As debates over free speech heat up in the United States, former president and GOP contender for the White House Donald Trump announced that he would defend the First Amendment from the federal level, should he gain a second term.

"I will sign an executive order banning any federal employee from colluding to limit speech, and we will fire every federal bureaucrat who is engaged in domestic censorship under the Harris regime," Donald Trump said at a campaign rally in Wisconsin on Saturday. 

https://x.com/tpostmillennial/status/1832493153569665532

Attacks on free speech have been coming from Democrat officials as well as from media outlets that claim there should be limits to the far-reaching amendment that protects Americans' rights to speak, write, peacefully protest, and practice their religion freely without government interference. The Biden-Harris administration launched a short-lived Disinformation Governance Board, headed by a former advisor to the Ukrainian government. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in 2022 at its creation that "we're bringing — the goal is to bring the resources of the department together to address this threat." The stated purpose was "to coordinate countering misinformation related to homeland security, focused specifically on irregular migration and Russia."

During it's term in the White House, the Biden-Harris administration has been accused of colluding with social media companies to suppress so-called disinformation, misinformation, and malinformation, which is true information that is inconvenient as it undermines trust in institutions. This has been revealed through congressional investigations, like those undertaken by the Weaponization of Government Committee in the US House, lawsuits, such as that brought against the Biden-Harris administration on behalf of citizens who were suppressed and censored, and through Elon Musk's sharing of internal communications within Twitter after he took over the platform.

A recently resurfaced clip from 2019 shows Kamala Harris complaining about Trump's posts on what was then Twitter, under founder Jack Dorsey. The clip shows Harris talking to CNN's Jake Tapper following a debate between the many candidates vying for the Democratic nomination that year. The two discussed whether Trump should be permanently banned from Twitter. It was later banned in the early days of 2021, shortly before Harris and Joe Biden were sworn in as vice president and president, respectively. Harris said that she believed there should be enhanced accountability for social media platforms.

Many said she was talking about current X owner Elon Musk, but she was speaking about Trump, saying "he has lost his privileges and should be taken down. And the bottom line is that you can’t say that you have one rule for Facebook and you have a different rule for Twitter. The same rule has to apply, which is that there has to be a responsibility that is placed on these social media sites to understand their power. They are speaking to millions of people without any level of oversight or regulation. And that has to stop."

This was something she'd said previously, notably attempting to call Trump to the attention of Dorsey and have him banned.

https://x.com/KamalaHarris/status/1179193225325826050

She penned a letter to Dorsey, regarding Trump's tweets, saying "These are blatant threats. We need a civil society, not a civil war. These tweets represent a clear intent to baselessly discredit the whistleblower and officials in our government who are following the proper channels to report allegations of presidential impropriety, all while making blatant threats that put people at risk and our democracy in danger."

Musk shared the recently recirculated clip, saying "This is what she actually believes. Free speech is the bedrock of democracy and the Democratic Party (Kamala is just a puppet) wants to destroy it."

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances," that first and foremost amendment at the top of the Bill of Rights reads.