U.S. President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 19, 2025. REUTERS/Ken Cedeno
A legal expert on CNN warned President Donald Trump may have uttered remarks Friday that will come back to bite him in court.
Elliott Williams joined Erin Burnett on her show, "OutFront," to discuss Trump's use of the word “illegal” when talking about the media.
"I think that's really illegal. That's no longer free speech. That's no longer — that's just cheating," Trump told reporters, referring to negative coverage of him despite defeating Vice President Kamala Harris last year.
"I think Brendan Carr doesn't like to see the airwaves be used illegally and incorrectly, and purposely, horribly," he added in a separate clip.
Williams said Trump's "illegal" remarks don't hold up.
"I really think it doesn't. Now, certainly, the president has every right to be bothered by critical coverage he's gotten. But so does every president who's ever served. And quite frankly, every political leader who’s served since the time of Jonathan Swift. We have a long tradition in the Western world of criticizing leaders," Williams said.
Williams then warned Trump may get himself in hot legal waters the more he rambles.
"You know, the more he talks, the more he risks jeopardizing any of these cases, because he's laying, or helping to lay, the groundwork for a lawsuit from Jimmy Kimmel or someone else about the fact that ABC was coerced into acting, or that Nexstar was coerced into acting," said Williams.
"And the more the president suggests that there's some sort of ... action is being taken on account of the views that he's hearing, that starts stepping into the realm of the First Amendment. So really he's making his own bed here, the more he speaks publicly," said Williams.