Barack Obama levels Trump admin over its 'new and dangerous level' of coercion
The “indefinite” suspension of comedian Jimmy Kimmel by Disney/ABC led to an immediate response from former President Barack Obama on Thursday afternoon.
With political observers still trying to get a handle on where the Donald Trump administration will be taking the country after pressuring the corporations to suspend or fire employees who are critical of the administration by using the death of far-right extremist Charlie Kirk as a cudgel, Obama took to Bluesky to issue a warning.
Linking to a piece from Zack Beauchamp of Vox, who wrote, “The Trump administration, it appears, has learned to effectively weaponize the regulatory powers of the federal government to punish speech it doesn’t like from people it doesn’t like. This is a favored weapon of modern autocrats; its deployment against Kimmel is a qualitative escalation even above the administration’s previous acts of censorship (like targeting the author of a pro-Palestine op-ed for deportation),” Obama agreed.
Over two posts he wrote, “After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it 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.”
“This is precisely the kind of government coercion that the First Amendment was designed to prevent — and media companies need to start standing up rather than capitulating to it,” he then added.