US attorney general Pam Bondi’s pledge that the Trump administration will “absolutely target” people who use “hate speech” in the wake of the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk has prompted criticism of the idea from across the political spectrum, including from prominent conservatives.
Bondi said on a podcast hosted by Katie Miller, the wife of the rightwing White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, that there is “free speech and then there’s hate speech, and there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society”.
Legal experts and conservative pundits have condemned the comments because there is no “hate speech” exception in the first amendment right to speech and as such, targeting people for their charged rhetoric would be unconstitutional.
“There is no unprotected category of speech in the constitution or in the case law called ‘hate speech’,” said Heidi Kitrosser, a Northwestern University law professor. “By being so vague and by talking about speech that doesn’t fit into any legal category, she is basically opening the door for taking action against anyone who engages in speech that the president or the Department of Justice or Stephen Miller doesn’t like.”
Kirk, the founder of the powerful rightwing youth activist group Turning Point and a close ally of Donald Trump, was killed on 10 September at Utah Valley University during one of his signature events in which he debated students.
The murder was part of a wave of political violence in the United States, including attempted assassinations of the US president and the assassination of Melissa Hortman, the Democratic speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives, and her husband.
While some people on both sides of the aisle have spoken about the need for respectful dialogue, Trump and others in his administration have continued to largely blame the violence on the left and warned of a “vast domestic terror movement” prompting fears he plans a broad crackdown on his political opponents.
JD Vance guest-hosted Kirk’s podcast this week, during which the vice-president urged people to call the employers of people celebrating Kirk’s murder and said that the administration would “work to dismantle the institutions that promote violence and terrorism in our own country”.
When asked about Bondi’s comments on Tuesday, Trump told an ABC News reporter: “We’ll probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly. It’s hate. You have a lot of hate in your heart. Maybe they’ll come after ABC.”
Bondi also threatened to prosecute an Office Depot employee who reportedly refused to print flyers for a vigil for Kirk.
But people on the right who normally strongly support Trump have condemned Bondi’s comments and called for her ouster.
Conservative pundit Matt Walsh, who said after Kirk’s death: “We are up against demonic forces from the pit of Hell,” posted on Twitter/X of Bondi: “Get rid of her. Today. This is insane. Conservatives have fought for decades for the right to refuse service to anyone. We won that fight. Now Pam Bondi wants to roll it all back for no reason.”
Erick Erickson, a conservative commentator, also wrote on X: “Our Attorney General is apparently a moron. ‘There’s free speech and then there is hate speech.’ No ma’am. That is not the law.”
And Savanah Hernandez, a commentator with Turning Point, described those words from Bondi as “most destructive phrase that has ever been uttered … She needs to be removed as attorney general now.”
Commentators also pointed to Kirk’s own comments from 2024 concerning the idea of hate speech.
“Hate speech does not exist legally in America. There’s ugly speech. There’s gross speech. There’s evil speech,” Kirk wrote. “And ALL of it is protected by the First Amendment. Keep America free.”
Bondi’s talk of targeting people who use “hate speech” is not legal because the “first amendment creates very, very strong protections from punishment for speech that’s offensive or for speech with which people disagree. The bar for punishing speech based on content, and especially based on viewpoint, is extremely, extremely high,” Northwestern’s Kitrosser said.
Following the backlash, Bondi, who already faced calls to resign for how she handled files related to sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, appeared to try to walk back her comments on Tuesday.
“Freedom of speech is sacred in our country, and we will never impede upon that right,” Bondi said in a statement to Axios. “My intention was to speak about threats of violence that individuals incite against others.”
Kitrosser, however, said she remained “very concerned as to how broadly they are going to define what is an illegal threat and as to what other loopholes they may try to carve out from existing free speech case law”.
She added: “I think that we all need to remain very vigilant.”
