Kennedy Re-Posts Trump 2022 Free Speech Video

By Adam Garrie, The Kennedy Beacon

On November 9, just days after Donald Trump won the presidential election, transition team member Robert F. Kennedy Jr. shared a Trump “free speech” video, writing to his 4.5 million followers, “This earns Donald Trump a space on Mount Rushmore.”

The Trump video, posted on Truth Social in 2022, celebrates free speech, beginning, “If we don't have free speech, then we just don’t have a free country. It is as simple as that. If this most fundamental right is allowed to perish, then the rest of our rights and liberties will topple, just like dominoes.” 

Free speech had been a cornerstone to Kennedy’s independent presidential run and remains a crucial passion for him.

Trump defined the censorship-industrial complex as a “cartel” involving both the federal government and big tech. This government directed censorship of ordinary citizens has been the subject of multiple ongoing lawsuits, including litigation against Google in which Kennedy is the lead plaintiff. 

In his video, Trump outlined the first part of his plan to end the censorship-industrial complex, saying within hours of his inauguration, he will “sign an executive order banning any federal department or agency from colluding with any organization, business or person to censor, limit, categorize or impede the lawful speech of American citizens.” 

He continued, “I will then ban federal money from being used to label domestic speech as Mis or disinformation. And I will begin the process of identifying and firing every federal bureaucrat who has engaged in domestic censorship directly or indirectly, whether they are the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health, Human Services, the FBI, the DOJ, no matter who they are.”

Trump also asked Congress to send a bill to his desk that would revise Section 230 of The Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996. Section 230 allows operators of social media “platforms” to enjoy civil immunity from costly litigation that could otherwise be filed if these platforms were classed as “publishers”. 

By engaging in censorship, whether of their own volition or in collusion with federal agencies, many jurists have argued that these “platforms” should be stripped of their immunity. This is the case because the curation of content, including the censoring of content, constitutes the actions of a publisher rather than that of a platform. 

Trump highlighted that “platforms” have been remiss when it comes to the suppression of child exploitation content, because they have decided to instead expend their resources on censoring lawful political speech. Both Kennedy and Elon Musk, owner of the X and a self-described free speech absolutist, share this view with the president-elect. 

Trump also said that he would stop the federal government from funding non-profit organizations and academic institutions that advocate for censorship and often collude with the government to enforce draconian and unconstitutional censorship of protected speech.

A recent report in The Kennedy Beacon outlined how a UK-based, U.S.-registered non-profit known as the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) planned to collude with a would-be Harris administration to censor free speech in the U.S. 

Policies For The People (P4P), a new forum where the public can suggest policy ideas for the incoming administration, currently features a legislative proposal that details how the Civil Rights Act of 1964 can be amended to protect people from censorship and retribution.

 President-elect Trump promised that his new administration will represent a “new golden age” for the U.S. In the video shared by Kennedy, Trump makes it abundantly clear that without the full restoration of free speech, such a golden age will not be possible.