Trump vs. Kimmel: The Tribal Weaponization of the FCC against Free Speech

Podcast audio:

In this episode of The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast, Ben Bayer and Mike Mazza analyze the recent debate about free speech surrounding the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel by ABC.

Among the topics covered:

• Background on the facts about the Kirk assassination;
• Threats by Brendan Carr and Trump against broadcasting licenses;
• Why gangster-style threats are worse than censorship;
• Why ABC was not just making a private, market-based decision;
• How Trump and Biden compare in their threats to free speech;
• Tribalism about free speech on the right and the left;
• How the FCC “public interest” standard enables political tribalism;
• The need for content-neutral FCC regulation in the meantime.

Recommended in this podcast are Ayn Rand’s essay, “‘Have Gun, Will Nudge’,” from The Objectivist Newsletter on March 1962, her essay “The Property Status of the Airwaves,” in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, Tara Smith’s book The First Amendment: Essays on the Imperative of Intellectual Freedom, and Greg Salmieri’s essay “Free Speech as a Right and a Way of Life.”

The podcast was recorded on September 25, 2025 and posted the same day. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.