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      They managed to get accepted to US universities. But they’re still stuck in Gaza

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      Within days of 7 October 2023, much of Maryam’s world had been wiped out: her home in Gaza City, her children’s schools, and the Islamic University of Gaza, where she was a graduate student in physics, were all destroyed by airstrikes. In early December, Maryam’s mentor – Sufian Tayeh, a prominent Palestinian scientist and president of the Islamic University of Gaza – was killed along with his family in an Israeli strike.The professor has been a “father figure” to her, Maryam told the Guardian. When she learned of his death, she remembers closing the physics notebooks she had grabbed as she fled her home and thinking her studies would be over. “My entire world had collapsed,” she said.But as she repeatedly fled Israel’s bombs, Maryam sought ways to keep not only her family alive, but also her dream of becoming a physicist. While living in a tent in Rafah, with no stable access to internet or electricity, she learned of a spot near the border where she could get a faint internet signal from Egypt. Despite the risks, she started going there to research opportunities abroad, eventually managing to earn admission to a fully funded PhD program at the University of Maryland. After deferring her start date by a year, she was meant to start this month.But Maryam remains in Gaza. She is one of dozens of students from the devastated territory who have been admitted to US universities and colleges but are stuck, advocates say, after the Trump administration suspended nearly all non-immigrant visas for Palestinian passport holders.As part of its campaign against US universities, the administration has made it more difficult for international students to travel to the US, and claims it has revoked the visas of thousands of foreign students already in the US over unspecified violations.But for Palestinians in Gaza, the policy change is uniquely devastating.“I will never forget the moment I received the message confirming my acceptance into a fully funded PhD program. I rushed back to our tent to hold my children tightly and tell them the good news – that we would survive this nightmare,” said Maryam, who is using a pseudonym to protect her and her family. “Everything came crashing down again when I heard about the suspension of visa processing. It felt like my dreams had been destroyed once more.”Leila, a 22-year-old from Gaza City, was four years into a five-year engineering program when the war started. She would walk up to two hours a day to find wifi, relying on solar power to charge her phone, and managed to apply and be admitted to a university in the north-western US as a transfer student. (Leila is also a pseudonym, and she asked that the Guardian not publish the name of the university.)Then came the news that all visas were suspended. “We are just stuck in Gaza right now,” she told the Guardian in a series of voice memos.A spokesperson for the state department said in a statement that the department had suspended the processing of nonimmigrant visas for Palestinian Authority passport holders “while we conduct a full and thorough review of the process and procedures used to vet individuals from Gaza” and that it will “take the time necessary to conduct a full and thorough review”.“Every visa decision is a national security decision,” the spokesperson added.According to a cable viewed by the Associated Press, department officials said the new restrictions were intended “to ensure that such applications have undergone necessary, vetting, and screening protocols to ensure the applicants’ identity and eligibility for a visa under US law”. The suspension doesn’t apply to Palestinians who hold passports from other countries – unless they are found to have ties to the Palestinian Authority, or the Palestine Liberation Organization.The Student Justice Network, a US-based collective formed after Donald Trump signed orders in January targeting international students, has been supporting students from Gaza who are seeking to continue their interrupted studies abroad. But of the dozens of students the group says it has helped with university and visa applications, only a handful have made it to the US. (They declined to provide more specific numbers.)Securing a visa to travel to the US from Gaza was an arduous process even in quieter times. Before the war, Palestinians in Gaza had to secure appointments at US embassies outside the territory – usually Egypt or Israel. Obtaining a permit to travel to Israel has been impossible since the war began, while the border with Egypt has remained largely closed.International students have been targeted with a series of federal actions aimed both at Palestinian students specifically and the broader community of more than one million foreign nationals studying in the country.The state department has enlisted consulates overseas into the effort. Earlier this year, it paused all student visa appointments. They have resumed, but prospective students are now being subjected to additional vetting for, among other things, “anti-American” views.But for Palestinians the restrictions are blanket. “Every single one of them has been impacted by this,” Majid said of the students her group has been helping who were meant to start their studies this fall. “There’s no clear understanding as to when their applications will be processed, and this affects their ability to attend their universities on time – and in some cases it could actually impact whether or not they’re able to maintain their scholarships.”Looking elsewhereThomas Cohen, a physics professor at the University of Maryland, told the Guardian that Maryam was one of two physics students from Gaza admitted to the university last year. But getting them out of Gaza proved so difficult that the university ended up deferring the students’ admissions by a year as they tried to get visa appointments.Maryam was able to book an interview at the US embassy in Egypt, and Cohen offered to personally pay for her way there – but the border was shut down when Israeli forces took control of it in May 2024. She was still looking for a way out when the US announced the suspension of visas for Palestinians.Cohen said he tried all he could to help Maryam and the other student – because their academic records earned them a spot at the university but also because he understood that the opportunity could save their lives. He spoke of the Holocaust survivors in his own family, and those who “didn’t survive because they had no way to leave” Nazi-occupied Poland.Cohen is now advising the students to pursue opportunities in Europe or Canada. Even if they were to get a visa to the US, “the political climate we’re in, it’s dangerous for Palestinians”, he says.Majid, of the Student Justice Network, said the group had also been encouraging the students they support to pursue options in other countries. But even if they gain admission elsewhere, the border with Egypt remains sealed shut as Israel has intensified its military campaign.“These are students who have gone through two plus years without an educational infrastructure,” Majid said, noting that all of Gaza’s universities have been destroyed.“Think about having applied to university when you were 17 or 18, and then think about applying under bombardments, and starvation, and with limited resources, and having your documents destroyed, and having lost your family members,” she added. “To yank these fully funded opportunities away from them is devastating.” More

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      For comedians around the world, the laughs often end as democracy fades

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      The exiled Egyptian comedian Bassem Youssef has experienced firsthand how intolerant governments can silence political satire. And he had a short message this week for those living in an age of Donald Trump’s free speech clampdown: “My Fellow American Citizens,” he wrote on X. “Welcome to my world.”In his attacks on the most prominent of American satirists, the US president has joined a cadre of illiberal and sensitive leaders around the world who will not tolerate a joke.The latest target of what critics say is a campaign to silence dissenting voices was Jimmy Kimmel, who had his late-night ABC talkshow suspended after government pressure. The removal, weeks after the rival network CBS cancelled Stephen Colbert’s satirical show, follows other Trump-led crackdowns on media and academia.Political foes of the US president say the diminishing space for free speech shows Trump’s America is moving towards authoritarianism. Senator Bernie Sanders, speaking to MSNBC, said the country was on a path towards becoming more like oppressive regimes in Russia and Saudi Arabia. “This is just another step forward,” he said.From Egypt’s military ruler, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, to India’s populist prime minister, Narendra Modi, the laughs often end for comedians as democracy dwindles.One of the most famous global comedians to have his life turned upside down by his political satire is Youssef, who first found fame with a TV show panning the Egyptian regime.Known as the “Egyptian Jon Stewart” in reference to the US talkshow host whom he was inspired by (and looks like), Youssef is a former heart surgeon who became a household name.But his satire made him the target of two opposing governments. He was first arrested in April 2013, accused of insulting Islam and Egypt’s then president. Months later, when Sisi took power by force, Youssef had to cancel his show and flee the country.View image in fullscreenYoussef has said his struggle was as much against Egypt’s cloying, conservative culture as its repressive leaders. “We didn’t have a space for satire in Egypt. We carved out our own space. We had to fight for it,” he said in a 2015 interview.“And because there’s no platform, no space or infrastructure for that kind of satire to be accepted, we were basically pushed out … We are up against generations of people who don’t have this kind of mindset. That’s why it was an uphill battle for us.”Comedians elsewhere have often found themselves caught up in nationalist fervour.In India, which has a history of a lively and relatively free public discourse, critics of Modi argue space to criticise the policies of his rightwing nationalist government is shrinking.Comedians and comedy venues have increasingly been caught in the crosshairs since the rise of his Hindu Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), which has ruled for more than a decade.A Muslim comedian was detained by police for weeks in 2021 for allegedly vulgar jokes insulting Hindu gods – despite never having performed at the show. The comedian Vir Das faced a backlash later the same year and police reports filed by BJP officials after a monologue that dealt with the country’s contradictions on women’s rights and religion.View image in fullscreenPolice in Mumbai registered a criminal case against a comedian in 2017 over a tweet of a photo of Modi modified by Snapchat’s popular dog filter, giving him a canine nose and ears.Similar cases have come out in Russia, including a standup of Azerbaijani origin and a citizen of Belarus, Idrak Mirzalizade, who was detained for 10 days and later banned from the country for a joke about open racism in Russia.Comedy, it seems, can also be treated by some as a transnational crime.The Turkish government asked for the prosecution of a German comedian in 2016 for performing a satirical poem about its president. In the late-night programme screened by the German state broadcaster ZDF, Jan Böhmermann sat in front of a Turkish flag beneath a small, framed portrait of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, reading out a poem that accused the president of repressing minorities and “kicking Kurds”.View image in fullscreenErdoğan’s lawyer Michael Hubertus von Sprenger wanted to enforce a complete ban on the poem, and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor at the time, was widely criticised for appearing to give in to Ankara’s demands.Böhmermann said at the time he felt Merkel had “filleted me [and] served me up for tea” to Erdoğan, and that she risked damaging freedom of speech in Germany. Charges brought against him were later dropped and he was given police protection. More

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      What does Donald Trump think free speech means? – podcast

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      Archive: CBS, Good Morning America, The Charlie Kirk show, ABC News, Katie Miller Pod, CBS Austin, PIX11 News, Fox News
      Listen to Science Weekly’s episode on the data behind political violence
      Listen to Politics Weekly, all about Trump’s state visit to the UK
      Purchase Jonathan Freedland’s new book, The Traitor’s Circle, here
      Send your questions and feedback to politicsweeklyamerica@theguardian.com
      Support the Guardian. Go to theguardian.com/politicspodus More

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      Political witch hunts and blacklists: Donald Trump and the new era of McCarthyism

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      A modern-day political inquisition is unfolding in “digital town squares” across the United States. The slain far-right activist Charlie Kirk has become a focal point for a coordinated campaign of silencing critics that chillingly echoes one of the darkest chapters in American history.

      Individuals who have publicly criticised Kirk or made perceived insensitive comments regarding his death are being threatened, fired or doxed.

      Teachers and professors have been fired or disciplined, one for posting that Kirk was racist, misogynistic and a neo-Nazi, another for calling Kirk a “hate-spreading Nazi”.

      Journalists have also lost their jobs after making comments about Kirk’s assassination, as has the late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel.

      A website called “Expose Charlie’s Murderers” had been posting the names, locations and employers of people saying critical things about Kirk before it was reportedly taken down. Vice President JD Vance has pushed for this public response, urging supporters to “call them out … hell, call their employer”.

      This is far-right “cancel culture”, the likes of which the US hasn’t seen since the McCarthy era in the 1950s.

      A demonstration in response to the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show outside of The Walt Disney Studios in California.
      Jae C. Hong/AP

      The birth of McCarthyism

      The McCarthy era may well have faded in our collective memory, but it’s important to understand how it unfolded and the impact it had on America. As the philosopher George Santayana once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

      Since the 1950s, “McCarthyism” has become shorthand for the practice of making unsubstantiated accusations of disloyalty against political opponents, often through fear-mongering and public humiliation.

      Joseph McCarthy.
      Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons

      The term gets its name from Senator Joseph McCarthy, a Republican who was the leading architect of a ruthless witch hunt in the US to root out alleged Communists and subversives across American institutions.

      The campaign included both public and private persecutions from the late 1940s to early 1950s, involving hearings before the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

      A hearing before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1948.
      AP

      Millions of federal employees had to fill out loyalty investigation forms during this time, while hundreds of employees were either fired or not hired. Hundreds of Hollywood figures were also blacklisted.

      The campaign also involved the parallel targeting of the LGBTQI+ community working in government – known as the Lavender Scare.

      And similar to doxing today, witnesses in government hearings were asked to provide the names of communist sympathisers, and investigators gave lists of prospective witnesses to the media. Major corporations told employees who invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to testify they would be fired.

      The greatest toll of McCarthyism was perhaps on public discourse. A deep chill settled over US politics, with people afraid to voice any opinion that could be construed as dissenting.

      When the congressional records were finally unsealed in the early 2000s, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said the hearings “are a part of our national past that we can neither afford to forget nor permit to reoccur”.

      Sen. Joseph McCarthy chats with his attorney, Roy Cohn, during a Senate subcommittee hearing in 1954.
      Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons

      Another witch hunt under Trump

      Today, however, a similar campaign is being waged by the Trump administration and others on the right, who are stoking fears of the “the enemy within”.

      This new campaign to blacklist government critics is following a similar pattern to the McCarthy era, but is spreading much more quickly, thanks to social media, and is arguably targeting far more regular Americans.

      Even before Kirk’s killing, there were worrying signs of a McCarthyist revival in the early days of the second Trump administration.

      After Trump ordered the dismantling of public Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs, civil institutions, universities, corporations and law firms were pressured to do the same. Some were threatened with investigation or freezing of federal funds.

      In Texas, a teacher was accused of guiding Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) squads to suspected non-citizens at a high school. A group called the Canary Mission identified pro-Palestinian green-card holders for deportation. And just this week, the University of California at Berkeley admitted to handing over the names of staff accused of antisemitism.

      Supporters of the push to expose those criticising Kirk have framed their actions as protecting the country from “un-American”, woke ideologies. This narrative only deepens polarisation by simplifying everything into a Manichean world view: the “good people” versus the corrupt “leftist elite”.

      The fact the political assassination of Democratic lawmaker Melissa Hortman did not garner the same reaction from the right reveals a gross double standard at play.

      Another double standard: attempts to silence anyone criticising Kirk’s divisive ideology, while being permissive of his more odious claims. For example, he once called George Floyd, a Black man killed by police, a “scumbag”.

      In the current climate, empathy is not a “made-up, new age term”, as Kirk once said, but appears to be highly selective.

      This brings an increased danger, too. When neighbours become enemies and dialogue is shut down, the possibilities for conflict and violence are exacerbated.

      Many are openly discussing the parallels with the rise of fascism in Germany, and even the possibility of another civil war.

      A sense of decency?

      The parallels between McCarthyism and Trumpism are stark and unsettling. In both eras, dissent has been conflated with disloyalty.

      How far could this go? Like the McCarthy era, it partly depends on the public reaction to Trump’s tactics.

      McCarthy’s influence began to wane when he charged the army with being soft on communism in 1954. The hearings, broadcast to the nation, did not go well. At one point, the army’s lawyer delivered a line that would become infamous:

      Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness […] Have you no sense of decency?

      Without concerted, collective societal pushback against this new McCarthyism and a return to democratic norms, we risk a further coarsening of public life.

      The lifeblood of democracy is dialogue; its safeguard is dissent. To abandon these tenets is to pave the road towards authoritarianism. More

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      New York lawmakers arrested for blocking Ice access to federal building

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      New York lawmakers, immigrants’ rights activists and religious leaders were arrested on Thursday at protests both inside and outside the complex in lower Manhattan where federal officials have been routinely detaining immigrants amid the Trump administration’s anti-immigration agenda.At least 70 demonstrators staged a direct-action protest to block access to and from the underground garage used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) to transport people arrested by the agency. The nature of the protest prompted the New York police department (NYPD) to begin arresting people sitting in front of the access ramp.Others protesting were arrested by federal officers inside the federal building, which houses a number of facilities including offices for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – the parent agency of Ice – as well as the FBI and an immigration court.Inside, 11 elected officials were detained after demanding to see the conditions inside the Ice intake facility on the 10th floor of the building, which has recently prompted reports of allegedly poor treatment.These included Brad Lander, the New York City comptroller, who was previously arrested there in June by masked federal agents, provoking uproar and objections from New York governor Kathy Hochul. Lander was a Democratic party mayoral candidate this year but teamed up to cross-endorse eventual primary winner Zohran Mamdani.View image in fullscreenIn recent months, breaking norms, Ice has been showing up outside immigration court and arresting people in the hallways as they come out of hearings in the small courtrooms.Tony Simone, a New York state representative who was arrested at the protest, said: “We will be back here time and time again,” and encouraged other officials to stand up to the administration’s aggressive immigration policies. “Ice is not welcome in our state,” he added.In a statement responding to the protests, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said that Lander and the other politicians were “pulling a stunt in attempt to get their 15 minutes of fame while endangering DHS personnel and detainees”.“As a result of the chaos caused by Lander, Federal Protective Service called NYPD,” McLaughlin said, adding that local police and federal law enforcement “arrested 71 agitators and sanctuary politicians”, in a reference to New York being a sanctuary city where local law enforcement is supposed to limit or deny cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.In the statement, McLaughlin accused the immigrants who were kept inside the Ice intake facility of being gang members, possessing fentanyl or having a gun.“Brad Lander’s obsession with attacking the brave men and women of law enforcement, physically and rhetorically, must stop NOW,” McLaughlin said.View image in fullscreenOutside, dozens of protesters gathered with signs and banners as they crowded together to block the garage used by Ice – the only entry and exit for official vehicles at the complex at 26 Federal Plaza.As the protesters sat and chanted a few meters from the garage entrance, NYPD officers arrived and ordered them to disperse.When protesters refused, the officers, including members of the controversial Strategic Response Group, moved in to arrest them. New York City public advocate Jumaane Williams was the first to be detained from the demonstration outside.Others arrested near the garage included city council members Tiffany Cabán and Sandy Nurse and state assembly member Phara Souffrant Forrest.View image in fullscreenPolice motioned to the people who remained sitting, then lifted up some, cuffing them with zip ties while they continued to chant. The protesters were then moved and lined up before being placed in a police van.Inside, state senators Julia Salazar, Jabari Brisport and Gustavo Rivera and state representatives Jessica González-Rojas, Marcela Mitaynes, Emily Gallagher, Claire Valdez, Tony Simone, Robert Carroll and Steven Raga were arrested. The 11, including Lander, were charged with a federal misdemeanor for blocking the corridors, then released with a date to appear in court.View image in fullscreen“To be clear, Ice should be abolished,” Brisport said. He described how when the lawmakers had requested to enter the Ice intake facility, officials zip-tied the doors shut and added duct tape over windows to prevent the politicians from seeing inside.Cabán said: “As an elected official, it is my duty to protect my constituents from cruelty and violence. Ice is cruel and violent. Ice puts New Yorkers and our democracy in danger.”She called for the abolition of Ice and said federal enforcement officers were “kidnapping my neighbors”, detaining and sending people to “cruel for-profit detention camps”. She also called for proposed legislation to be passed, including the New York for All bill prohibiting local and state agencies from assisting in federal immigration enforcement.“Ice has terrorized over 3,000 New Yorkers this year, kidnapping them as they attempt to attend court dates and immigration check-ins, holding them in inhumane conditions, without medicine, changes of clothing, adequate food, beds or contact with the outside world, snatching away due process,” Cabán said. More

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      Trump suggests punishing TV networks for ‘negative’ coverage amid outrage over Kimmel suspension

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      Donald Trump suggested on Thursday that TV networks which cover him “negatively” could lose their licenses after his celebration of ABC suspending late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.On Air Force One, the president spoke to reporters on his flight back to the US from his state visit to the UK. The president said major US networks were “97% against me”, though he did not offer evidence to prove this figure or detail how this conclusion was evaluated. He said he read the statistic “someplace”.“Again, 97% negative, and yet I won easily. I won all seven swing states,” Trump said. “They give me only bad press. I mean they’re getting a license. I would think maybe their licenses should be taken away.”Trump supported ABC’s decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show, saying on Thursday that the comedian was “not a talented person” who “had very bad ratings”.“Well, Jimmy Kimmel was fired because he had bad ratings more than anything else, and he said a horrible thing about a great gentleman known as Charlie Kirk,” Trump told reporters on Thursday during his state visit to the United Kingdom. “Jimmy Kimmel is not a talented person. He had very bad ratings, and they should have fired him a long time ago.”According to Nielsen ratings as reported by LateNighter, although Stephen Colbert’s Late Show leads the time slot in total viewers with 2.42 million, Kimmel’s show averaged 1.77 million viewers in the second quarter of 2025 and edged out Colbert in the key 18-49 demographic.However, there was an 11% drop off in his show’s viewership the last month. Kimmel also has over 20 million subscribers on YouTube.The controversy began after Kimmel, in a recent broadcast, suggested that “many in Maga land are working very hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk”. Within a day, FCC chair Brendan Carr condemned the comments as “truly sick” and suggested ABC could face regulatory consequences.ABC suspended the show after affiliate operator Nexstar called Kimmel’s remarks “offensive and insensitive”.The indefinite suspension of the popular late-night show has prompted numerous calls for a boycott against Disney, ABC’s parent company, and other major media conglomerates that have refused to air Kimmel’s show.Writers Guild of America union members protested against the suspension of Kimmel outside Disney/ABC in Los Angeles on Thursday, with the union issuing a statement saying: “The right to speak our minds and to disagree with each other – to disturb, even – is at the very heart of what it means to be a free people. It is not to be denied. Not by violence, not by the abuse of governmental power, nor by acts of corporate cowardice.”Carr further raised censorship concerns when he suggested that the FCC might be “looking into” The View, another ABC talkshow. Appearing on conservative podcast the Bulwark, Carr was asked if other shows could face similar issues.He said: “I think it’s worthwhile to have the FCC look into whether The View and some of these other programs that you have still qualify as bona fide news programs and therefore exempt from the equal-opportunity regime that Congress has put in place.”The View hosts did not comment about Kimmel during the show’s Thursday broadcast.View image in fullscreenDamon Lindelof, a powerful Hollywood showrunner and creator of the ABC series Lost and other dramas, has promised not to work with Disney unless it puts Kimmel back on the air.Lindelof wrote on Instagram: “I was shocked, saddened and infuriated by yesterday’s suspension and look forward to it being lifted soon. If it isn’t, I can’t in good conscience work for the company that imposed it.”He added: “If you know Jimmy … You know he loves his country. You know he appreciates a good roast and he can take as good as he gives. You know he supported his crew through multiple strikes and you know he is generous and philanthropic and most of all, you know that he is kind.”The feud between Trump and Kimmel stretches back years, most notably when Kimmel hosted the 2024 Academy Awards and Trump posted online calling him a “WORSE HOST”. Kimmel read that message out during the ceremony, and responded by asking Trump if it wasn’t “past your jail time?”The comedian also emerged as a vocal critic during Trump’s first term, leading the fight against Obamacare repeal efforts after revealing his newborn son’s heart surgery had been made possible by the Affordable Care Act.Kimmel is the second prominent US late-night host to lose his show in the past few months. CBS announced in July that it would be cancelling Stephen Colbert’s show after he was also critical of Trump.JD Vance added to the pile-on Thursday, joking on social media that secretary of state Marco Rubio would be taking over as host of ABC’s late night show, a quip referencing Rubio’s multiple roles in the Trump administration.Barack Obama condemned what he called a “dangerous” escalation by the Trump administration. “After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like,” Obama wrote on X.FCC commissioner Anna Gomez, a Democrat on the commission, also accused ABC of “shameful” corporate capitulation that “has put the foundation of the first amendment in danger”. She said the FCC “does not have the authority, the ability, or the constitutional right to police content or punish broadcasters for speech the government dislikes”.House Democratic leaders called for Carr’s resignation, accusing him of forcing ABC to suspend the show through regulatory threats.“Brendan Carr has engaged in the corrupt abuse of power,” said the Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, and five other lawmakers in a joint statement. “He has disgraced the office he holds by bullying ABC and forcing the company to bend the knee to the Trump administration.”Ro Khanna, a representative of California, issued a motion to subpoena Carr in the House oversight committee. “This administration has initiated the largest assault on the first amendment and free speech in modern history,” he said. “They’re making comedy illegal.”Democrats are also planning legislative action in response to what they see as escalating government censorship. Senator Chris Murphy and Congressman Jason Crow announced Thursday they will introduce bicameral legislation meant to protect anti-government speech from censorship and includes creating “a specific defense for those that are being targeted for political reasons”.In a press conference in Washington, Murphy warned that “Jimmy Kimmel is likely to not be the last person to lose their job, or face retaliation for their criticism of Donald Trump,” while Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer called the administration’s threats “an assault on everything this country has stood for since the constitution has been signed”.Chris Stein contributed reporting More

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      ‘Censor-in-chief’: Trump-backed FCC chair at heart of Jimmy Kimmel storm

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      “The FCC should promote freedom of speech,” Brendan Carr, now the chair of the Federal Communications Commission, wrote in his chapter on the agency in Project 2025, the conservative manifesto that detailed plans for a second Trump administration.It’s a view he’s held for a long time. He wrote on X in 2023 that “free speech is the counterweight – it is the check on government control. That is why censorship is the authoritarian’s dream.”And in 2019, in response to a Democratic commissioner saying the commission should regulate e-cigarette advertising, Carr wrote that the government should not seek to censor speech it does not like. “The FCC does not have a roving mandate to police speech in the name of the ‘public interest’,” he wrote on Twitter at the time.But Carr has found himself at the center of the much-criticized decision by ABC to indefinitely cancel Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show over comments the host made about Charlie Kirk’s killing. Despite the decision being, on its face, in opposition to free speech, Carr has used his position as chair of the commission, tasked with regulating communications networks, to go after broadcasters he deems are not operating in the “public interest”.Before he was named chair, Carr said publicly that “broadcast licenses are not sacred cows” and that he would seek to hold companies accountable if they didn’t operate in the public interest, a vague guideline set forth in the Communications Act of 1934. He has advocated for the FCC to “take a fresh look” at what operating in the public interest means.He knows the agency well: he was nominated by Trump to the commission in 2017 and was tapped by the president to be chair in January. He has also worked as an attorney at the agency and an adviser to then-commissioner Ajit Pai, who later became chair and appointed Carr as general counsel.Tom Wheeler, a former FCC chair appointed by Democratic president Barack Obama, said Carr is “incredibly bright” and savvy about using the broad latitude given to the chairman, “exploiting the vagaries in the term ‘the public interest’.”Instead of the deregulation Trump promised voters, the administration “delivered this kind of micromanagement”, Wheeler said.“It’s not the appropriate job of the FCC chairman to become the censor-in-chief,” Wheeler said.Since Kimmel’s suspension, Carr has said Kimmel’s comments were not jokes, but rather attempts to “directly mislead the American public about a significant fact”. During Monday’s show, Kimmel said that the “Maga gang” was “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and with everything they can to score political points from it”. The comments came before charging documents alleged the shooter had left-leaning viewpoints.Kimmel is just Carr’s latest target. As chair, he has used the agency’s formal investigatory power, and his own bully pulpit, to highlight supposed biases and extract concessions from media companies who fear backlash from the Trump administration if they don’t pre-emptively comply.The commission itself hasn’t directly sought these actions from broadcasters. Carr has instead said publicly what the commission could do – for instance, signaling he would not approve mergers for any companies that had diversity policies in place – and companies have responded by doing what he wants.Nexstar, a CBS affiliate operator which first said it would not air Kimmel’s show on the local channels it owns, wants to buy Tegna.Carr is honing a playbook, and so far it’s working. “It’s rinse and repeat,” Wheeler said. “I think we’ll continue to see it for as long as he can get away with it.”Top Democrats on Thursday called for Carr’s resignation, and some suggested they would find a way to hold Carr accountable, either now or if they regain power in Congress.The lone Democrat on the FCC, Anna Gomez, criticized Carr for “using the weight of government power to suppress lawful expression”. Gomez called ABC’s decision “a shameful show of cowardly corporate capitulation” that threatens the first amendment, and said the FCC is operating beyond its authority and outside the bounds of the constitution.“If it were to take the unprecedented step of trying to revoke broadcast licenses, which are held by local stations rather than national networks, it would run headlong into the first amendment and fail in court on both the facts and the law,” Gomez wrote in a statement. “But even the threat to revoke a license is no small matter. It poses an existential risk to a broadcaster, which by definition cannot exist without its license. That makes billion-dollar companies with pending business before the agency all the more vulnerable to pressure to bend to the government’s ideological demands.”Trump has cheered Carr as he collected wins against the president’s longtime foes in the media. On Wednesday, Trump called Kimmel’s suspension “Great News for America” and egged on NBC to fire Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, their late-night hosts.“Do it NBC!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.Amid the criticism of Carr, Trump said the FCC chair was doing a great job and was a “great patriot”.Breaking norms at the FCCAt the FCC, the chair has wide latitude and operates as a CEO of the agency, Wheeler said. There are four other commissioners, but the chair sets the agenda and approves every word of what ends up on an agenda, he said. The commissioners are by default in a reactionary position to the power of the chair.“What Chairman Carr has raised to a new art form is the ability to to achieve results without a formal decision by the commission and to use the coercive powers of the chairman,” Wheeler said.Without a formal decision by the commission, he said, there can’t be appeals or court reviews, one of the key ways outside groups have sought to hold the Trump administration accountable for its excesses.The agency has historically been more hands-off about the idea of the “public interest”. On the FCC’s website, for instance, it notes that the agency has “long held that ‘the public interest is best served by permitting free expression of views’” and that instead of suppressing speech, it should “encourage responsive ‘counter-speech’ from others.”In Trump’s first term, when Pai was chair, the president called for the agency to revoke broadcast licenses. At the time, Pai said, “the FCC does not have the authority to revoke a license of a broadcast station based on the content”.Wheeler and a former FCC chair appointed by a Republican, Al Sikes, noted in an op-ed earlier this year that Trump has also used executive orders to undermine the independence of the FCC, instead making it into a “blatantly partisan tool” subject to White House approval rather than an independent regulator.What Carr is trying to doIn an appearance on conservative host Benny Johnson’s show that proved fateful for Kimmel, Carr alluded to ways the commission could take action against the late-night host. Carr carefully explained that he could be called upon to judge any claims against the broadcasters while also calling Kimmel’s comments “some of the sickest conduct possible.”“But frankly, when you see stuff like this, I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel or, you know, there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”The companies could handle it by issuing on-air apologies or suspending Kimmel, Carr said. He cited the idea of the “public interest” but also claimed there was a case that Kimmel was engaging in “news distortion”. In further comments to Johnson, he talked about the declining relevance of broadcast networks and credited Trump for “smash[ing] the facade”.“We’re seeing a lot of consequences that are flowing from President Trump doing that,” Carr said. “Look, NPR has been defunded. PBS has been defunded. Colbert is retiring. Joy Reid is out at MSNBC. Terry Moran is gone and ABC is now admitting that they are biased. CBS has now made some commitments to us that they’re going to return to more fact-based journalism.“I think you see some lashing out from people like Kimmel, who are frankly talentless and are looking for ways to get attention, but their grip on the narrative is slipping. That doesn’t mean that it’s still not important to hold the public interest standard.” More