The Daily Show’s Desi Lydic mocked Pam Bondi’s reading abilities on Tuesday after the attorney general was widely criticized, both by Democrats and some conservatives, for vowing to use the power of the federal government to criminalize and prosecute “hate speech” in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s killing.
Bondi appeared on a podcast hosted by Katie Miller, wife of top Trump adviser Stephen Miller, on Monday where she vowed to prosecute hate speech on “both sides of the aisle,” saying: “There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech, and there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society…we will absolutely target you, go after you.”
Lydic responded on Tuesday’s show: “First of all, you would think that the attorney general would know that hate speech is protected by the First Amendment. Even if you’re not a big reader, it is the first one.”
Conservative allies of the president have embarked over the past few days on an organized social media campaign to identify and punish individual Americans for mocking or simply disinterested reactions to Kirk’s murder. In multiple states, GOP governors have organized efforts to target local officials, teachers and even college students whose reactions to Kirk’s murder have varied from simply reposting Kirk’s own words to actual mockery.
But Bondi’s promise to join in marked a new, significant wrinkle to the furious campaigns of vengeance and recrimination being pursued by Republicans across the country: the possibility of federal prosecution being among the consequences, which already have included firings and public hate campaigns. Many, including Lydic, tore into Bondi for becoming the new face of the Trump administration’s efforts to curtail First Amendment rights.
Continuing, Lydic said: “We need to understand that no matter how mad someone makes you online, that’s not enough to make it illegal.” She went on to highlight other acts of conservative revenge-seeking which have taken place in the week since Kirk’s death, including an unhinged rant from Texas Rep. Clay Higgins stating that he would seek to financially ruin Kirk’s critics and revoke their drivers licences over reactions to the assassination.
“I’m also going after their business licenses and permitting, their businesses will be blacklisted aggressively, they should be kicked from every school, and their drivers licenses should be revoked,” Higgins described his authoritarian vision. “I’m basically going to cancel with extreme prejudice these evil, sick animals who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s assassination.”
The descent into pure rage on the right comes as many progressives have angrily rejected the sentiment seemingly forced on the country’s institutions (including the NFL, which held multiple tributes to Kirk at games) by the White House. Kirk, many on the left have pointed out after his death, made racist remarks about Black people as well as misogynistic remarks about women.
Bondi’s participation, however, opens up a new lane of criticism against an attorney general whose tenure so far is defined by her decision to halt releases of documents and files from the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, a move that Trump’s MAGA base saw as a massive betrayal.
Her agency, along with the FBI, declared earlier this year that no evidence existed linking Epstein and his crimes to the many powerful men and institutions with whom the billionaire sex trafficker was known to cultivate personal relationships — including Donald Trump. That declaration stoked instense skepticism and doubt among some of Trump’s younger MAGA loyalists and many other Americans, including independents and Democrats, who have followed the Epstein case with interest for years.
Now, some conservatives and libertarians are joining in the chorus of voices who say the Trump administration is now rolling back First Amendment protections on a broad scale. In recent weeks, the White House has also pressured the DOJ to resume prosecution of Americans for flag burning, despite it being a constitutionally-protected form of expression.
Other fronts in the White House’s war to redefine speech protections include efforts to punish the nation’s top universities, including Harvard and Columbia and the State Department’s campaign to terminate visas of foreigners whose political views don’t align with the Trump administration.
Justin Amash, a former GOP congressman with strong libertarian leanings, called on Bondi to resign over the remarks.
“Pam Bondi is now doubling down by conflating “hate speech” with true threats and actual crimes and other acts that aren’t crimes—packaging it all under the label ‘violent rhetoric.’ She is deeply confused and unfit to be the attorney general,” he said.
Facing backlash on Tuesday, the attorney general issued a statement to Axios, seemingly walking back the administration’s vows to expand the definition of “hate speech”.
But Bondi’s actions are backed by Trump. What will limit her ability to lead a vengeful crusade against Democrats will be the courts and public sentiment, not her boss — who encouraged her to use the DOJ to target news organizations as he spoke to reporters on the White House lawn this week.
“She’ll probably go after people like you because you treat me unfairly. It’s hate. You have a lot of hate in your heart. Maybe they’ll come after ABC,” he told ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl.
