(calm funky music) - [Speaker 1] I am a mother of five.

I really didn't see myself being able to go back to school.

- [Speaker 2] It was a lot of self-doubt.

- [Speaker 3] Cost of higher education, and that was a big hurdle for me.

Once I found Amazon and all their free education programs, I was hooked.

- Amazon's splitting the bill for it, so we're gonna take advantage.

- [Speaker 4] I'm able to work towards a degree in computer and electrical engineering.

- [Speaker 3] Network engineering.

- [Speaker 5] Environmental engineering.

- [Speaker 3] It makes me feel confident I can get to the next level.

I feel like the sky's the limit.

(calm funky music ends) (bright music) - [Presenter] At BECU, we know that it's people who make all the difference.

Because we're not for profit, our most important stakeholders aren't power brokers.

They're everyday people, people like you.

It's our members who make money meaningful, so we focus on helping them thrive.

It's the art student bringing beauty to his community that makes a college loan matter.

It's the mother building her family's foundation that makes a mortgage matter.

It's people that make BECU matter, people like you.

(bright music fades) (light music) (calm piano music) - [Presenter] And now, the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival featuring journalists, newsmakers, and innovators from around the country in conversation about the issues making headlines.

Thank you for joining us for "Open To Debate" with Nadine Strossen and Brandi Kruse, moderated by Nick Gillespie.

Before we begin, a special thank you to our founding sponsor, the Killinger Foundation, and our host sponsor, Amazon.

Lastly, events like this one are possible because of the incredible support of our members.

Thank you.

(audience applauds) - Hello, everyone.

Welcome to the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival.

(audience applauds) I'm Nick Gillespie, guest moderator for "Open to Debate," the nation's only non-partisan debate organization.

Usually, we run Oxford-style debates, but instead, we're gonna have a debatee conversation today about something making headlines that's important to all of us, free speech, specifically, free speech in the age of the second Trump presidency.

The Trump administration has threatened social media companies, sued news networks, universities, and placed restrictions on press access to White House events.

Trust in the media has hit historic lows.

And as a libertarian journalist for "Reason" magazine, I take part of the blame for that.

I've also got my own takes on everything we're talking about, but my job today is to moderate today's speakers on these topics.

So let me help or please help me in welcoming our speakers.

Brandi Kruse and Nadine Strossen.

(audience applauds) Brandi Kruse is an Emmy award-winning journalist and political commentator who now hosts her independent show, "unDivided."

She frequently takes on "The Fourth Estate" on her program.

And then, Nadine Strossen, a senior fellow at the foundation for individual rights and expression.

She was named one of America's 100 most influential lawyers by National Law Journal.

She was National President of the American Civil Liberties Union.

And she's the author of, among other books, "Hate, Why We Should Resist It With Free Speech," and "Free Speech, What Everyone Needs to Know."

(audience applauds) All right, so, let's get this going by Brandi.

I'll go to you first.

Give me, you know, the overview.

Is Donald Trump 2.0 good for free speech?

- Donald Trump is a God among men.

He's never done anything wrong.

I'm gonna praise him effusely, and I'm sure everyone in this crowd loves him.

No, I mean, look, Donald Trump is better than Biden on free speech.

I, actually, as much as I am totally outta my league with Nadine, I mean, I'm, it's an honor to be on stage with her.

I'm very confident in that argument.

I don't think there's any comparison.

I think the era of the pandemic was the single-most, dangerous period for free speech in modern history in the United States of America.

I'll defend that all day long.

I don't think Trump is perfect on free speech.

I think there's some things that we'll agree with that he's done that are problematic.

- [Nick] Okay.

- But, yes.

- Is it, I just wanna point out, maybe it's the soft bigotry of low expectations.

If you say Donald Trump is better than Joe Biden.

- Joe Biden.

- Right?

Right.

- A hundred percent.

That is a low bar, yes.

- Nadine, is Trump good for free speech?

- Absolutely not.

And I agree with Brandi that Biden was terrible on many free speech issues.

And actually, that's been true for every president in my lifetime.

But Donald Trump- - [Nick] Downhill from Washington.

- He is in a category unto himself.

- [Nick] Very quickly, what is?

Yeah, go ahead.

- The breadth and depth of his attacks using every possible instrument from not only the jawboning that was Biden's main approach, but also civil lawsuits, invoking the power of every single executive agency, something like 20 different agencies.

Bringing defamation lawsuits, going after the institutions in civil society that traditionally have been mainstays in supporting free speech.

- Okay, let's talk about Harvard and antisemitism at Harvard.

Trump has gone hard after that.

Is it good that the president is going to Harvard and saying, "You have to do these things this way, or you lose your federal funding?"

- Well, I think, to a certain extent, I'm not gonna agree everything he's done on all of the college campuses.

We've had some experiences here at the University of Washington that I think, honestly, a heavier hand could have been used, but that issue it.

- [Nick] What do you mean by a heavier hand?

- A heavier hand in, well, certainly not by the president, but a heavier hand by the University of Washington officials.

I think, that their protection of free speech, what they call free speech, was actually protection of people who were there committing acts of violence and vandalism and making Jewish students feel unsafe.

I think, there's a big bright line between free speech and "Free Palestine" and actual acts of intimidation and violence that make campus environments unsafe.

When it comes to Donald Trump, you know, it's happened on Harvard, and, you know, what he's talked about with Chinese students.

I came out, I disagree with that.

I think it's too heavy handed.

But at the same time, these universities are allowing their campuses to become these breeding grounds for people who are violent activists, who are sowing division on campuses who are making certain segments of the campus population and students feel unsafe.

- And so, Trump coming in, if I may, then Trump coming in and saying, "This has to stop."

That's a positive for free speech.

- I think, some aspects of it, yes.

I think that they need a slap in the face and Trump.

- [Nick] Literally or figuratively?

- Some of them- - Yeah.

- I think, deserve a slap in the face.

- But if they're your kids, yeah.

Okay.

- A figurative one, yeah.

- Nadine, over the years, you've been critical of places like Harvard for the way that they suppress speech is going after antisemitism on campuses at places like Harvard.

Is that good for the president to be doing that?

- Well, you know, to use an old cliche, "Two wrongs don't make a right."

And there's absolutely no doubt that universities have been over right for reform, that free speech organizations and advocates have been calling for.

But that does not warrant the United States President coming in with all the enormous coercive power of the federal government and demanding that the university change every single aspect of its structure from how it admits students, whom it admits, how it hires, what its curriculum is.

That is the antithesis of academic freedom.

- Does it matter if it's a state school, a state-supported school versus private school or not?

- Well, it matters in the sense that private universities have no obligation themselves to respect free speech under the Constitution.

Although most of them, bind themselves voluntarily to do that.

But in any case, we're talking about the United States government imposing restrictions on what can be said, what can be taught, what can not be taught, that violates the First Amendment, whether it's done toward private institutions or public universities.

- And if I can just disagree a little bit, it's that sort of two wrongs don't make it right.

And one of the big reasons that I wanted to be here.

- Three wrongs?

We're talking a totally different day.

- Three wrongs, a hundred percent produce a right.

One of the big reasons I wanted to be here in front of this particular crowd.

- [Nick] It's a good-looking crowd.

- A good-looking crowd.

- [Nick] A beautiful crowd.

They smell nice too.

- A group of people that, probably, I don't reach as much with my content is the hypocrisy angle of it.

There's the left is dripping with hypocrisy over the free speech issue, not Nadine, 'cause of course, she's perfect, and she's been pretty morally consistent on this for a very long time.

But if this were right-wing, neo-Nazi extremists or students marching through the quad of Harvard or the University of Washington wearing hoods and saying, you know, let's hang black people.

I don't believe the left would be up in arms if a democratic president came in and said, "We're gonna do X, Y, Z, unless you take action here."

So, I think, when it's an attack on free speech that threatens their ideas done by a politician who they disagree with politically, I feel like the left is far more eager to condemn it and to seek action against it.

If the rules were reversed, I don't believe we would be seeing a peep.

- I think, we're seeing, unfortunately, in my lifetime, I've seen hypocrisy constantly.

Those of us who defend free speech say that, for most people, they defend freedom of speech for me, but not for thee.

- Yeah.

- And I find it absolutely mystifying to speak, to do debates in front of conservative and even some libertarian audiences who are cheering on the most intrusive federal government regulation of private institutions.

Isn't that antithetical to traditional conservative principles?

- Do you feel like?

Thank you.

(audience applauds) Brandi, let me ask you, one of the first things Trump did was issue an executive order banning DEI.

- Yeah.

- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, in institute in the federal government in places getting federal money.

Is that a win for free speech?

- I don't think it has anything to do with free speech.

- [Nick] Okay.

- DEI is a racist policy.

DEI is rooted in racism.

It is the antithesis of what this country was supposed to move toward after the civil rights era.

So, DEI has to do with civil rights, federal laws, and no preferential hiring based on immutable characteristics.

So I don't see an intersection there with the free speech argument.

- Okay.

- [Brandi] Now, you could say.

- Well, yeah, okay, - Well, you could say, oh, well, you know, what about a private company that wants to engage in DEI like a Target or a Costco to use a Northwest reference.

But at the same time, a Costco can't hire someone openly based on skin color or give them preferential treatment.

They're still violating federal law.

So DEI, to me, I don't see any nexus to free speech.

- Well, do you agree with that or?

- Not at all.

- 'Cause part of the, you know, part of what this does is it gets organizations, and particularly on a university setting, they change the way that they talk, and it allows the government to start saying, okay, well, you know, what are you teaching?

What books are you teaching?

How are people talking about that?

- I mean, certainly any kind of discrimination is against the law that's illegal conduct.

But the problem with the anti-DEI executive orders is that they are so sweeping and so vague, and so overbroad and explicitly target discussion and ideas, not simply discriminatory conduct.

And so, what we see is universities and other institutions, understandably, because of the threat of penalty from the government, bending over backwards and eliminating whole words, you know, phrases, courses, library books.

We have US military libraries all over the world having removed hundreds of books that refer to race or gender issues.

- And that's emanating from Trump's.

- That's because these orders are so overly broad and so vague.

- Let me put you on the defense of a little bit, Nadine, regarding Trump and these kinds of, you know, these kinds of dictates.

Harvard, you know, to use Harvard as an example, they have, you know, they recently shifted to a policy of institutional neutrality.

They lost the Supreme Court case where it turned out that they had been discriminating against Asian students and whatnot.

Would they be moving as fast as they are to kind of, at least, say that they're open for free speech, absent Donald Trump winning?

If Kamala Harris had won, would they be like, we've done enough or, so is Trump pushing Harvard more in a kind of that neutral direction that I think you actually?

- You know, it's hard to speculate on what might have happened.

I will agree that I share a lot of the goals that are asserted by Donald Trump at all in terms of free speech, you know, promoting viewpoint neutrality and non-discrimination, and fighting against antisemitism.

But, you know, I, the method is so totalitarian and so frightening that it is a method that could be used to impose exactly opposite goals.

So that's why those of us who fight for civil liberties are often fighting for what seemed to be rather abstract principles, such as neutral rule of law, due process.

And the violation of that, I find really scary.

One of my colleagues, I think, put it very well when he said, "Some of us love universities and are urging it to them to reform.

Others, hate universities and are seeking to destroy them."

- And you would say Trump is in that latter?

- I think so, yes.

- Brandi.

- Just to clarify, so on the question on.

(audience applauds) On the question on DEI.

- I'm not sure, by the way, if that means there's people here who wanna destroy universities or not.

- [Brandi] Maybe.

- You know, I graduated- - [Brandi] I think that they do.

I think that's what they brought in.

- so it doesn't matter to me.

- On the DEI question, I think, it's a good clarification to say my answer to DEI has to do with what I believe DEI actually is.

Now, when you loop in all these other things, like banning certain books and language, et cetera, I'm not gonna agree on all of that because to me, I'm looking specifically at the things that already violate federal law that have just been allowed for, because like we gotta do it to white people.

'Cause, you know, we did it to people who aren't white for so long, which I just think is absolutely an insane way to go about it.

So there are a couple of things that you mentioned there that I agree with.

You know, for instance, that birthing people.

You know, do I think that's stupid?

Yes.

Do I think it's something that the Trump administration.

- You mean, the term birthing people, rather than saying women.

- [Brandi] Yeah, no, instead of a woman, right?

- Yeah.

- Do I think it's stupid?

Yes.

Do I think it's something the Trump administration needs to go to a university and meddle in and make them remove?

No, I don't.

Okay, let's talk about the media, the legacy media.

Brandi, you know, if there's an institution that has a lower approval rating than Congress, it's, you know, legacy media.

If you ask people, media, is the legacy media broken and unfixable?

- Irreparably.

So I came from legacy media.

I spent 10 years at the Fox affiliate in Seattle.

Before that, I was at the CBS radio affiliate in Seattle.

And I wanted to do that job.

I mean, that's what I wanted to do since sixth grade.

So I had a real soft spot for the job I was in.

And during the pandemic, I started to realize how badly it was failing.

I mean, if there were ever a time in American history feel how you want about what the government was putting down and the dictates.

But if there were ever a time in American history where the media had an obligation to ask hard questions, I think, that was the period of time every level of government was exerting such a profound amount of influence over people's lives and livelihoods.

Yet, I saw so many of my colleagues just accept it.

Like, we're just gonna accept that, these huge things that are impacting people's lives profoundly.

So that was the start of it, but their coverage of.

- So, can I ask, within in Trump second term, among other things, he sued and, you know, and they're seeking to settle the case, Paramount and "60 Minutes" over what he claimed, "Was a poorly edited interview with Kamala Harris."

He refused to interview with "60 Minutes."

Is that kind of intervention, is that good for free speech to have the President say, "It hurt my feelings, I had distress, even though I won the election.

Give me now $20 million."

- Yeah, I mean, you know, he's a sensitive guy.

I can acknowledge that, right?

(audience laughing) - [Nick] He's a big Teddy bear.

- There's two types of TDS.

One is the TDS that I think a lot of people in Seattle have.

And then the other one is the TDS where Trump can do nothing wrong - [Nick] Right.

- which I think is just as bad.

So, I think, that this is an overreaction from Donald Trump.

However, you know, when you look at it wasn't just as, I know he had to say in the lawsuit, like my feelings were hurt.

It was much more complex than that though, because one of Kamala Harris' chief failings as a candidate ended up as a politician is her inability to string a sentence together cohesively.

And what "60 Minutes" did, you laugh, but it's true.

They wouldn't have had to edit her interview down so much had she been able to string a sentence together.

So I think what they did in the lead up to the election was that was, you know, it's a common practice.

We edit interviews all the time.

- [Nick] Of course, yeah.

- But the way that they did it made her chief shortcoming look like it didn't exist.

- But so what?

That's the First Amendment.

- Right, no, what I'm saying is I think he shouldn't have, I don't think he had to sue over it.

You know, complain about it, whatever it is.

And I'm sure we'll get into the FCC, and the distortion doctrine and all of that stuff.

But I think it's enough to just try to point it out.

I think the frustration with conservatives.

- But, I mean, but does it move free speech forward, or is it just, you know, you bring a knife, I bring a gun to my fight.

- I think the media has lost its desire to exercise free speech.

- Brandi, you were talking about hypocrisy.

- [Brandi] Yeah.

- I mean, this is the ultimate hypocrisy for Trump to have complained.

And I've supported the complaint that the Biden administration was putting too much pressure behind the scenes on social media company to say certain things and not to say certain things, but the Trump administration and Donald Trump himself, plus his FCC and FTC, and other agencies, are front and center explicitly using every possible legal tool, government regulation, civil lawsuits.

- Lemme ask you this though, Nadine.

Would you rather have a president?

And again, we're both gonna agree that both of these things are bad, but it shocks me that you actually think the Biden administration was better on free speech.

- No, I said somewhat less bad.

- Would rather have?

Somewhat less bad.

Just as an example, may I?

- [Nick] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

As an example, the "Hunter Biden laptop" story.

- [Nadine] Yeah.

- You decide.

- [Nadine] Yeah.

- Whatever it is.

The "Hunter Biden laptop" story.

That was so suppressed.

- [Nadine] Yeah.

- At the urging of the Biden administration that you couldn't even share a link to it via a DM on X to your friends.

- That's terrible, but what I'm, what Trump is doing, he's trying to silence every media outlook, so outlet- - Right.

- social media as well as the traditional legacy media.

Not only by the direct lawsuits and the direct agency threats, but also by intimidating all of the other media.

- Let me make my point.

Would you rather have a president who silences a story to the point that it doesn't even get out to the American populace?

Or is it worse to have a president who sues about a story that did get out after the fact?

- Yes, but they're having exactly the same- - They're both bad.

- chilling effect.

- Can I?

Just to follow up and keep you on the hot seat a little bit, Nadine.

Joe Biden signed a law that was passed by Congress saying to the company that owns TikTok.

- [Nadine] Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

- You have to sell that.

- [Nadine] Yeah.

- Is, you know, and we will get to a question of what do we do next?

But is Trump actually worse than Joe Biden when Biden signs off on saying, here is a company, a social media platform and you have to divest.

- Yeah, I thought that law was terrible.

It was supported broadly across the political spectrum.

- [Nick] Right.

- I think there's some, so I like the end result that Trump is not letting the law go into effect.

But again, the method by which he is doing that, by ignoring a duly passed, congressional statute that was signed by the President of the United States, just ignoring it.

That is so dangerous to the rule of law and creating a precedent that can be used to silence speech.

(audience applauding) - And lemme push a little bit on that.

The Federal Trade Commission, the head of it is Andrew Ferguson, and he has opened up comments on potentially illegal content moderation policies on social media.

How, you know, and you can say, you know what, Joe Biden was terrible, and Joe Biden pushed to have the Hunter laptop, you know, "Hunter Biden laptop" story get suppressed and all of that.

And that's all true.

- Yeah.

- But how is it good for free speech if the FTC, which has really nothing to do with free speech, is starting to, you know, suggest to social media companies.

Like that's a great platform you have here, but you know, you're not doing the things I want you to be doing?

- I don't think it's good.

I don't agree with that.

I don't think it's good.

I think, one of the things you said, "potentially."

You used the word, potentially.

- [Nick] Potentially illegal.

- And you talk about the chilling effect.

- [Nick] Yeah.

- And those are two things that I think are important when we look at this, and I hope you'll consider this in earnest, despite your feelings about Donald Trump.

You know, you're saying that Donald Trump's, you know, targeted lawsuit at Paramount.

- [Nadine] That's "60 Minutes," Brandi.

- Wait, no, no, no.

I know.

One example.

- And also ABC which settled.

- Yeah, the accusation that he's, you know, it's having a chilling effect across the board.

So it's this idea that because of a couple actions, he's chilling people's free speech.

Like they're not brave enough to continue on with their free speech.

Whereas you have Biden who didn't just chill it, he squashed it.

So, one is a direct result of a President squashing free speech directly before it can even exist.

And the other one, which again is bad, but the idea that it's worse to scare the media outlets so they feel like, oh, I can't print this because he might sue us.

I don't even see a comparison.

I don't see two things on the same plane.

- Well, Brandi, you know, I don't see that point to you, but it is only one of many instruments that Donald Trump has used, including something like a couple of dozen executive orders that are directly coercing speakers and institutions and silencing them which has resulted in many, many rulings by federal court judges, some of whom were appointed by Donald Trump himself.

So we can't talk about, you know, just woke "Obama judges," quote unquote.

- Okay, to tie it back to a question about the legacy media and you know, we we'll all have vaguely or, you know, somewhat different definitions of that.

What, is there anything that the legacy media can do to, you know, bump its approval ratings up into the high-single digits?

(audience laugh) Or what might they do, Brandi?

- Yeah, look, in its current form, I think, it's irreparably broken.

And I'll give an example of the very panel that we're having right now.

And I'm so grateful that that, I mean, I've even been critical of Cascade PBS, and they invited me here, and I think that's very admirable 'cause they want an actual, dissenting opinion.

- Well, you know, what was it that Lenin said about, "Capitalists will sell you the rope to hang them"?

Maybe Cascade PBS- - I assumed it was.

- they're letting you in the front door.

- I assumed it was keep your enemies close.

- Nonprofits.

- [Nadine] Yeah.

- You know, whatever.

- [Nadine] But for instance.

- You'll get a tote bag.

- [Nadine] The absence.

- We'll give you the tote bag in which you'll stuff them, right?

- The absence of a similar panel during what I think was the worst period of free speech in our country about, "Is Biden bad for free speech?"

never would've existed.

They would never would've done it.

But now, it's Trump and it's like, well, now is Trump bad?

And now, I've gotta sit here, and we've gotta talk about how bad Trump is, and we want to move past, leapfrog over the four worst years for free speech, I think in, certainly in my lifetime.

And I think it's a common tactic of the left.

Let me just quickly make my point on this January 6th, right?

Horrible, embarrassing, awful.

But that happened after seven months of deadlier rioting, more widespread rioting, looting, murders, all of those things.

And all of a sudden, January 6th happened and everybody's like, "Let's leapfrog over those seven months."

And if you're debating January 6th, don't dare bring up the summer of 2020 because, you know, they'll be like, bring it back to here.

So I think it's the same thing with Trump.

- So, just.

- We don't wanna leapfrog over Biden.

- No, but I don't wanna leapfrog over anything.

- Not Nadine.

- No, no, but all I'm saying, - [Brandi] The left.

- so there's really nothing the legacy media can do.

- [Nadine] Yeah.

- Can I bring it to you, Nadine?

Because you have more faith or you, I think, you believe that older institution, legacy institutions have some value and that it would be good if we kind of revive them.

- Well.

- Is there anything that the legacy media can do?

- Well, I do think that media in general are incredibly important, singled out in the First Amendment itself, which expressly protects not only freedom of speech, but also freedom of the press.

And the word, "The Fourth Estate" is often used to refer to the media in addition to the three branches of government, which check and balance each other.

That "The Fourth Estate" has a really essential role in our democracy to be the watchdog to, especially when the other branches of government- - Let's stipulate- - are falling down on the job.

- we all agree with that.

- Introspection.

- Is there one thing that legacy media, like should CBS or ABC, should they settle with Trump?

Or should they give him the middle finger and say, you know what?

We're delivering the news the way we see it.

- I wish that institutions, including the media, including universities would resist, would exercise First Amendment rights (audience applauds) despite the clear risk.

But I also think that capitulating to Trump is more than risky.

It's a proven danger.

Columbia tried that and obviously it failed.

- Oh, and it's fascinating when you look at the inauguration, you know, Tim Cook, who Trump likes to call, Tim Apple, because it's quicker, you know, it was there and like, it doesn't look like the, you know, the tariff stuff is going there.

So that's a question like you think you capitulate, you buy off the mob, you buy off Donald Trump, and then they come back and take a look bit more.

- Exactly, you just incentivized the bully to come back for work.

- And to answer your question, I didn't, I got onto a rant about, you know, January 6th.

Introspection.

I think, that the media still like the "Hunter Biden laptop" story.

The New York Times moved on once it was proven to be true and just acted like all along.

- Right.

- They had reported on it as truth, and they never really apologized to their readers of the American people.

I know Jake Tapper is here today, and I've actually admired Jake Tapper, but he made a huge blunder.

I mean, he actively pushed back against the narrative of Joe Biden's very clear mental decline.

Like he needed someone to confirm it for him.

And now, he's written a book about it, and he's apologized a little bit, but I think a little more contrition from the media about, hey, we got this wrong on COVID.

We were wrong about this.

We were wrong about this would go a long way.

- All right.

(audience applauds) I wanna thank Brandi Kruse, Nadine Strossen.

Thank you all in the audience.

And for those of you watching at home or listening to this podcast for being part of this important conversation and for taking part in the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival.

(audience applauds and cheers) (bright music) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music ends)