The Chris Cuomo Project - The Free Speech Battle That’s Dividing America

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

Chris Cuomo breaks down the misconceptions about the First Amendment, explaining what free speech actually protects—and what it doesn’t. He tackles the cultural vs. legal battle over speech, the role of social media in shaping discourse, and whether platforms like X (formerly Twitter) should be treated like traditional publishers. Cuomo also explores the rise of cancel culture, how political speech is weaponized, and why America is struggling to balance freedom of expression with accountability in the digital age. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com Support our sponsors: iRestore Give yourself the gift of hair confidence this February. For a limited time only, our listeners get $625 off their iRestore Elite when you use code chris at iRestorelaser.com Select Quote Get the right life insurance for YOU, for LESS, at SELECTQUOTE.COM/CHRISC Oracle Oracle is offering to cut your current cloud bill in HALF if you move to OCI. For new US customers with minimum financial commitment. Offer ends March 31st See if your company qualifies for this special offer at Oracle.com/CCP Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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and get started. That's selectquote.com slash Chris C. Everybody's talking about the First Amendment, but they're not talking about the law. They're talking about preference and culture. And you got to understand the difference between the two to zero in on what is really a concern right now. The Chris Cuomo Project is brought to you by the audio marketing gurus at Radioactive Media. Congratulations. You've survived 2024.

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Go to shopify.com slash Chris C. all lowercase and upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com slash Chris C. Support comes from Bamboo HR. As a small business owner, we all wear lots of hats, but let's admit it, HR is the one hat nobody wants to wear. There's so many nuances, not to mention it's really time consuming, unless you're using Bamboo HR.

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and how truly affordable it can be as well. That's bamboohr.com slash free demo. Bamboohr.com slash free demo. I'm Chris Cuomo. Welcome to the Chris Cuomo Project. Everybody has an opinion. Opinions are like fundaments. Everybody has one.

What's a fundament? A hidey hole. And that's okay, especially in America. But people keep getting it twisted about what their rights are and what is the nature of that right and what is actually being debated and what is okay and what isn't okay. So I say we straighten it all out here on the Chris Cuomo project. So what do you say? Let's get after it.

What is the First Amendment? First Amendment says government can't. Okay? That's the part that you have to key in on. Not your school can't. Okay? That's the part that you have to key in on. Not your school can't. Well, what if they take public monies? Then maybe, depending on what we're discussing. But it's all qualified. Okay? There is no absolute right to free speech. George Callum was right about this Okay, these are really extended privileges now I know some Christian conservative is gonna jump on me and says Cuomo says free speech is a privilege not a right

God gave it to us It's not what I'm saying It is absolutely a fundamental right is one of the first ten of the bill of rights right as the appendix to the constitution. It was probably put first by Madison on purpose, although the list of the 10 is not in terms of order of importance. But what it does matters, okay?

And it's not as simple as I can say whatever I want, whenever I want now legally Maybe without government interference, maybe but no not in society. Why because it doesn't cover private places and It does not give you a freedom from consequence people think the First Amendment says I can say whatever I want and nobody can do anything to me for it. No, it likely says if they punch you in the face for it, they'll probably be prosecuted. But the right to speech does not have a reciprocal right

of freedom from consequence for what you say. And that's what we keep bumping up against in society. Because most of the regulatory talk is really about social media, okay? The standard is very well articulated in television, broadcaster, cable, print, all right? We have specific cases that outline the parameters of when you can go after public people,

when you can go after private citizens, the parameters of when you can go after public people, when you can go after private citizens, what kind of information the press can expose to the American people, Pentagon Papers case, how you can have offensive speech flag burning case. You know, we have a lot of jurisprudence on this. And the interesting thing is that the law keeps expanding and protecting more and more speech, but it doesn't feel like that. Why? Because culturally, there is a contraction.

Legally, there is an expansion, okay? They used to say, well, you can't shout fire in a crowded theater. Probably can, by case law. You'd have to be more specific about the reasonableness of imminent threat and what the circumstances are. The law has expanded.

So you probably can say fire in the theater and not just because there's actually a fire, but because the reasonableness of the imminency of the threat is a more expansive test now. Why? Because that's the way the law has been going. I got beaten up once early on in social media for explaining this with a case called Chaplinsky. And if you look up the Chaplinsky case, you'll see it was back in the 40s, maybe, maybe even

earlier. And it was the early reckoning of, you know, the First Amendment wasn't created to allow you to say the nastiest shit that you can think of. That's not what the First Amendment was for. It was to redress government, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, no church and state, that the government will not endorse a particular religion, nor will it ban any religions from practice in the private sector. And of course, freedom of the press. And these four things can't get government interference.

And we have seen more and more expansion of those things legally, but not culturally. And that's what you're dealing with on social media. Look, I have very little doubt that Elon Musk is manipulating the algorithms of Twitter to magnify messages that he prefers. There is no question that when I go after Doge or Musk, I don't get the same reach. I don't think it's a coincidence. Is that regulating my speech? Yes.

Is it okay? Yeah, probably, for a reason that I don't know what the right accommodation is. I think our leaders have to figure it out and then we can judge it in elections. But the idea that Elon Musk isn't a publisher, so he doesn't have any of the restrictions and constraints and requirements that the New York Times does or News Nation does, doesn't make sense to me. So I think that's the way it is.

I think that's the way it is. I think that's the way it is. of the restrictions and constraints and requirements that the New York Times does or News Nation does, doesn't make sense to me. Section 230, okay, that is the federal guideline that exempts platforms like Twitter from the burdens of legal protection of speech. Why? Because he can't control the content that's coming in.

I think that more and more as we learn more about AI and more about these algorithms that these guys are using, I don't think that's true. I think they do have ways of knowing what's being said because they know where to place their ads. And he knows how to magnify certain things and how to de-emphasize other things. So I think that they get insulation they don't deserve.

I don't know what the right answer is, but I do know that it's the space we're talking about. So what is the real consideration? It's really that speech in this country is always about accommodating ideas that you don't like. It's always the rule for the, but not for me, which is that you have to let me say whatever I want. And you ever notice how what we protect

is always stuff that the majority doesn't like. Now, what's the virtue in that? Well, that in democracy, you have to suffer minority opinions, and unpopular opinions, and ugly opinions, and that by having them, you're able to expose them to the light of reason, and values, and logic, and expose them for the toxic ideas that they are. And it actually allows the, by allowing them to have the light

on them, there's a sanitizing effect of the light. And it exposes how stupid hate is, stupid Nazism is, how stupid prejudice is. And it allows the better ideas full flower. That is the argument of the marketplace idea. It allows the best idea to win. And when you censor things, you wind up giving them a false significance and power to people. That's the argument. And this is a cultural argument, remember, because that's not the policy argument behind the First Amendment. It's no government can't touch it. I don't care how you feel about the speech. And more and more the law embraces that. You can't regulate it as a government. It's gotta be whatever it is.

Now, again, to George Carlin's point, that has never really been completely true. Legally, it's becoming more and more true. But I get why he argued, you don't have any rights, you have privileges because there's nothing absolute about any of these, they're all qualified. And that is true. Even a symbol, and again, I'm not saying this

to get into this fight about natural rights versus privileges, because look, there's an absurdity to that argument. This is a secular society. We don't have human rights because God gave them to us as we understand them within our Constitution and our laws. This is not a nation of men. It is a nation of laws. Okay? That's John Adams, our second president. And why did he make that point? Because it's about the rules,

not the reckonings of man. Although, what are the rules? Reckonings of man. This is a little bit of a circular nature to the argument. I get it. A tautology, if you will. But the point stands. What if I don't believe in God? Do I have no rights? No, of course you have rights. Why? Because within our secular society, there's agreement on a basic set of fundamental protections and powers that human beings are imbued with

by dent of birth. And you can say they're natural, you can say they're God given, you can say whatever you want, but they are recognized. And Carlin argued, yeah, but they're all with a comma. And is that true? Yeah, pretty much.

Pretty much everything has like some kind of yeah, but, right, assembly, yeah, but time, place and manner. Religion, Westboro Baptist, you can protest, even though we hate what you're saying. Yeah, but time, place and manner. Okay, you can't have establishment of the church within the state. Yeah, but we have a lot of what we call tradition

that recognizes Christianity, right? And it's constantly pushing back against it. I want the 10 amendments in there. I want this there. I want that there. We keep having the same fights. Why? Because there is a powerful base of people in this country that want religion, want God, want church in the state as close as they can get it.

They do. And they keep fighting this fight. It is absolutely not what the founders wanted. God want church in the state as close as they can get it. They do and They keep fighting this fight It is absolutely not what the founders wanted yet. They were all Christians. What does that tell you? You know all these four corners people all these originalist people when it comes to the Constitution. They always seem to ignore that one Support for the Chris Cuomo project comes from Bean. I have to be honest. I don't sleep well. I don't go to sleep quickly. I am a very light sleeper, and it has effects. I don't recover. I don't grow.

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For a limited time, go to shopbeam.com slash Cuomo. All right, make sure you use my code, Cuomo, at checkout. That's shopbeam.com slash Cuomo. Use the code Cuomo and you'll get 40% off. Support from the Chris Cuomo Project comes from Oracle. Even if you think it's a bit overhyped, AI is a real thing and it's going to be in more and more places and having more and more of an impact. Self-driving cars, molecular medicine, you know, getting answers on the internet, business efficiency.

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But we have rules. I can sue you if you say something about me and even though I'm a public person, right? So I have less protection. Why? Because I signed up to be public facing and receive scrutiny. That's the reckoning of the laws.

Now some societies that we'll get to in a second don't recognize it as absolutely as we do. But for me, well, we're not absolute either, but we're just much more tolerant of allowing people to shit talk public figures than you'll see in parts of Europe. So what is the bar for me? Actual malice, reckless disregard of truth.

You knew what you were saying about me isn't true, and you said it anyway. That's the standard for going after a public official. And that's not what it is. For a private person, you have slander per se and per quad. You have categories per se se and per quad. You have categories per se means on its face. All I have to do is prove you said it

and the damage is implied. Whereas per quad means as to this, which is that because of how you said it or as to that, how you said it and it damaged me and I have to make the case as to why. It's a lower standard, why? Because you didn't sign up for scrutiny the way public people did.

But even within those, you see qualifications, qualifications. And now we're really dealing with this culturally more than legally. It's not really the law we're fighting about. It's applications of tolerance. And culturally, we see tolerance is shrinking. People are only defending the worst things these days. Nobody is fighting for virtuous speak. Now, why is that? Is that because nobody's against virtuous speak? Well, it depends on what Is that because nobody's against virtuous speak?

Well, it depends on what you're calling virtue and who's doing the speaking. And we see this in examples, okay? Vance going at Europe for their censorship. Okay, politically awkward. Is he wrong? No, they definitely don't allow speech that we do, especially online.

Germany, who he was targeting specifically, has rules against insulting, lying about, saying things that are derogatory about other people online. Do they go too far? I think you could make a pretty aggressive argument that, yeah, they go too far. And Vance was saying it. Now, Vance is also in an odd position of defending far-right political alt-right, a lot of the

MAGA base in other places. The worst part of the MAGA base, the least reasonable, the least accommodating. I've said many times, not all Trump voters are bigots, but it's hard to find bigots who aren't Trump voters. And he is defending that idea there, that you have to be nicer to your bigots and your people who say angry and ugly things.

Is that a politically awkward argument to be making for him? Yeah, because he seems to be advocating for the expansion of toxicity. And Europe is fighting back against that by saying, no, we think there are standards, there are values. Now, is that a slippery slope by saying, no, we think they're standards, they're values. Now, is that a slippery slope? Yeah, it's really tricky. Because one person's insult is another person's insight. And I like the way we do it better, yeah,

but it's harder to tolerate. There's something inviting about how they're doing it. I'm afraid of it. But I like the idea that you can't just be an asshole 24 seven on social media, but at what price? So he then of course creates opportunity by doing something that I do too often,

which is giving attention to someone who's just trying to increase their reach. See, look, that's a big problem for us with speech is that it's now for profit. Okay? Everybody's got a platform. Everybody's trying to start a following. Everybody is trying to get reach. And what works best is the most provocative shit. So you have things that are really not analogs that are brought up to just try to make advantage. Like what? So Vance is saying to the Germans, you shouldn't be so hard on people for what they say.

Now, what they're hard on are exactly the ugliest ideas that work for him in this country. And remember Vance completely shape shifted for advantage. He was measured, articulate and insistent that Trump was all the worst things that people on the left say he is. He said all of them. And then he switched and he explains this epiphany,

I don't buy it, I never have. It's advantage, it's what worked for him. That's why he changed. The things that he said about Trump are irreversible in someone's mind. And look, he can say it and that's fine. He was weighed and measured and found okay, right? Cause we had an election and his ticket won,

but I don't buy it. And that's my right to opinion, right? I can say that. I don't buy that Vance, he was either lying then or he's lying now. Because you don't go from thinking that everything about somebody is dishonest and bad and the facts don't really change, but your feeling does.

I think it's self-serving, but it doesn't matter. He's allowed to do that here, okay? So then he gets attacked from the left saying, hey, if you want to protect speech, you just kicked out an AP reporter. Now this is a very clumsy analog. Why? Because it is a privilege to have a seat at the White House. It is not a right. You don't have a right to have one of those seats in that room. The White House decides who gets them.

Now, you may not like that, but that's the rule. So it's not government regulations, so to speak. They can sue. I think they'll lose. Those suits have come up before and lost. Now, why is the AP refusing to recognize Trump's changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America? As far as I can tell, it's because they don't like it. I don't think they have a great legal standard. If you look at why it's called that, it's really just an article of convenience.

You could make a case that any country could decide to call it whatever they want. And that's what Trump did. You can like it or not like it. You can think it's silly or think it's smart. I don't believe it was done to give a different set of rights to drillers, which they're now saying, you know, they always do that. They always modify it later to clean it up. I just think it was a blatant political play and AP doesn't like it.

Well, then Trump has the right to not like them, even though I think AP is one of the straightest shooting organizations we have. And remember, I believe the First Amendment and our freedom of speech is one of the signature blessings of our democracy. It is not in a great place right now. Culturally, it's not. We have an overweighting and a hypersignificance of the ugliest, most destructive speech. We do. We do. I am just not ready to say that the answer is to restrict it. Just because there's a frustration for me that people with bad ideas,

who I don't believe deserve the platform they have have that platform. I believe that that's my problem, not their problem. And that the right fix is not to limit their ability to have a platform. I'm just not comfortable with that. I know other countries are. I know that the UK, I know Germany and other European countries deal with it differently. Maybe they're right and I'm wrong. I don't know, but I'm not prepared to capitulate to that, to give my head over, my way of thinking. And then we also have to deal with people twisting speech when they're really just talking about advantage.

AOC getting into a spitting war with the ICE guy is not about free speech. If she's giving people webinars on what your rights are as an illegal entrant and what due process rights you have and all this, that's fine. And she knows it and he knows it. If she is teaching people how to evade capture, if she is telling people how to thwart roundup efforts that goes to subverting the law as opposed to operating within it,

then there is an obstruction. Potential, potential. This is an if, not a when. There's a hindrance. There's an obstruction. Theoretically, yeah, I get what Holman's saying. Do I think it's a dumb fight?. Do I think it's a dumb fight? Yeah, I think it's a dumb fight. But I think AOC is desperate for it and Holman gave her the opportunity. Why? Because she wants to seem like she's fighting back against Trump. Because I believe her party has a misplaced sense of priority on muscular response to Trump. I think that's another way of saying you're playing his game, of being harsh, of playing the meanness. And I still think that ultimately, no matter what happened in the last election,

America will resonate with and attract to sweet strength more than harsh strength. I don't think we're bullies as a culture. I think we beat up bullies. We fight against bullies in this culture. I think it's sweet strength. I think the best part of the Democratic Party in the modern era has been a Clinton who was different, but related to a Jesse Jackson who was different, but related to a Mario Cuomo who who was different but related to a Ted Kennedy,

who was different but related to a Senator Moynihan, who was different but related to a Governor Ann Richards or Geraldine Ferraro. There are flavors of Democrats that have a muscularity that is born of a romanticism of what we can be, with language that motivates your spirit more than it poisons your intellect and poisons your ability for compassion. They have to get back to that. Being a scold and woke and

her annoying voice of telling everybody what's wrong with them, and how if you don't believe what she believes, you get canceled, is an equal and obvious threat to our dialogue, not legally, but culturally. Cancelling is absolutely weaponizing retaliatory speech. That's what you're doing. You're saying, yeah, you have a right to say it, and I have a right to organize and destroy you for saying it. Is that how the marketplace of ideas is

supposed to work? I would say no. Why? Because the marketplace of ideas is you'll get enough people who think differently than me and you'll beat my argument and my argument goes away. You just want me to lose my job. And I think that's what hurt the left ultimately is that they seem, they don't seem better. They seem punitive. And the reason they lost, of course, is many different reasons and a lot of it is just cyclical and they owned a status quo that people weren't happy with. And they tried to ignore that instead of explaining it with better options going forward. And they fucked their process, right? Biden shouldn't have been more than one term. That's what he originally promised that he'd be one term. Then they screwed it

up and Harrison didn't have enough time and she was highly imperfect as a candidate. And they blew all that money because they didn't have a message. Trump sucks. Trump's a Nazi. Not enough. People were more worried about the status quo in their lives than his life. And they got it wrong. And I think they're continuing to get it wrong because we have to figure out what to do with social media when it comes to speech. I don't know what the solution is. But I do know that right now we are being overwhelmed with misinformation. We are being overwhelmed with lies about the media that are only told for advantage. These pod people, and look, I know I'm one of them,

but I entered the space as a counterbalance, not to cash in. If I wanted to cash in, if I wanted the biggest following, it would be by saying really provocative things that attacks the other side. Doesn't matter if they're true, doesn't matter if they're true. It doesn't matter if they're helpful. So that's the shaping of the First Amendment, the legal versus the cultural.

What we are is a marketplace of ideas versus how we balance that with what our values are. And it's really, really hard and I think it's supposed to be. But you have to keep it straight in your head what it is and what it isn't. I hope that makes it a little bit more clear about what we're struggling with, but it's absolutely a struggle. So let's get after it. I'm Chris Cuomo. Thank you for subscribing and following.

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