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.