Donald Trump is once again waging war on the media — and this time, he’s dragging his own defenders into the line of fire.
In a span of just a few days, the president has launched a $15 billion lawsuit against The New York Times, floated revoking broadcast licenses for outlets critical of him, and loudly celebrated the indefinite suspension of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel. On the surface, it looks like a full-frontal attack on the First Amendment. But for MAGA’s loudest free speech defenders, the real challenge isn’t Trump’s behavior — it’s trying to justify it.
And it’s not going well.
Jonathan Chait summed it up in The Atlantic: “That which causes the natcons unremitted joy forces the anti-anti-Trumpers into painful mental contortions. No event to date has given them more anguish than Trump’s gleeful defenestration of Kimmel.”
Kimmel was pulled off the air this week after mocking right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk in a way that critics claimed aligned him too closely with the MAGA crowd. The move reportedly came from high up at Disney, Kimmel’s parent company — a decision that just so happens to coincide with the company’s pursuit of a $6 billion merger, which would require sign-off from Trump’s FCC.
In other words, the timing stinks. And the implications are loud and clear: criticizing Trump could cost you your job.
But MAGA-aligned conservatives — many of whom have built entire brands on “defending free speech” — are suddenly fine with it. Or at least, they’re trying really hard to seem fine with it.
Take Ilya Shapiro, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute. On X, he argued that Kimmel’s suspension wasn’t the result of government pressure, but just basic business math. “There was thus no govt coercion here,” he wrote, while admitting that “FCC statements were unhelpful because makes it look like threat of govt action for bad viewpoints.”
That’s not just unhelpful — it’s exactly the point.
Brendan Carr, Trump’s pick to lead the FCC, openly warned ABC, the network that airs Kimmel, saying they could “do this the easy way or the hard way.” That’s not a dog whistle. It’s a bullhorn.
And yet, some in the conservative media sphere are still working overtime to paper over what looks a lot like state-backed censorship.
Mike Solana, a conservative commentator and investor, dismissed the idea of political interference altogether: “jimmy’s ratings were abysmal. he spread a conspiracy theory about kirk. two major affiliates refused to carry his show. ABC fired him.”
But that explanation skips over the big, looming reality: this is happening in the shadow of threats from Trump’s FCC and alongside a billion-dollar corporate deal. It doesn’t matter how bad the ratings are — the pressure from the top is unmistakable.
So now the so-called defenders of free speech are in a bind. Trump’s actions look like textbook authoritarianism. The very institutions that once railed against cancel culture are applauding what looks a lot like state-influenced cancellation. And they’re having to twist themselves into knots to make the math work.
As Chait put it, “Surely there’s another innocent if convoluted explanation for these facts brewing in the minds of the not-yet-openly authoritarian Republican elite. Their future in the party may depend on it.”
That’s the real trap. Not for the media. Not for Kimmel. But for the conservative class still pretending Trump is a champion of the First Amendment while he runs around suing newspapers, threatening networks, and celebrating the silencing of critics.
This isn’t just a new crusade for Trump — it’s a test. And so far, too many in his corner are failing it, one painful contortion at a time.
