When Donald Trump returned to power in January 2025, he leaned hard into the right-wing narrative that free speech was under siege from liberal elites, Big Tech platforms and an overreaching Biden administration. He promised in his inaugural address to “immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America.” Now the conservative architects of the anti-cancel-culture movement are discovering that their hero has become the most aggressive censor in modern American presidential history.
In January, the FBI raided the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson as part of an investigation into a Pentagon contractor who had allegedly leaked classified information, an action legal scholars called “intensely concerning” for its chilling effect on journalism. (On May 4, Natanson was part of a team at the Post that was awarded a Pulitzer for Public Service reporting.) Two months later, Trump posted that media outlets covering a national security story involving war rescue operations in Iran should be “brought up on Charges for TREASON.” In April, he threatened to force CNN to hand over its sources “or go to jail.”
