Friday’s Washington Week with The Atlantic featured regular roundtable journalist Vivian Salama of The Atlantic sitting in as moderator for Jeffrey Goldberg, and the topic was the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, or rather, the GOP’s supposedly frightening and hypocritical reactions to Kirk’s assassination.
VIVIAN SALAMA: President Trump puts television networks on notice and stokes fears that he`s using the government to silence his critics after ABC abruptly suspends Jimmy Kimmel.
Salama offered this over-caffeinated characterization of the Trump Administration’s rhetoric that transpired the murder of their friend Kirk.
SALAMA: And just like that, shortly after [FCC Commissioner Brendan] Carr`s interview ABC announced Jimmy Kimmel`s indefinite suspension for comments he made about Charlie Kirk`s assassination. But the message from the FCC is clear. The rules of engagement are changing and it`s issued an ultimatum to media companies, comply or else. It`s also clear that the fundamentals of the First Amendment are being put to the test, and Kimmel`s forced hiatus is fueling fears that President Trump is wielding the federal government to crack down on dissent.
Asma Khalid, another regular panelist now with the BBC, at least summarized the offensive thing Kimmel actually said, though without noting its falsehood (Kirk’s killer was a recently radicalized leftist).
ASMA KHALID, Co-Host, BBC`s The Global Story: Yes. Well, I mean, controversy is the right word. And I will say I heard the controversy first, and then I went back to actually see what indeed Jimmy Kimmel had said. And, essentially, he said that the MAGA gang had been desperate to accuse the suspected murderer of killing who killed Charlie Kirk of anything other than but one of them….
Guest host Salama took it further, perverting the failure of universities to protect the rights of Jewish students, into a crackdown on “dissent,” as if being nasty toward an assassination victim and attacking Jews on campus were just examples of peaceful protest.
SALAMA: And even beyond all of this, just the fact that they`ve cracked down on universities and law firms that have shown any sort of dissent….
After a long rant from Salama about Trump hypocrisy over “cancel culture,” former Washington Post (now Puck) reporter Leigh Ann Caldwell had an interesting response.
LEIGH ANN CALDWELL: ….We talked about all the anger from the right during the Biden administration, and it was a big reason that Donald Trump got elected. On the campaign trail. I would talk to Uber drivers and Walmart shoppers and people at Republican events and this idea of censorship came up over and over and over again. And when Trump said on campaign speeches repeatedly about free speech, you know, this is a big reason why he got elected. And there could be political overreach from Republicans in this too.
So did Caldwell actually cover that important censorship story while she was on the campaign trail for the Washington Post?
