Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:12 pm
Republican nominee Donald Trump suggested arresting magazines and media that publish instructions on how to make explosives because they are “inciting violence.”
“Those people should be arrested because they are inciting violence,” Trump said without a trace of irony on “Fox and Friends.”
Watch here:
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https://youtu.be/3GTRabASaY8?t=21m2s
So, I see the other day, and they’re all talking about it so wonderfully because you know it’s called freedom of the press, where you buy magazines and they tell you how to make the same bombs that you saw,” Trump said during his phone in interview.
Trump argued that while he’s totally for freedom of press – contrary to his own treatment of the press (banning outlets for accurate coverage, mocking reporters, inciting an unsafe environment for reporters) and statements that if elected he would make it possible to sue journalists like he and his wife are already doing regarding coverage of her while he is a candidate, “I would — now people will go crazy, they’ll say Trump is against freedom of the press. I’m totally in favor of freedom of the press. But how do you allow magazines to be sold — these are magazines that tell you from step one, go to the store and buy such-and-such, right? Simple simple stuff. They tell you how to make bombs.”
Yes, people will go crazy and say Trump is against freedom of the press not only because he clearly is and because he worships Putin even after being told journalists are killed under Putin, but because this is exactly the wrong reaction. Russia ranks 180 out of 199 countries for press freedom, by the way.
“The websites are the same thing. Those people should be arrested because they are inciting violence. They are making violence possible,” Trump said, not for a moment stopping to consider that he himself is accused of making violence possible with his “free speech” rights that he abuses to suggest that his opponent might be shot.
“They should be arrested immediately. They have websites that tell how to make bombs, how to make all sorts of things that are totally destructive. And you know where they are coming from, and yet we don’t want to touch them because of freedom of speech,” Trump finished.
Right, so basically here we have some terror and Trump’s first reaction is to take away freedoms.
I’m sure this sounds familiar if you remember the Bush years, but it’s odd from the guy who regularly incites violence, even offered to pay for the legal fees of his supporters who got violent, whose own campaign staff has assaulted a reporter, and from the guy who says we can’t restrict guns even when they are used to terrorize and kill large groups of people because the second amendment (note, Trump claims Clinton is going to do away with the second amendment all because she is for background checks, which suggests that he is against even the smallest reform in spite of contradictory things he’s said).
How is the first amendment so easily ignored and even spat on?
Yes, let’s arrest the media and quash free speech in reaction to terrorism. That sounds like a genius idea. Donald Trump has a very limited ability to problem solve. He responds to situations like a child, with a knee-jerk “obvious” solution that isn’t actually obvious at all. The reason we don’t go around silencing free speech and the press is because we built this country on this freedom.
The first amendment’s protection of speech and expression is “central” to our political system. Much more central to our entire system than say the second amendment.
Too bad Donald Trump won’t take his own advice and get himself arrested for inciting violence.
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Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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