First Amendment advocates say they've never seen freedom of speech under attack the way it has been in Trump's second term.

Trump has threatened Democratic members of Congress with investigation for criticizing conservatives, pulled federal grants that include language it opposes, sanctioned law firms that represent Trump's political opponents and arrested the organizer of student protests that Trump criticized as "anti-Semitic, and anti-American.

And that is what we know about.  What the Heritage Foundation is doing is far more than what we know about.

Your right to say something depends on what the administration thinks of it, and this is no free speech at all. 

Who does it.

Russell Vought (Director of the Office of Management and Budget)
Oversees federal spending and agency budgets, including defunding programs deemed to engage in "anti-conservative censorship."
Pushed to revoke federal advertising dollars from platforms like YouTube if they were accused of bias, leveraging the "Restoring Free Speech" executive order (Jan. 2025) to cut taxpayer funding for "censorship-enabling" entities.

Stephen Miller (Deputy Chief of Staff)
Architect of hardline immigration and culture-war policies.  Advocated for using the "Take It Down Act" (pending in Congress as of 2025) to pressure platforms to remove content critical of Trump, including under broad definitions of "non-consensual intimate imagery".

Pam Bondi (Attorney General)
Led DOJ efforts to challenge tech platforms' moderation policies.
Investigated YouTube under antitrust and Section 230 reform proposals, arguing its moderation constituted "anti-conservative editorial control" 69.
Supported lawsuits against platforms for "censorship," mirroring Trump's 2021 lawsuits against Facebook and Google.

John Ratcliffe (CIA Director)
Expanded surveillance and counter-misinformation programs.
Pressured platforms to remove content labeled "foreign disinformation," which critics argued targeted left-leaning and anti-Trump voices disproportionately.

Kevin Roberts (Heritage Foundation President)
Primary author of Project 2025, which called for reclassifying social media as "common carriers" to limit their moderation powers.
Lobbied for Schedule F to replace federal tech regulators with Trump loyalists who would enforce stricter speech controls.




First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.

Martin Niemöller