. And there is no place, especially now. Especially after what happened to Charlie in our society. Do you see more law enforcement going after these groups who are using hate speech and putting cuffs on people? [00:00:17] So we show them that some action is better than no action. We will absolutely target you. Go after you. If you are targeting anyone with hate speech, anything. And that's across the aisle. [00:00:32] I remember when that type of rhetoric was used by the left around 2020, when it came to hate speech and how it should be banned. But it's not banned. It's actually protected by the United States Constitution. The only speech and it's very, very narrow that can be banned and is banned, [00:00:51] is any speech that specifically incites violence that could actually lead to harm against specific individuals. Now, in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's murder, Attorney General Pam Bondi is vowing to target anyone who spreads what she considers to be hate speech. [00:01:08] Luckily, she faced so much backlash from members of both sides of the political aisle that she appears to have backed off those comments. But let me give you some more of the context. So before we hear more from her appearance on the Katie Miller podcast, where she doubled down by conflating obvious cases of political violence. [00:01:28] Let me just note that whether you're on the left or the right, people in America, because of our First Amendment rights, have the protection to engage in the most loathsome, hateful speech. The speech of literal Klan members is protected, as long as they're not inciting [00:01:47] violence through their speech or directing violence toward specific people. Now, with that in mind, let's go to the video of Pam Bondi doubling down, like, you know, basically doubling down in regard to how hate speech should be banned. [00:02:04] The anti Semitism, what's been happening at college campuses around this country is disgusting. It's despicable. And we've been fighting that. We've been fighting these universities left and right. And we're not going to stop. Look what happened. Think about Josh Shapiro. They firebombed his house. [00:02:20] That's what's happened in this world. And we are going to fight every step of the way to show that you will face the most severe consequences if you come after someone and you target someone for their political views or for any, for any reason at all. Do you think Charlie was assassinated because our country [00:02:37] can't handle free speech? Or because one type of speech is seen as obscene by another political party? Well, in this case, it was clearly obscene by a political party. An opposing view? Sure. But doesn't matter. You can't have that hate speech in the world in which we live. [00:02:58] We should be really concerned that the Attorney General of the United States literally just conflated the violent act of trying to burn down governor Josh Shapiro's home. That was a violent act. She conflated that with hate speech. [00:03:17] Yeah. So, look, there's two parts of the story. One is this effort to stifle dissent and call it hate speech. The other is the reaction to it. So, I hate the first, love the second. Okay, so. [00:03:32] But I want to. Look, it's easy for me to say, I'm against a right wing administration, Trump administration, saying that they're going to clamp down on speech because they consider it hate speech, because they're going to consider anything on the left hate speech. Right. And Trump actually kind of confirmed that today. [00:03:49] Right. And and we got that for you and stuff. So, but but guys I want to challenge our side too. And we did this not just now, but back then. So you heard us having conversations, debates about hate crimes. Should we even have a thing called a hate crime? [00:04:06] Is it if you killed someone because they're fill in the blank black, white woman, man, Muslim, Jewish, Christian, etc., should there be an extra penalty? And I've always been against that because murder is murder. You give him a life sentence, you don't. [00:04:22] Or whatever is the maximum that you can charge. Charge the maximum. We don't need to add anything on top of that. I don't really care why they did it. I care that it's that it got done. And if you care if you say that I care about what they said while they were doing an act of violence. [00:04:39] What you're doing is punishing speech, right? So. But the main point I'm making is it's easy when you're in power to say that the other side has hate and we should punish it. Right? Oh, so they're being racist or they're being Islamophobic, or they're being this or they're being that, and I want to punish them. [00:04:56] Let's put aside the hate crime even on normal speech, right? They shouldn't be allowed to say that. They shouldn't be platformed. They shouldn't this, they shouldn't that. Now we're out of power. And all of a sudden Pam Bondi and Trump says, you know what? Maybe you shouldn't be allowed to say some things that offend us, right? [00:05:13] And all of a sudden we don't like that. That's why you have to be principled and say that you're against any restrictions on the First Amendment. And we're not talking about yelling fire in a crowded theater, or specifically threatening violence against someone that is not covered by the First Amendment, [00:05:28] but actual political opinion, no matter how deeply offensive it is. Of course, it's covered by the First Amendment. And let people, air their disgusting, hateful thoughts and rhetoric. Because while it is true that the Constitution protects that individual [00:05:45] from retaliation by the government, we all know that if people are sharing vile, racist, hateful opinions, there are consequences through other means, either through their employer or whatever. So and you get to actually know what that person believes, [00:06:03] and you get to fight that hateful rhetoric and ideology with more discourse. So can I just give one quick example there? Yeah. Randy finds the congressman from Florida. He's a disgusting pig, and he talks about starving the entire population of Gaza. [00:06:18] He's rooting for the annihilation of Gaza. So he's a genocidal freak, right? Do I want him in prison for hate speech? It doesn't get any more hateful than let's kill a couple of million people, right? No, I've got this. So we'll battle Randy. Fine. [00:06:34] We'll meet him in the battlefield of ideas. And I hope to God that he's never elected again by the good people of Florida. And that's how we handle things in America. Even when you say the most disgusting genocidal things, like representative Randy. Fine. Now, people on both sides of the aisle, luckily, [00:06:51] and I'm really, really proud of this, immediately slammed Bondi for saying that the government will in fact target hate speech, something that Charlie Kirk, by the way, himself explicitly condemned just last year. So I want to remind you all of this post that he made on X, writing that hate speech does not exist legally in America. [00:07:08] There's ugly speech, there's gross speech, there's evil speech, and all of it is protected by the First Amendment. Keep America free. And I think he genuinely did believe that. To his credit, now, among the conservatives who called out Bondi was Erick Erickson, who I think has actually been [00:07:25] a pretty reasonable member on the right. I'm sure I disagree with him on a whole host of things, but he seems to have some actual moral values. He seems to care about this country. He writes that our attorney general is apparently a moron. There's free speech and then there is hate speech. No, ma'am, that is not the law. And he's right about that. [00:07:43] Gop operative Matt King called the comments sickening, and the National Review's Charles C.W. Cooke Cook wrote this in a scathing column about Bondi. Get a load of this under every relevant Supreme Court precedent, [00:07:59] speech is speech is speech. There are other categories of speech libel, incitement, threats and so on. But speech that is supposedly hateful, including about Charlie Kirk's murder, is undoubtedly protected by the Constitution. Kirk himself was clear about this. [00:08:15] And by the way, just to add to that, let's say it is determined that hate speech is not protected by our Constitution. It is. But just for argument's sake, let's pretend like it isn't. Well, then, who would the arbiter of hate speech be? Who gets to decide what is and is not considered hate speech? [00:08:34] So that's something to consider if you are arguing in favor of banning hate speech, which I think would be a really bad idea. Now, there are liberals, of course, who spoke out against what Bondi was saying, including Liberal Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. She appeared to take a swipe at Bondi today while speaking at a panel [00:08:53] at New York Law School, saying, every time I listen to a lawyer trained representative saying we should criminalize free speech in some way, I think to myself that school failed. But one person who seemed to enthusiastically support what Pam Bondi was saying there was none other than the president [00:09:10] of the United States, Donald Trump. This morning, this morning, ABC's Karl Jonathan Karl asked Trump about Bondi's comments. And here's how that went down. What do you make Pam Bondi saying she's going to go after hate speech. [00:09:25] Is that I mean, a lot of people a lot of your allies say hate speech is free speech. Should probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly. It's hate. You have a lot of hate in your heart. Maybe after ABC. Well, ABC paid me $16 million recently for a form of hate speech, right? [00:09:42] Your company paid me $16 million for a form of hate speech, so maybe they'll have to go after you. Look, we want everything to be fair. It hasn't been fair. And the radical left has done tremendous damage to the country. But we're fixing it. [00:09:59] So when President Trump makes comments like that, it communicates to me that he doesn't care about our Constitution. He doesn't care about what makes this country great the freedom of speech, the freedom of press that is so incredibly important. [00:10:15] I think it's the cornerstone of a democracy. You can't have a democratic process unless Americans are able to freely express themselves, freely assemble, and to debate their political views without fear of retaliation from the government. And Trump appears to be against that, especially when the speech is critical [00:10:34] of what he's up to in the Oval Office. Now, finally, after facing a wave of backlash for her comments, Pam Bondi put out a tweet trying to make it seem as though she was always talking about violent threats, not hate speech. She says hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence [00:10:50] is not protected by the First Amendment. Yes, we know that. I don't think you did earlier. But nonetheless, she says it's a crime for far too long. We've watched the radical left normalized threats call for assassinations and cheer on political violence. That era is over. [00:11:05] You cannot call for someone's murder, she says. You cannot swat a member of Congress. You cannot dox a conservative family and think it will be brushed off as free speech. These acts are punishable crimes, and every single threat will be met with the full force of the law. [00:11:21] Free speech protects ideas, debate, even dissent, but it does not and never will protect violence. Right. But again, that is not what she initially said. She's kind of trying to, you know, walk back without apologizing for her [00:11:37] previous comments where she clearly, just made it obvious that she either doesn't know what the Constitution protects or doesn't care what the Constitution protects. Yeah. So if she gets her way, then first of all, then this is a different country. A lot of things will be banned, and you won't be able to say [00:11:54] your real opinions, because then hate is an eye of the beholder. Which is why we've always been against classifying hate speech as a crime. And also because we read the Constitution. But if she gets her way, every administration is going to change it. So when you've got a Republican in charge, it's going to be hate against, [00:12:12] right wing individuals, etc.. What Pam Bondi, laid out when Democrats get in charge. Nope, that's not hate anymore. Now hate is racism, sexism, etc. Republican gets back in charge. We flip it again. No racism. Sexism was okay. Now come on guys, this is absurd. Utterly absurd. [00:12:29] And then the most absurd and ironic thing is whether you believed him or not. On Charlie Kirk's defense of freedom of speech, he certainly made it a cornerstone of his career and his legacy. And so the the post that Anna read you from Charlie is crystal clear, right? 100% [00:12:50] in favor of freedom of speech and against classifying hate speech as a crime. So it would be deeply ironic to say, because Charlie Kirk believed in freedom of speech and he was killed. Now we're going to take away freedom of speech. Well, how does that honor him? That does the exact opposite. [00:13:08] So it's it's kind of disgusting, actually. All right. So then that leads to how did the right wing react. Now, I had buckled up because I saw the reaction to the shooting and I understand it. And there was rage. Right. [00:13:24] And I know where that rage comes from. And I and they have every right to be super frustrated. But then it got, you know, went in the direction you would expect, which is was rage against the entire left and revenge. And let's go get him and no more. ET cetera. So in that environment, when someone says maybe we should lock people up for their [00:13:43] opinions, it's ripe for the right wing. And people who voted for Trump, that might not even be in the right to go. Yeah, lock him up. Right. But they didn't largely not all, but the majority appear to be saying on the right, [00:13:59] no, we said we were against hate speech being classified as a crime. We're still against it even when we were in charge. Yeah. And I got to tell you, you got to give him credit for that. When you stay principled, even when you're in charge. I mean, we were so worried that they were not going to stick to principles. [00:14:18] They were just going to go for raw power. Right. And is that does that strain exist? Well, obviously look at Pam Bondi. She literally tried it this morning right. And look at Stephen Miller. And he's talking about oh we're going to call people domestic terrorists and take away their rights etc.. But a lot of the right is pushing back against their own administration [00:14:37] and saying no, no. Even as angry as they are and they are angry, right? For them to say A nota Pam Bondi no to Trump on this. That's pretty that's pretty great guys. Yeah. So I'm pretty psyched about that as a country for what it means for our country. [00:14:56] Now other bad things might be down the pike, but this is a huge one because it affects all of our freedoms. Now, let me be clear about one thing that has been very consistent with us here at the Young Turks. Certainly the main show, there's no question, because I've worked with you for over 18 years. [00:15:12] We do not support political violence of any kind, and we believe in free speech, even when the speech is being uttered by those we disagree with. And when we come back from the break, we're going to show you how Dave Rubin, a former employee of TYT, unfairly attacked Jake Uygur, took him out of context. [00:15:30] Think he thought he got Jake in a big gotcha? But we've got the receipts, so stick around. We'll be right back with all the details. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets his wings. Totally not true. But it does keep you updated on our live shows.