At last, something we can all agree on: Pam Bondi has no idea what she’s talking about.
In an interview that aired on Monday, our attorney general said that the federal government would crack down on “hate speech” in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination last week.
Hate speech is not illegal. It is not even a legal category in the U.S. Yes, we have laws against incitement, defamation, and libel, but nothing so broad and amorphous as “hate speech.” As Kirk himself once put it: “Hate speech does not exist legally in America. There’s ugly speech. There’s gross speech. There’s evil speech. And ALL of it is protected by the First Amendment. Keep America free.”
But the most powerful law enforcement official in the country does not seem to appreciate what Kirk—and practically every account on X—understands.
“There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech. And there’s no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie,” she said on The Katie Miller Podcast. Bondi added: “We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech.”
It was a stunning statement, particularly from a Republican attorney general. The GOP has insisted for years now that it is the party of the First Amendment, and Vice President J.D. Vance has made free speech a signature issue, going so far as to criticize our NATO allies in Europe for their chilling suppression of this most fundamental right.
