Self-Proclaimed ‘Free Speech’ Crusaders Totally Ignore Trump Pledge to Crack Down on ‘Treasonous’ NBC News

Former President Donald Trump crossed a serious line when he pledged, if re-elected, to have NBC News, MSNBC, and other mainstream media news outlets “investigated” for what he called “Country Threatening Treason.”

Even in an age of over-the-top hyperbole and Trump’s constant flouting of long-held norms and presidential decorum —from which we’ve all become numb — this is a big deal: the top Republican candidate for president is threatening to crack down on media outlets because he doesn’t like their reporting on him.

What’s odd here is that the self-proclaimed free-speech crusaders of conservative media have entirely ignored this threat from Trump.

Trump’s post — which you can read in full here — is about as authoritarian as you can get. That should be gravely concerning to anyone who values the First Amendment and the freedom of speech so important to the American idea.

Shockingly (or predictably), this open threat has been entirely ignored on Fox News since it was published late Sunday evening.

Just imagine Joe Biden declaring Fox News to be treasonous and pledging to launch a federal investigation of the outlet. The media would go berserk, and deservedly so. Fox News would be hyperventilating about the threat for the next ten years.

But Trump continues to — metaphorically — shoot people on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.

Take, for example, Fox News contributor and OutKick founder Clay Travis, a loyal conservative firebrand with a law degree who is eager to parrot right-wing talking points that keep him on the air at Fox News.

On Monday, anchor Bill Hemmer introduced him to America’s Newsroom viewers before asking his opinion on a RealClearPolitics column about a poll on censorship. Now, the poll is real fact-based data, but the column discussed was filled with partisan conservative opinion. The article innocently asks if censorship is a partisan issue (it is not), but the columnist, Carl Cannon, twists himself into knots to argue Republicans are better at the issue than Democrats.

Hemmer cited the column: “Vigorous support for the First Amendment has waxed and waned between the nation’s two dominant political parties for the better part of two centuries, and they have often reversed rules. What’s different in the 21st century is the zeal with which mainstream media luminaries have excused and in some cases pursued the censoring of politicians and even fellow journalists with whom they disagree.” He asked Travis if he agreed.

Travis painted a dystopian picture of a vast Democratic censorship regime.

“I think we’ve entered into a really scary time in our country where we’ve moved from basically an embrace of the marketplace of ideas and a robust First Amendment where you can argue for or against almost any policy under the sun to a position where Democrats believe that not only should the government itself be censoring opinions they don’t like, but in the position of determining what can and cannot even be argued,” he replied.

I’m not sure which Democrats he is referencing that believe the government should be determining what can and cannot be argued, and sadly, Hemmer did not press him on that absurd, hyper-partisan take.

Travis continued: “And this is, to me, what is a real threat to democracy because the First Amendment is the foundation of all American political rights. And if you don’t have the ability to argue for or against any different issue, then you’re already circumscribing artificially our national discourse.”

There is a reasonable discussion to be had over the moderation of dangerous conspiracies, hate speech, and threats of violence.  There is no easy answer, but to present a super complicated topic in such a brazenly partisan manner serves only to confuse the viewer.

Not to mention: fearmongering about an imaginary “threat to democracy” while entirely ignoring that Trump, the leading candidate to be the Republican nominee for president, just threatened to crack down on a news outlet he doesn’t like? That’s just moronic. And both Clay Travis and Bill Hemmer know better.

Watch above via Fox News.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.