Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) warned this week that Vice President Kamala Harris’ past remarks suggest she could pose a serious threat to America’s First Amendment rights if elected president.
Cruz made these comments during his “Verdict” podcast with co-host Ben Ferguson, discussing viral video clips from Harris’ 2019 presidential campaign where she advocated for increasing government pressure on social media companies to censor content.
“Kamala has a long, long history of calling for censorship, calling for silencing anyone who disagrees with her, of wanting to use government power to silence her critics,” Cruz said. “If Kamala Harris becomes president, I predict now she will try to muzzle X. She will try to ban X. She wants to follow Brazil’s path and ban X. She wants to use government power to go after big tech and force them to be her censors.”
Cruz claimed that Harris exhibits more disdain for the First Amendment than any other presidential candidate in over two centuries.
“The last time we had a presidential candidate with this antipathy was John Adams, our second president, who had enforced the Alien and Sedition Acts and used them to persecute his political opponents,” he said. “It’s been two centuries since that has happened since then, and Kamala Harris displays an unprecedented willingness to use government power to silence you.”
Kamala Harris pledged to weaponize the DOJ even more and use it to attack platforms for free speech like X.
Free speech is on the ballot this election. The only way to save free speech is to defeat Kamala Harris.https://t.co/vx6VDxPgIA pic.twitter.com/B19HTHYSzr
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 7, 2024
He noted that Harris views free speech as “merely a privilege that she, as the dictator, can revoke if you dare disagree with her.”
“It is not a privilege,” he said. “The First Amendment says Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. It’s not a privilege. It is a right protected in the Bill of Rights.”