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Trump celebrates Jimmy Kimmel suspension as some networks replace show with Charlie Kirk tribute – US politics live

by Evelyn Reynolds 18 September 2025, 09:25

Here is a summary of the latest developments:

The Jimmy Kimmel Live! show has been indefinitely suspensded the after the late-night host made comments about the killing of Charlie Kirk. The ABC network, which Disney owns, announced on Wednesday night that it would remove Kimmel’s show from its schedule for the foreseeable future.

Politicians, media figures and free speech organisations expressed anger and alarm at the suspension of Kimmel’s late night show, warning that critics of Donald Trump were being systematically silenced. California governor Gavin Newsom said the Republican party “does not believe in free speech. They are censoring you in real time.”

Two of Hollywood’s biggest unions, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild, have voiced their support for Kimmel. WGA West wrote late on Wednesday: “As a guild, we stand united in opposition to anyone who uses their power and influence to silence the voices of writers, or anyone who speaks in dissent.” The American Federation of Musicians (AFM) strongly condemned the decision to take the late-night show off the air, describing it as “government overreach”.

Senator Elizabeth Warren joined a number of her Democratic colleagues in condemning the decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel’s programme, saying “giant media companies are enabling his [Donald Trump’s] authoritarianism.” Illinois governor JB Pritzker and senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii also weighed in on X with similar comments. Pritzker called it “an attack on free speech,” while Schatz said, “his was the govt using regulatory leverage to crush speech.”

Donald Trump called the move “great news for America” and congratulated ABC for its “courage” in a social media post.

There has been widespread glee among Trump officials and Maga followers after the news that Kimmel’s programme has been suspended. Nancy Mace, a Republican South Carolina representative who is running to be governor of South Carolina, celebrated in an impassioned post on X, claiming “we’re on a truth streak. President Trump is always right, YOU’RE FIRED”. Deputy White House chief of staff and cabinet secretary, Taylor Budowich, called it “consequence culture”.

ABC’s decision to suspend Kimmel came just minutes after one of the biggest owners of TV stations in the US, Nexstar Media, said it “strongly object[ed]” to his comments and would pre-empt any episodes of Jimmy Kimmel Live! set to air on the stations it owns across the country “for the foreseeable future”. Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns more ABC stations than any other TV conglomerate including Nexstar, announced it would run a tribute to Kirk during Kimmel’s timeslot on Friday.

Before ABC pulled Kimmel, the Federal Communications Commission chair, Brendan Carr, had urged local broadcasters to stop airing the show, saying they were “running the possibility of fines or licensed revocation from the FCC” during an appearance on the right-wing commentator Benny Johnson’s podcast. On Wednesday night Carr thanked Nexstar “for doing the right thing” in a statement on social media.

Donald Trump called the move “great news for America” and congratulated ABC for its “courage” in a social media post.

A number of figures in US comedy have reacted with shock to the decision to pull Jimmy Kimmel from the air. Comedian Mike Birbiglia wrote that he had long defended comedians with views he didn’t agree with, adding: “If you’re a comedian and you don’t call out the insanity of pulling Kimmel off the air – don’t bother spouting off about free speech any more.” Comedian Michael Kosta, who occasionally hosts the Daily Show, wrote: “This is a serious moment in American history. TV networks MUST push back. This is complete BS.”
In reaction to the news that Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show has been indefinitely suspended, the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) said that “Trump’s FCC identified speech it did not like and threatened ABC with extreme reprisals. This is state censorship.”On X, the president of the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada, Tino Gagliardi, issued a statement in response to ABC taking Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which employs musicians from the American Federation of Musicians Local 47 in Los Angeles, off the air. In it he said:
This is not complicated: Trump’s FCC identified speech it did not like and theatened ABC with extreme reprisals. This is state censorship. It’s now happening in the United States of America, not some far-off country. It’s happening right here and right now.
This act by the Trump administration represents a direct attack on free speech and artistic expression. These are fundamental rights that we must protect in a free society. The American Federation of Musicians strongly condemns the decision to take Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air.
We stand in solidarity with all those who will be without work because of government overreach.
Two of Hollywood’s biggest unions, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild, have voiced their support for Jimmy Kimmel after his show was suspended by ABC.“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,” WGA West wrote late on Wednesday.
As a Guild, we stand united in opposition to anyone who uses their power and influence to silence the voices of writers, or anyone who speaks in dissent. If free speech applied only to ideas we like, we needn’t have bothered to write it into the constitution. What we have signed on to – painful as it may be at times – is the freeing agreement to disagree.”
“Shame on those in government who forget this founding truth.”Meanwhile Sag-Aftra, which represents about 170,000 actors, journalists and many more professions across the media and entertainment industries, said it “condemns” Kimmel’s suspension.Their statement read:
Democracy thrives when diverse points of view are expressed.
The decision to suspend airing Jimmy Kimmel Live! is the type of suppression and retaliation that endangers everyone’s freedoms. Sag-Aftra stands with all media artists and defends their right to express their diverse points of view, and everyone’s right to hear them.
Jimmy Kimmel and Donald Trump have a history of feuding and trading barbs.When Kimmel hosted the 2024 Academy Awards, Trump posted online “Has there EVER been a WORSE HOST than Jimmy Kimmel at The Oscars. His opening was that of a less than average person trying too hard to be something which he is not, and never can be.”Kimmel read the missive out during the ceremony and responded by saying he was “surprised” Trump was still awake, asking, “Isn’t it past your jail time?” in reference to the numerous cases that were then making their way through the courts.In 2017, during Trump’s first term, Kimmel emerged as an unlikely leader in the fight to save Obamacare. He dedicated a number of monologues on his programme to pushing back against efforts to to tear up the Affordable Care Act (ACA).He revealed in a tearful speech that his son, Billy, had been born with a heart defect and nearly died. Kimmel said that thanks to the top-of-the-line healthcare, his surgery was successful.When announcing that it would pull Jimmy Kimmel’s programme, TV station operator Nexstar Communications Group called comments the comedian had made about Charlie Kirk’s death “offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse.”Supporters of Donald Trump have praised the decision, with the White House deputy chief of staff calling it an example of “consequence culture.”But what did Kimmel actually say that raised the ire of the president’s Maga movement?During his Monday evening monologue, Kimmel suggested Kirk’s alleged killer, Tyler Robinson, might have been a pro-Trump Republican.“The Maga Gang [is] desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said.It appears this was the comment that most angered Trump supporters and officials.In an interview earlier on Wednesday, the Trump-appointed head of the US media regulator said it appeared to be a “concerted effort to try to lie to the American people.”Jimmy Kimmel also mentioned reaction to the death of Kirk on his Tuesday programme as well, saying “many in Maga-land are working very hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk”.Referencing vice-president JD Vance’s comment while guest-hosting Kirk’s podcast, Kimmel said “the president and his henchmen are doing their best to fan the flames, so they can I guess attack people on the dangerous left.”Free speech groups have reacted with alarm to the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s programme, with one calling it a “new McCarthyism.”Truth Wins Out (TWO), an anti-extremism nonprofit said it was part of a “dangerous right‑wing ‘Cancel Crusade’ that has weaponized outrage to silence dissent and intimidate media outlets.”
If this dire situation continues, the only people left on the air will be Baghdad Bob and that anchorwoman in North Korea. This is a new McCarthyism that has expanded the boundaries of ‘woke’ to once unimaginable dimensions. It is chilling the free press and punishing truth‑tellers.”
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression has said that the ABC network “caved” to pressure from the US government.
The timing of ABC’s decision, on the heels of the FCC chairman’s pledge to the network to “do this the easy way or the hard way,” tells the whole story. Another media outlet withered under government pressure, ensuring that the administration will continue to extort and exact retribution on broadcasters and publishers who criticize it.”
In a statement, the advocacy group went on to say that the US “cannot be a country where late night talk show hosts serve at the pleasure of the president. But until institutions grow a backbone and learn to resist government pressure, that is the country we are.”Earlier on Wednesday, the chair of the US media regulator, Brendan Carr, appeared on a rightwing podcast and threatened broadcasters’ licenses if action was not taken against Jimmy Kimmel.In the interview with Benny Johnson, Carr suggested suspending Kimmel could be an appropriate action from ABC.Carr was responding to comments from Kimmel on Monday, in which he said that “we hit some new lows over the weekend with the Maga gang desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”Carr called Kimmel’s comments an attempt to “play into a narrative that this was somehow a Maga or Republican motivated person.”After ABC’s announcement hours later, Johnson boasted online that it was his interview with Carr that had led to Kimmel’s suspension. “It’s called soft power,” he said. “The Left uses it all the time. Thanks to President Trump, the Right has learned how to wield power as well.”There has been widespread glee among Trump officials and Maga followers to the news that Jimmy Kimmel’s programme has beens suspended.Nancy Mace, a Republican South Carolina representative who is running to be governor of South Carolina, celebrated in an impassioned post on X, claiming “we’re on a truth streak. President Trump is always right, YOU’RE FIRED”.The deputy White House chief of staff and cabinet secretary, Taylor Budowich, called it “consequence culture”.
Normal, common sense Americans are no longer taking the bullshit and companies like ABC are finally willing to do the right and reasonable thing.”
Rightwing commentator Megyn Kelly said of Kimmel’s suspension “MAGA has f&cking HAD IT. We are ANGRY. We are INCENSED”.Commentator Matt Walsh said Kimmel “deserves to be fired”.
These are the repercussions that conservatives have been experiencing for years for infractions not nearly as egregious.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren has joined a number of her Democratic colleagues in condemning the decisions to suspend Jimmy Kimmel’s programme, saying “giant media companies are enabling his authoritarianism.”
First Colbert, now Kimmel. Last-minute settlements, secret side deals, multi-billion dollar mergers pending Donald Trump’s approval. Trump silencing free speech stifles our democracy. It sure looks like giant media companies are enabling his authoritarianism.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii also weighed in on X with similar comments. Pritzker called it “an attack on free speech,” while Schatz said, “his was the govt using regulatory leverage to crush speech.”“This is censorship in action,” said Senator Ed Markey.
FCC chair threatens ABC and Disney over Kimmel’s comments. Hours later, he’s off air. It’s dangerous and unconstitutional. The message to every media company is clear: Adopt the Maga line or the Federal Censorship Commission will come after you.”
The stunning decision on Wednesday to suspend one of the United States’ most popular and influential late-night shows has come as Donald Trump and his allies have threatened to crack down on criticism of Charlie Kirk, the rightwing activist killed last week.Jimmy Kimmel’s show was taken off the air “indefinitely” after the host was criticised for comments about the motives behind the killing Kirk and the president’s reaction to the event.The move was immediately welcomed by Trump, who hailed it as “Great News for America.”
The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED. Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done.”
Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns or operates dozens of local ABC stations across the US, has said it will replace Kimmel’s programme on Friday with a tribute to Charlie Kirk.In a statement posted online, Sinclair praised the Federal Communications Commission chair, Brendan Carr, for threatening the licenses of stations that defended Kimmel’s right to free speech, and called the comic’s remarks “inappropriate and deeply insensitive”.The company owns ABC affiliates in dozens of cities, including: Washington DC; St Louis, Missouri; Portland, Oregon; Seattle, Washington and Tulsa, Oklahoma.It pledged to keep Kimmel’s show off its stations “until formal discussions are held with ABC regarding the network’s commitment to professionalism and accountability.”Hello and welcome to live coverage of the latest news in the US amid the fallout from the indefinite suspension of the Jimmy Kimmel Live! show after the late-night host’s comments about the killing of Charlie Kirk. The ABC network, which Disney owns, announced on Wednesday night that it would remove Kimmel’s show from its schedule for the foreseeable future.Here is a summary of the latest developements:

Donald Trump called the move “great news for America” and congratulated ABC for its “courage” in a social media post.

ABC’s decision to suspend Kimmel came just minutes after one of the biggest owners of TV stations in the US, Nexstar Media, said it “strongly object[ed]” to his comments and would preempt any episodes of Jimmy Kimmel Live! set to air on the stations it owns across the country “for the foreseeable future”. Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns more ABC stations than any other TV conglomerate including Nexstar, announced it would run a tribute to Kirk during Kimmel’s timeslot on Friday.

Before ABC pulled Kimmel, the Federal Communications Commission chair, Brendan Carr, had urged local broadcasters to stop airing the show, saying they were “running the possibility of fines or licensed revocation from the FCC” during an appearance on the rightwing commentator Benny Johnson’s podcast. On Wednesday night Carr thanked Nexstar “for doing the right thing” in a statement on social media.

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Moment Jimmy Kimmel makes Charlie Kirk comments that see him ‘indefinitely’ taken off air – video
by Evelyn Reynolds 18 September 2025, 08:42
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Several people fired after clampdown on speech over Charlie Kirk shooting
by Evelyn Reynolds 13 September 2025, 17:00
Reactions on social media to the murder of far-right activist Charlie Kirk have cost multiple people their jobs as authorities in numerous states clamp down on critical commentary.Among those to have been fired, suspended or censured in recent days for their opinions include teachers, firefighters, journalists, politicians, a Secret Service employee, a junior strategist at Nasdaq and a worker for a prominent NFL team.The dismissals come as the administration of Donald Trump promises to take action against foreign nationals it deems to be “praising, rationalizing or making light of” Kirk’s killing, himself a fervent free speech advocate.Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, meanwhile, has ordered staff “to find and identify military members, and any individual associated with the Pentagon, who have mocked or appeared to condone Charlie Kirk’s murder”, NBC News reported Friday.The outlet, citing two defense department officials, said several members of the military were relieved of their duties because of social media posts – and that “dozens” more, including civilian Pentagon employees, had been “called out on X”.Along with government efforts to clamp down, a number of conservative figures and groups are attempting to collate and expose examples of commentary seen as objectionable.Others have been subjected to torrents of online abuse or seen their offices flooded with calls demanding they be fired, part of a surge in rightwing rage that has followed the killing.Some Republicans want to go further still and have proposed deporting Kirk’s critics from the United States, suing them into penury or banning them from social media for life.Laura Loomer, a Trump loyalist, posted to X: “Prepare to have your whole future professional aspirations ruined if you are sick enough to celebrate his death. I’m going to make you wish you never opened your mouth.”Republican congressman Clay Higgins said in a post on X that anyone who “ran their mouth with their smartass hatred celebrating the heinous murder of that beautiful young man” needed to be “banned from ALL PLATFORMS FOREVER”. The US deputy secretary of state, Christopher Landau, said on the same site that he had been disgusted to “see some on social media praising, rationalizing, or making light of the event, and have directed our consular officials to undertake appropriate action”.Republicans’ anger at those disrespecting Kirk’s legacy contrasts with the mockery some of the same figures – including Kirk – directed at past victims of political violence, Reuters reported.For example, when former House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, was clubbed over the head by a hammer-wielding conspiracy theorist during a break-in at their San Francisco home shortly before the 2022 midterm elections, Higgins posted a photo making fun of the attack. He later deleted the post.Loomer falsely suggested that Paul Pelosi and his assailant were lovers, calling the brutal assault on the octogenarian a “booty call gone wrong”. Speaking to a television audience a few days after the attack, a grinning Kirk called for the intruder to be sprung from jail.“If some amazing patriot out there in San Francisco or the Bay Area wants to really be a midterm hero, someone should go and bail this guy out,” he said.Loomer and Higgins did not return messages to Reuters seeking comment.Scott Presler, a far-right activist with 2.3 million followers on X, asked for tips about teachers “celebrating Kirk’s death” – and he has shared posts and social media profiles of alleged wrongdoers, including details of their workplaces, Time reported.In Florida, the state’s board of education issued a proactive memorandum specifically warning school employees not to post any personal viewpoints that “may undermine the trust of the students and families that they serve”.Two educators in Clay county were removed from their classrooms and placed under state investigation on Thursday, one an elementary school teacher who posted to her personal social media account an article about the shooting, and the words: “This may not be the obituary we were all hoping to wake up to, but it is a close second for me.”The other, a high school counselor, alluded in a post to Kirk’s position, expressed in 2023, that it was “worth it” to have “some gun deaths every single year” to protect the “God-given right” of gun ownership.The counselor wrote, “37 years in public education, ready to take a bullet for my kids. No I’m not shedding a tear, he chose to sacrifice himself for the rights [to] be protected. Karma’s a bitch.”The comments were “egregious” and “hateful”, Jennifer Bradley, a Republican state senator, said in a statement.Arguably the most prominent individual to lose employment was Matthew Dowd, a veteran political analyst fired by MSNBC for suggesting on air that Kirk’s radical rhetoric may have contributed to the violence that killed him.“Hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions,” Dowd said, adding: “You can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and then not expect awful actions to take place.”The network and Dowd issued separate apologies. But in a Substack article published Friday, Dowd said he was the victim of a “rightwing media mob”, and that his words had been misconstrued because he spoke before knowing Kirk was the target or had been fired upon.Most of those who have been fired or suspended, however, are people in regular jobs whose comments displeased their employers or were otherwise exposed. They include a Secret Service agent who said Kirk “spewed hate and racism on his show” and “you can’t circumvent karma”.The Carolina Panthers, an American football franchise, fired a communications coordinator who asked on Instagram: “Why are y’all sad? Your man said it was worth it,” another reference to Kirk’s previous comments on the constitution’s second amendment, guaranteeing Americans the right to bear arms.A reporter covering pro basketball’s Phoenix Suns lost his job for posting comments including: “Truly don’t care if you think it’s insensitive or poor timing to decline to respect an evil man who died.”A New Orleans firefighter was reportedly thrust under investigation by her employer after posting – then deleting – a social media comment that called the bullet that struck Kirk “a gift from god”.Delta Air Lines announced it had suspended employees over “social media content related to Kirk’s killing that the company judged to have gone “well beyond healthy, respectful debate”. According to a statement signed by Delta’s chief executive officer Ed Bastian, the suspensions would remain in effect pending an investigation, and the company made it a point to say “violations of our social media policy can carry meaningful consequences, including termination”.Separately, American Airlines issued a statement on social media saying “employees who promote such violence on social media were immediately removed from service”.“We will continue to initiate action with team members who display this kind of behavior,” American Airlines’ statement said.The Hill gave numerous other examples of workers, including nurses, university employees, and others, fired or disciplined for their comments. A teacher in Oregon, it said, lost their job for saying Kirk’s death had “really brightened up my day”.Reuters contributed reporting More
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Nigel Farage clashes with Democrat members over free speech – video
by Evelyn Reynolds 4 September 2025, 09:28
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Trump’s border intimidation is coming for US citizens too – ask streamer Hasan Piker | Owen Jones
by Evelyn Reynolds 13 May 2025, 16:23
Where are all the free speech warriors on the right now? Hasan Piker, a popular streamer with 4.5 million followers across YouTube and Twitch, who has been hailed by mainstream publications such as the New Yorker and New York Times as the left’s answer to the deluge of rightwing internet influencers, says he was detained and questioned for hours by border control agents as he re-entered the US (Piker is a US citizen). It is an instructive moment. Countries that behave like this towards political commentators and dissenting voices who are their own citizens are either nakedly authoritarian, or well on the way.Piker was reportedly interrogated at length not just about Hamas, the Houthis and Hezbollah, but his views on Donald Trump. The 33-year-old pundit – an unapologetic champion of the Palestinian cause – stuck to a message of opposing “endless bloodshed” and siding with civilians. That the biggest progressive streamer in the US was subjected to this experience is emblematic of a phenomenon that requires an accurate and insistent description: it is the biggest assault on free speech in the west since the height of McCarthyism seven decades ago.When foreign-born citizens – including green card holders – began to be detained by US authorities over their opposition to Israel’s genocide, it should have been clear that this was just phase one: US citizens would be next. Sure, Piker wasn’t arrested, but the authorities are pushing the boundaries bit by bit. The numbers of foreign visitors entering the US are falling as it is, undoubtedly driven by fears of a punitive border regime. But Piker’s detention sends a message to Americans with dissenting opinions – not least opponents of Israel’s genocide. The threat of being stopped at the border and subjected to lengthy interrogation simply because of what you think is straightforward political intimidation. It won’t stop there.That the vice-president, JD Vance, railed against Europe for a supposed war on free speech underlines what a sham this favoured narrative of the right always was. Weeks later, his boss announced that universities allowing “illegal” protests would be starved of federal cash – with Columbia University losing $400m despite having clamped down on pro-Palestinian protests – and dissenting students would be variously expelled, arrested, imprisoned or deported. Alas, it was under the Biden administration that the McCarthyite blacklisting-style campaign began, with defenders of Palestinian rights being variously deplatformed, fired and threatened.Indeed, Vance could have noted how European countries such as Germany have assaulted free speech by silencing pro-Palestinian activists: from imposing crippling restrictions on protests and violently assaulting demonstrators to shutting down conferences, sacking people who speak out and now seeking to deport activists, too. Alas, it’s not really free speech that Vance is interested in, but rather advancing far-right politics.If we’re going to discuss who is being stopped at the border, let’s discuss the astonishing 23,380 US citizens who serve in the IDF, according to figures quoted in the Washington Post a year ago. Many of them are undoubtedly committing unspeakable war crimes in Israel’s genocidal onslaught. Yet they are being waved through the border. And that really sums it up. If like Piker, you speak out against genocide, you are liable to be treated as a criminal as you enter your own country. If you’re a US citizen serving in a foreign army committing heinous atrocities, you’re more likely to be treated as a hero. The world is turned on its head.
Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist
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To my husband, Mahmoud Khalil: I can’t wait to tell our son of his father’s bravery | Noor Abdalla
by Evelyn Reynolds 8 April 2025, 18:58
Exactly a month ago, you were taken from me. This is the longest we have been apart since we got married. I miss you more and more every day and as the days draw us closer to the arrival of our child, I am haunted by the uncertainty that looms over me – the possibility that you might not be there for this monumental moment. Every kick, every cramp, every small flutter I feel inside me serves as an inescapable reminder of the family we’ve dreamed of building together. Yet, I am left to navigate this profound journey alone, while you endure the cruel and unjust confines of a detention center.I could not be more proud of you, Mahmoud. You embody everything I ever hoped for in a partner and the father of my children. What more could I ask for as a role model for our children than a man who, with unwavering conviction, stands up for the liberation of his people, fully cognizant of the consequences of speaking truth to power? Your courage is boundless, and now more than ever, I am in awe of your strength and determination. Your voice, your belief in justice, and your refusal to be silenced are the very qualities that make you the man I love and admire.We will not forget those who have orchestrated this injustice, the government officials and university administrators who have targeted you without cause, without any shred of evidence to justify their actions. They sit in their ivory towers, scrambling to fabricate lies and distort the truth, throwing accusations like stones in the hope that something will stick. What they fail to realize is that their efforts are futile. Their wrongful detention of you is a testament to the fact that you have struck a nerve. You’ve disrupted the false narratives they’ve worked so hard to maintain, and spoken a truth that they are too terrified to acknowledge. What more do we have than our fundamental right to free speech, when they constantly attempt to strip us of our dignity, telling us we are unworthy of life, of respect, of voice? Now, they seek to punish that very speech, to silence the words that challenge their corrupt and oppressive systems.They are trying to silence you. They are trying to silence anyone who dares to speak out against the atrocities happening in Palestine. But they will fail. We will not be silenced. We will persist, with even greater resolve, and we will pass that strength on to our children and our children’s children – until Palestine is free. I eagerly await the day when I can tell our son the stories of his father’s bravery, of the courage that courses through his veins, and of the pride he should feel to carry Palestinian blood … your blood. And, more than anything, I pray that he will not have to grow up fighting the same fight for our basic freedoms.We will be reunited soon. Until then, I will continue to fight for you, for us and for our family. Your resilience and your courage will guide us through the storm. You are my best friend, my comrade, the very air that sustains me when it feels as though there is none left. I know your spirit is unwavering, that they cannot break you, and that you will emerge from this stronger than ever. I have no doubt that, when you are finally released, you will raise your hands in the air, chanting: “Free Palestine.”
Dr Noor Abdalla is a dentist and a soon-to-be mother. She is the wife of Mahmoud Khalil More
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Just like McCarthy, Trump spreads fear everywhere before picking off his targets | Kenan Malik
by Evelyn Reynolds 30 March 2025, 06:30
‘Gold, mister, is worth what it is because of the human labor that goes into the finding and getting of it.” It’s a line spoken by Walter Huston in the 1948 film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, a story about greed and moral corruption directed by his son, John Huston. That line was to have appeared on screen at the beginning of the film. It didn’t, on orders from the studio, Warner Bros. “It was all on account of the word ‘labor’,” John Huston later reflected. “That word looks dangerous in print, I guess.”It was a relatively insignificant moment in the drama of America’s postwar red scare. McCarthyism proper had still to take flight. Yet, so deep ran the fear already that a single, everyday word could create consternation in Hollywood.McCarthyism, the historian Ellen Schrecker has observed, “was a peculiarly American style of repression – nonviolent and consensual. Only two people were killed; only a few hundred went to jail.” Yet it constituted “one of the most severe episodes of political repression the United States ever experienced”.Sackings and legal sanctions created such fear that, in the words of the political philosopher Corey Robin, society was put “on lockdown”, with people so “petrified of being punished for their political beliefs” that “they drew in their political limbs”.It was not just communists who were silenced. “If someone insists that there is discrimination against Negroes in this country, or that there is an inequality of wealth,” claimed the chair of one state committee on un-American activities, “there is every reason to believe that person is a communist.” This at a time when Jim Crow still held the south in its grip. The red scare paused the civil rights movement for more than a decade and drew the teeth of union radicalism.Fear has always been a means of enforcing social order, most obviously in authoritarian states, from China to Saudi Arabia, Turkey to Russia, where repression becomes the foundation of political rule. In liberal democracies, order rests more on consensus than overt brutality. But here, too, fear plays its role. The worker’s fear of being sacked, the claimant’s of being sanctioned, the renter’s of being made homeless, the fear of the working-class mother facing a social worker or of the black teenager walking past a policeman – relations of power are also relations of fear, but fears usually so sublimated that we simply accept that that’s the way the system works.It is when consensus ruptures, when social conflict erupts, or when the authorities need to assert their power, that liberal democracies begin wielding fear more overtly as a political tool to quieten dissent or impose authority. Think of how the British state treated Irish people in the 1970s and 1980s, or miners during the great strike of 1984/85.Seventy years on from McCarthyism, America seems to be entering such a moment. Over the past month, we have seen the mass deportation to a notorious foreign jail of hundreds of people declared to be illegal immigrants and gang members, without evidence or due process; the arrest, detention and threatened deportation of foreign students, including Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk, Momodou Taal and Yunseo Chung, for protesting about the war in Gaza; the blacklisting of law firms representing clients of whom Donald Trump does not approve; the mass sackings of federal workers.Fear works here in two ways. The targets of repression are groups about whom it is easier to create fear, and so easier to deprive of rights and due process. Doing so then creates a wider climate of fear in which people become less willing to speak out, and not just about Palestine. Already, “whole segments of American society [are] running scared”, as one observer put it.Institutions such as universities, Schrecker concluded about the 1950s, “did not fight McCarthyism” but “contributed to it”, not only through dismissals and blacklists but also through accepting “the legitimacy of what the congressional committees and other official investigators were doing”, thereby conferring “respectability upon the most repressive elements” of the process.It’s a process repeating itself today. Earlier this month, after cancelling $400m (£310m) in federal grants and contracts, Trump made a series of demands of Columbia University, including that it change its disciplinary rules, place the Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies department under “academic receivership” and adopt the contested International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism that its own lead drafter, Kenneth Stern, condemns as having been “weaponised” into “a blunt instrument to label anyone an antisemite” and to “go after pro-Palestinian speech”. Last week, Columbia capitulated.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMichael Roth, the president of Wesleyan University, one of the few academic leaders willing to speak out, decries “the greatest pressure put on intellectual life since the McCarthy era”, describing “anticipatory obedience” as “a form of cowardice”. Cowardice, though, has become the defining trait, most university leaders “just happy that Columbia is the whipping boy”. Columbia may be the first university in Trump’s crosshairs, but it won’t be the last. Keeping silent won’t save them.In his incendiary speech in Munich in February, the US vice-president, JD Vance, harangued European leaders to worry less about Russia than “the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values”, especially free speech. The same, it would seem, applies to America, too. Many of those who previously so vigorously upheld the importance of free speech have suddenly lost their voice or now believe that speech should be free only for those with the right kinds of views. The brazen hypocrisy of Vance, and of the fair-weather supporters of free speech, should nevertheless not lead us to ignore the fact that, from more intrusive policing of social media to greater restrictions on our ability to protest to the disciplining, even sacking, of workers holding “gender-critical views”, these are issues to which we urgently need to attend.“I live in an age of fear,” lamented the essayist and author EB White in 1947, after the New York Herald had suggested that all employees be forced to declare their political beliefs to retain their jobs. He was, he insisted, less worried “that there were communists in Hollywood” than to “read your editorial in praise of loyalty testing and thought control”. It is a perspective as vital now as it was then, and as necessary on this side of the Atlantic as in America. More
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‘Trump derangement syndrome’ and the Goldwater rule for psychiatrists | Letter
by Evelyn Reynolds 26 March 2025, 17:09
A bill was recently introduced to the Minnesota legislature to categorise “Trump derangement syndrome” as a mental illness. The proposed bill defines the syndrome as characterised by “verbal expressions of intense hostility toward” Donald Trump and “overt acts of aggression and violence against anyone supporting [Trump] or anything that symbolises [Trump].”Such a bill obviously infringes on our constitutional right to freely criticise our elected leaders and can serve as a stepping stone towards labelling and punishing political opponents under the guise of utilising a variety of compulsory psychiatric interventions. However, this bill is reminiscent of anti-Trump mental health professionals who have opined that President Trump poses a great danger because of a severe personality disorder.Clearly, a psychiatric diagnosis can only be made by mental health professionals who are licensed to do so, and only after having examined a patient. It poses great danger to our society both when legislators use their political power to impose a psychiatric label on their political opponents and when mental health professionals misapply their expertise to give a psychiatric label to those whom they fear.In the 1960s, many psychiatrists opined on the mental health of the Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. As a result of that controversy, in 1973 the American Psychiatric Association developed the “Goldwater rule”, which applies to public figures. It states that it is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a proper authorisation for such a statement.This rule is still in effect, though much too often broken. Perhaps we need to develop a comparable national rule prohibiting political personnel, both elected and appointed, from creating psychiatric diagnoses as a tool against their political opponents.Leon Hoffman Psychiatrist, New York City, US More
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There can be no ‘Israel exception’ for free speech | Kenneth Roth
by Evelyn Reynolds 14 March 2025, 15:00
The Trump administration’s threatened deportation of Mahmoud Khalil seems to reflect a dangerous disregard for freedom of expression – a blatant example of official censorship to curb criticism of Israel.Khalil was a recent graduate of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. He holds a green card, giving him permanent residence status, and is married to a US citizen. They are expecting their first child soon. Immigration agents arrested him last week in his university housing and sent him for detention from New York City to Louisiana. He had been a leader of protests against Israeli war crimes in Gaza.Beyond that, the facts are contested. His friends called him “kind, expressive and gentle”. A Columbia professor described him as “someone who seeks mediated resolutions through speech and dialogue. This is not someone who engages in violence, or gets people riled up to do dangerous things.”But Donald Trump, hailing his arrest, suggested Khalil was among students “who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity”. The administration has presented no facts to back up these assertions, but even were it to do so, the suggestion that permissible speech can be a basis for deportation is deeply troubling. Trump vowed more such deportation efforts.Ordinarily, the first amendment protects even offensive speech. Although the government retains greater latitude to deport non-citizens, Trump’s rhetoric suggests an intention to step way over the line of propriety. What does it mean to be “anti-American”? As we saw during the McCarthy era, people can face that accusation for a wide range of legitimate political views. Such campaigns are the antithesis of the free debate that is essential for US democracy.As for the charge of “antisemitism”, Trump seems to be fueling a disturbing tendency to use claims of antisemitism to silence criticism of the Israeli government. Antisemitism is a serious problem that threatens Jews around the world. But if people see accusations of antisemitism as mere efforts to censor critics of Israel, it would cheapen the concept at a time when the defense against real antisemitism is urgently needed.Even Trump’s unsupported suggestion that Khalil is “pro-terrorist” needs unpacking. To begin with, opposing Israel’s indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on Palestinian civilians, as well as its starvation of them, does not make anyone pro-terrorist. Israel is required to carry out its military response to Hamas’s appalling murders and abductions of 7 October 2023 in accordance with international humanitarian law. War crimes by one side never support war crimes by the other. Pointing that out, if that’s what Khalil did, does not make him “pro-terrorist”; it makes him pro-civilian.The Trump administration’s retaliation against Khalil is part of its larger attack on campus protests against Israeli war crimes in Gaza. Just days earlier, the administration announced the withdrawal of $400m in federal funding from Columbia for supposedly failing to protect Jewish students and faculty during anti-Israel protests, the vast majority of which were entirely peaceful. Other universities have now been threatened with a similar suspension of their funding.Coincidentally, I spoke on the Columbia campus days before Khalil’s detention. As a Jew, I did not feel the least bit threatened. Indeed, many of the protesters against Israeli atrocities have been Jewish. Again, Trump’s pretext for censoring critics of Israel is transparently thin.If we tolerate an Israel exception to our rights of free speech, we can be sure that other exceptions will follow. Trump likes to half-jokingly refer to himself as a “king”. Are we heading toward a Thailand-style lèse majesté under which criticism of the king is criminalized?But censoring criticism of Israel is a poor strategy even for protecting Israel. Trump’s plan to “solve” Israel’s Palestinian problem by forcibly deporting millions of Palestinians would be a huge war crime; it has been rightly rejected by the Arab states that Trump envisioned receiving the refugees or later paying to rebuild Gaza.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionFailing that plan, the Israeli government would prefer the status quo – endless occupation – but the world increasingly rejects that option as apartheid, as did the international court of justice in July. Another option would be to recognize the “one-state reality” created by Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, but the Israeli government refuses to provide equal rights to all residents. Roughly the same number of Jews and Arabs like between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, so Israel would lose its Jewish majority.The most realistic, legal and enduring option remains a two-state solution, an Israeli and Palestinian state living side by side in peace. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has devoted his political career to avoiding a Palestinian state, but it is the best prospect for lasting peace.In pressing Netanyahu to agree to the current temporary ceasefire in Gaza, Trump showed his capacity to exert pressure on the Israeli government to take steps toward peace that it resists. He could do the same for a two-state solution.But to build a political support for this important step, we need free debate in the United States. Trump’s efforts to censor criticism of Israeli misconduct is a recipe for endless war and atrocities. Free speech is required if we hope to do better. Trump should reverse his misguided effort to deport Khalil.
Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch (1993-2022), is a visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. His book Righting Wrongs was just published by Knopf More

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