"HATE SPEECH": Pam Bondi vs. Charlie Kirk

In a new interview, Attorney General Pam Bondi — right after denouncing “antisemistism” on “college campuses around the country” — told interviewer Katie Miller that “there’s free speech, and then there’s hate speech,” and that there’s “no place” for the latter “in our society,” “especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie [Kirk] .”

Asked whether she expects to see “more law enforcement going after these groups who are using hate speech,” Bondi said: “We will absolutely target you, go after you if you are targeting anyone with hate speech, anything. And that’s across the aisle.”

“Pam Bondi's noxious claim that there's a ‘hate speech’ exception to ‘free speech’ — and you can thus be prosecuted for it — is not only a total distortion of the [First Amendment’s] clear language,” wrote journalist Glenn Greenwald on Monday night. “It's also a theory SCOTUS has rejected, and was the foundation of left-liberal censorship.”

“There is no hate speech exception to the First Amendment,” said FIRE in response to the clip. “The attorney general would be wise to read the words of the Supreme Court, which has repeatedly held that the ‘proudest boast’ of America's free speech tradition is ‘freedom for the thought that we hate.’”

One of the many others who vehemently disagreed with Bondi’s position: Charlie Kirk.