[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 54 (Tuesday, March 25, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1823-S1824]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            First Amendment

  Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, as you know, in 1791, our Nation's Founders 
had the boldness to ratify the First Amendment to the Constitution.
  At the time, it was an extremely radical concept--protecting our 
fundamental individual freedoms to religion, to speech, to assembly, to 
the right to petition the government, and to have a free press that 
would operate without fear or government censorship.
  The First Amendment deeply reflects our new Nation's view that we can 
have a society where individuals can freely voice their views, 
participate in civic life, and hold our political leaders accountable. 
These five guaranteed liberties are part of what makes us a free and 
democratic society.
  I believe that all of the Members of the U.S. Senate share the 
commitment to the First Amendment, but there are extreme divisions 
among us about what that means. Let me explain where I do believe right 
now there is a significant assault on the First Amendment.
  President Trump has sought to silence or to punish journalists who 
report negatively on him. This is not about a President because 
Democratic Presidents and Republican Presidents have been critical of 
journalists, but he is taking it to an entirely unprecedented level--
banning the Associated Press from parts of the White House press pool 
because they don't use his own personal preferred name for the Gulf of 
Mexico. He is controlling the viewpoint of the Associated Press, and 
they are not relenting.
  In a speech at the Department of Justice, President Trump said that 
the press that reports on him negatively should be, and this was his 
word, ``illegal.''
  At the FCC, the Chairman has opened investigations into press 
organizations

[[Page S1824]]

that it doesn't like--PBS and NPR. That is not an investigation that 
was opened on the basis of a determination by the full Commission--in 
fact, two members have been fired--but on the political preferences of 
the Trump administration.
  Of course, we have had lawsuits against the press when the President 
did not like a report of a poll that was printed in a newspaper in 
Iowa.
  I am very concerned about attacks on the freedom of speech.
  We have had Executive orders that target law firms because the 
President did not like some members of that law firm and who they 
represented. The President has issued Executive orders punishing firms 
that represent his political opponents and who, in his opinion, were 
involved in litigation against him when he was a private citizen.
  This is not actually an assault based upon an investigation; it is an 
attack that is based upon the personal annoyance of the President 
himself.
  We are seeing the Trump administration arresting students who are in 
the country legally. They are here legally, and they are arrested not 
because they committed a crime but because they took a viewpoint that 
the President disagreed with.
  We have even seen the censoring of words that the administration 
doesn't like, and there is a whole list of words that cannot be used. 
Of course, one of the incredibly petty examples that shows how extreme 
this is and how wanton it is was removing references to the Enola Gay 
from Department of Defense websites because they included the word 
``gay.''
  This is a very important inflection point in our democracy. The First 
Amendment is being challenged by the Executive, who is unravelling the 
protections that have been absolute through thick and thin.
  We all, in this Chamber, have to stand up for the First Amendment. 
And we can have disagreements on the speech that we agree with and we 
disagree with vehemently; but our obligation, as a separate branch of 
government, as Members of the U.S. Senate, is to defend the rights of 
people to have free speech, whether they agree with our political 
position or they don't.
  So all of us must defend to our core the constitutional rights so 
essential to the well-being of our democracy: the freedom of speech, 
freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom to petition 
government, and, of course, the freedom of the press.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.