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The creme de la creme of US talk show hosts have condemned the cancelling of fellow late night
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stars, certainly in Stephen Colbert's view, the star Jimmy Kimmel. They've called it a blatant
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assault on freedom of speech as America's top late night presenters have come out fighting for him
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There was a, as you know, Jimmy Kimmel was ditched by ABC because of comments he made about
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the murder of Charlie Kirk, or at least Trump's reaction to the murder of Charlie Kirk
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Trump, flying back to the US from the UK last night, suggested that certain networks should have their licenses revoked
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over a lack of support for him. He said, When a late night host is on a network television program
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there is a license. I read somewhere that the networks were 97% against me
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They gave me only bad publicity or press. I mean, if they're getting a license
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I would think maybe their license should be taken away. Cenk Uygur is founder and CEO of The Young Turks
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former Democratic presidential candidate. Thanks for coming on the program, Cenk. Um, this is this isn't an issue of freedom of speech, is it? Not from not from Jimmy Kimmel's point of view. This is cancelling
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Yeah, well, so there's a couple of issues here. First, is it Trump embracing cancel culture? Obviously, he's literally trying to cancel these shows. It doesn't get any more on the nose than that. Right
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So then when you talk about freedom of speech, this is a direct freedom of speech problem in the US
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because the FCC had threatened the channels that were carrying Jimmy Kimmel
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And they have a merger that they're waiting on right now. So when the government says we might not approve your merger because of what you said you have a direct First Amendment violation in America What was your view Cenk of Charlie Kirk the things he said the ideology he espoused
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Was your view that it was too far beyond the pale, shouldn't be out there
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So, mixed thoughts on that. So, did I agree with Charlie Kirk
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No, not at all. We did find some agreement on economic issues later years, but we fought a lot
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throughout all the different years. So what is characterized as this hate speech is stuff that
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I pushed back against. And by the way, I'm from a Muslim background. So he said some awful things
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about Muslims. So you could understand that I'm obviously not a fan of that. Right. But at the
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same time, I really, really believe in freedom of speech and not just from a legal perspective
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in America, but from a philosophical and ideological point of view. So the last person
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that you're addressing, so they're afraid of words. Okay, but you have to remember there's upsides and downsides to things, right
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So the downside of allowing words like what Charlie used is that, yeah, it legitimately
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offends people. It might even scare people. For example, he said, Islam is the sword that the left puts on the throat of the West, right
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So that is a very deeply offensive thing to say. But I'm going to say something a little bit controversial here and then back it up
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So what? Yeah. So he says that. So then I say, no, that's absurd
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And it makes you look asinine and it makes you look uneducated and irrational, et cetera
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And we fight back and we have that debate And then you say OK well some people feelings were hurt Yes but what the downside of blocking that speech And the downside of blocking that speech is through the roof
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It is monumental because then you bottle up all speech. And then, well, all right, but you get to allow some speech
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So what's the speech that wins in a scenario where the government is deciding what people are allowed to say or not
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And almost every time what wins is only what the powerful once said
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and the powerless are totally shut out of that conversation. That's a price I'm not willing to pay
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No, I totally agree with you, but I don't know how much of my conversation
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with my listeners you caught, Cenk, which is I think we here should take
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a much more American approach to freedom of speech, which is you don't have a right not to be offended
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If you're offended by things, sorry about that. But as you put it, so what
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I guess, though, people would say, well, hang on. The words that he used
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or the words that maybe you used or, you know, whatever words people choose to use could result in violence being visited upon the person about whom those words have been directed
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And then good news, that's why we have law enforcement. And then we would take significant action about that
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But they say, but they say, hang on, we should prevent that violence from happening by stopping the person at the point at which they use those words
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OK, so then they're going to say back to you, well, I think your words are causing violence
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And you're going to say, wait a minute, that's outrageous. Of course not. I'm inclusive and I'm this and I'm that
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I say, wait, you say you're not for a hate of any sort. Are you sure about that? Are you sure that
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you don't hate the right wing? Are you sure that you don't hate Donald Trump? Are you sure that you
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don hate Stephen Miller Right So which hate are we talking about here And so you can say and I on the left So I would say no there a difference between hating a race or gender or religion and hating an ideology
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But nevertheless, the minute you allow someone to make the decision of what is offensive speech or hateful speech or speech that could one day at a later time trigger violence, you're going to give that person way too much power to limit all of our speech
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my antidote to that is that to do the exact opposite let everyone speak let everyone battle
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it out and by the way let's also not take what people say so seriously okay so someone has a
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hateful opinion again i so what they have that opinion we have the opposite opinion and there's
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a lot more of us than there are of them so we go back and forth and so look especially in america
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with guns being everywhere. I don't like that worry about safety affects me more than anyone else, right
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And I knew Charlie Kirk and I did appearances with Charlie Kirk. There but for the grace of God go I
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But if you say to people, well, yeah, some maniac could be influenced
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by your words in the wrong way. But remember, maniacs are maniacs. You could say that you have a lovely cat
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and that could influence them to cause violence against people. And you could say the black cat gives me fear
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Now we're going to outlaw black cats. So this is not the way freedom is what we based our Western governments on
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And that is what we need to stick to, because the more power you give to the powerful, the more they abuse it
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Don't let them do that. Let the average man have his voice. Cenk Yüge, founder and CEO of the Young Turks, former Democratic presidential candidate
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Really appreciate your time on the show this afternoon. Thank you very much indeed
