Barack Obama is stepping up in the fight over free speech, directly challenging Donald Trump’s dangerous pattern of silencing the press.
In a rare late-night post, the former president issued a sharp rebuke of what he calls escalating censorship tactics in American politics, and he didn’t tiptoe around the names. Jimmy Kimmel. Charlie Kirk. Even Frederick Douglass made the list.
Obama opened fire on Trump’s approach to the press, saying the president’s administration “took things to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.”
That line alone was enough to blow up MAGA Twitter, but Obama didn’t flinch. Instead, he doubled down—with a full-throated defense of free speech that took aim at both right-wing censorship and liberal inconsistency.
Posting to X on Thursday night, Obama wrote: “This commentary offers a clear, powerful statement of why freedom of speech is at the heart of democracy and must be defended, whether the speaker is Charlie Kirk or Jimmy Kimmel, MAGA supporters or MAGA opponents.”
Kimmel’s recent departure from his long-running late-night show came after a string of jokes and segments aimed at Kirk and Turning Point USA stirred backlash. Kimmel’s abrupt exit raised flags—and sparked debates—on both sides of the aisle about who gets to speak freely, and who doesn’t.
Obama didn’t take sides on the content of the commentary. Instead, he pointed to the principle behind it. His post linked to a New York Times column titled Charlie Kirk, Jimmy Kimmel and the Future of Free Speech in America, written by David French—a conservative lawyer known for defending the First Amendment.
“First there’s this piece by David French, who devoted much of his legal career to defending the First Amendment rights of conservative writers and scholars,” Obama noted.
Then he went deeper, invoking one of the most revered voices in American history.
“Second, it’s worth reading this excerpt from Frederick Douglass,” he added, linking to Douglass’ 1860 speech A Plea for Free Speech in Boston.
Douglass’s quote, frequently cited in legal and political circles, remains a gut-punch to modern efforts to control speech: “Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist.”
The message from Obama is clear: Free speech isn’t about agreeing with what’s said—it’s about defending the right to say it, even when it makes you uncomfortable. Even when it offends your politics.
And in a time when both sides claim to be the real victims of censorship, Obama is throwing cold water on the idea that anyone gets to police dissent without consequences.
Kimmel may have mocked Kirk. MAGA voices may have fired back. But Obama’s framing takes the debate beyond petty tribalism—calling out a political culture where silencing your critics is becoming just another strategy.
In his view, that’s not just dangerous. It’s undemocratic.
And he’s betting that people on both sides of the aisle still care enough about free speech to listen—even if it means defending the people they can’t stand.
