White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is now being raked over the coals in response to her call for ABC to censor a journalist who criticized President Donald Trump and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.
In a Sunday tweet, Keavitt posted a screenshot of a now-deleted post by ABC News' Terry Moran — who interviewed Trump earlier this year — and called on his employer to punish him over his "unhinged and unacceptable" critique of the administration. Moran opined in the post that Miller was not "the brains behind Trumpism" but a "world-class hater" whose "bile" is his "spiritual nourishment." He then said that Trump was also a "world-class hater" whose own "spiritual nourishment" was "his own glorification."
"We have reached out to @ABC to inquire about how they plan to hold Terry accountable," Leavitt tweeted, while mentioning the network's official handle on X.
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Leavitt's tweet was quickly met with widespread condemnation, prompting Daily Beast columnist Julia Davis to ask: "What happened to the First Amendment?" Cybersecurity expert Robert Graham opined that Leavitt's call for ABC to "censor" Moran reflected that Trump's second term was "not the 'free speech presidency,' but quite the opposite." And Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) First Amendment litigator J.T. Morris observed that criticizing people in power is "as American as apple pie – and vital for freedom."
"That's why the First Amendment protects it from thin-skinned officials who would shut it down," he added. "Hopefully, ABC responds with 'get bent.'"
"[Moran] shouldn't have taken the post down," tweeted Never Trump conservative attorney George Conway. "He's a reporter. And he was reporting facts."
Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann also weighed in, saying that Trump and Miller were "everything Moran described." Calling Leavitt "anti-democracy" and "anti-American," Olbermann added that Leavitt "needs to stick to her lane," which he characterized as "covering up the emergence of a dictatorship."
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