TJ Walker examines conservative reactions to Charlie Kirk's assassination, featuring Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro, and Ted Cruz warning against government overreach on speech. Walker contrasts calls to punish critics with free-speech principles and discusses how corporate pressure and FCC authority complicate the response.
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Conservative backlash to free speech crackdowns the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's assassination has split conservatives on the issue of free speech. Many are demanding consequences for those critical of Kirk, while others warn about government overreach. Tucker Carlson told listeners, you hope that a year from now, the turmoil we're seeing in the aftermath of this murder won't be leveraged to bring hate speech laws to this country. If that does happen, there is never a more justified moment for civil disobedience than that. Ever. Prominent conservative Ben Shapiro added, while I was no fan of Jimmy Kimmel, I don't like the idea of the FCC threatening broadcasters over content. Why? Because one day the shoe will be on the other foot. If a Democratic president went after Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity, conservatives would properly call that massive regulatory overreach. And Senator Ted Cruz compared FCC pressure to mob tactics, saying, that's right out of Goodfellows, that's right out of Mafioso. Coming into a bar going, nice bar you have here. Be ashamed if something happened to it. The debate has exposed a real tension inside the conservative movement. Protect Kirk's legacy at all cost or preserve the principle of free speech. Okay, what's the real message here? I applaud conservatives like Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro and even Ted Cruz for having the tiniest little bit of a backbone and intellectual consistency. They are rightly saying, the idea that you're going to put Jimmy Kimmel out of business for saying something that might hurt somebody's feelings is completely against the principle of free speech in America, and it should be. Paul, let's go a little bit deeper. What does this really mean? What's the deeper message here? Look, I understand in the heat of the moment and the passions of the moment, as a terrible activity like this can do, people say and do crazy things. It is time to reflect. It is time to calm down and realize just because something you don't like happens or is said doesn't mean there's a big government solution to it. Now, conservatives, to their credit, have been telling us this for years and years and years and years. So it's a bit ironic to hear them, as they have in the last month, week or so say, oops, this city councilman or this woman who worked at FedEx said something critical of somebody we like. It's not that they called for violence. It's not that they plotted death, but they said something. We criticize somebody we like. Therefore, we want to use the gov, the power of government to fire them, to have them eliminated. And we want to form lynch mobs to essentially force them to get fired. That's bizarre. That's anti American, that's anti free speech, that's anti the Constitution. And you can call it woke. There's certainly a case to be made that there's a huge problem of right wing wokeism in America today. And as much as you didn't like a college professor being fired a couple of years ago for not using the right pronoun, you can't very well turn around and say, but it's fine to fire a comedian because they hurt my feelings because they said a joke that I didn't agree with 100%. Which fact check. Nobody should ever agree 100% with the facts. Any comedian presents, they're supposed to exaggerate for comedic effect. So I'm glad. And again, I do want to praise Ted Cruz, Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro for having at least a tiny shred of intellectual honesty and pointing out that you might not like Jimmy Kimmel, but this idea that the government is going to decide what comedians can make what jokes is a little bit. It's not a little bit too much. It's way, way, way too much. So we'll see how this backlash continues. If you are troubled by ABC doing this, speak out. I don't think ABC is the real villain here, frankly, because imagine you are the head of abc. You're Bob Iger. You're in this impossible situation. You've got somebody, head of the FCC who controls your broadcasting license who can say, oh, we're taking them away. You're off the air. If that happens, you're out of business. You can't sell advertising if you can't get on the air. So you have to fire all your employees and you have to tell all your stockholders, hey, not only is the stock price not going up, but it's going to go way, way, way down. Maybe denominator. So that's a pretty ugly situation that no CEO wants to put themselves in. So does he have. Is he going to go down in history and profiles and courage? No. But the real bad guy here isn't even Brendan Carr, the head of the fcc. This all stems from the top, all flowing from the top. Who is the boss of the sec? That is where the rot is starting and that's where it needs to be addressed. I'm TJ Walker. I really appreciate you watching today. This is a. I wouldn't say a special Saturday edition because I'm here with you every Saturday. There's nothing else I'd rather be doing I love spending time with you. Whether you're here with me on TikTok today, and I love seeing all the continual red hearts flowing there. Whether you're with me on Facebook, LinkedIn, X Instagram, Twitch. So happy that you're with us live. If you're listening to this on Demand on Spotify, on itunes, on Apple Podcasts, on Amazon Music, thank you for listening and please take a moment to leave a review. Subscribe Follow if you haven't done that yet.
