Tucker Carlson Hints at 'Civil Disobedience' in US

Ex-Fox pundit says disobedience would be justified if government uses Kirk killing to target 'hate speech'
Posted Sep 19, 2025 7:41 AM CDT
Carlson: Government Shouldn't Be Curbing Free Speech
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, left, is seen with Tucker Carlson during a show for the latter's tour at Desert Diamond Arena on Oct. 31, 2024, in Glendale, Arizona.   (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)

Tucker Carlson's volatile relationship with President Trump may have just cycled back to being a critical one, this time centered on the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and the Trump administration's reaction to it. The former Fox News host's main beef: the government's targeting of anyone criticizing Kirk in the wake of his death—a targeting that Carlson says infringes on Americans' First Amendment rights, per the Independent. "You hope that a year from now, the turmoil we're seeing in the aftermath of his murder won't be leveraged to bring hate speech laws to this country," Carlson said on a Wednesday edition of his online show, calling Kirk a "free speech champion."

And if those laws do come to pass? "If that does happen, there is never a more justified moment for civil disobedience than that, ever," Carlson noted. "And there never will be. Because if they can tell you what to say, they're telling you what to think." And at that point, "there is nothing they can't do to you, because they don't consider you human," Carlson added, per Newsweek. "They don't believe you have a soul." The Independent notes that Carlson's diatribe seemed to target Attorney General Pam Bondi more than Trump himself, after Bondi made comments suggesting the DOJ would target hate speech in America.

Carlson added of Bondi's remarks that maybe she "didn't think it through and was not attempting to desecrate the memory of the person she was purporting to celebrate." The Latin Times notes that the US "does not have a 'hate speech' exception to the First Amendment, meaning most forms of such expression cannot be punished by the government."

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