Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) weighed in on Attorney General Pam Bondi’s “hate speech” comments on Tuesday, saying the U.S. does not “censor and silence disfavored viewpoints.”
Bondi clarified her comment made on Katie Miller’s podcast, where she indicated that hate speech could be prosecuted under the law.
“Hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is NOT protected by the First Amendment. It’s a crime,” Bondi said on the social platform X.
“For far too long, we’ve watched the radical left normalize threats, call for assassinations, and cheer on political violence,” she continued. “That era is over.”
The clarification came after she received criticism, including from some GOP lawmakers and political commentators, over remarks she made on the podcast, hosted by the wife of White House adviser Stephen Miller, about free expression.
“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,” Bondi said in an episode released on Monday.
When asked on Tuesday at the Capitol about Bondi’s comments and where the line is with free speech, Johnson said he approaches the issue as a “former litigator who defended free speech in the courts.”
“For a couple [of] decades, we defended religious freedom and speech that some people deemed to be inappropriate,” Johnson told reporters. “Look, in America, it’s a very important part of our tradition that we do not — this is a conservative principle and certainly an American principle — we do not censor and silence disfavored viewpoints.”
“People in America are allowed to say crazy things. Now, that said, if I’m an employer or I’m a government agency, and I have someone in my employee who is online celebrating the heinous murder of an innocent person, a young husband and father, I can make the decision that they don’t deserve to work for me,” he said, referring to last week’s assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Utah.
“They shouldn’t represent my company or my agency, and I have every right to do that, and I think that’s appropriate,” the Speaker added.
Along with the criticism, some of the conservative influencers and commentators have called on Bondi to resign. The attorney general has previously faced blowback over the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein documents.
“That’s not the government censoring speech, that’s personal behavior and decorum, and you have a right to enforce that,” Johnson said on Tuesday. “So, I don’t think it’s a violation of core principles for people to have appropriate measures taken when they act like crazy people online.”
He added, “And that’s up to the employers and these private businesses and these, you know, the people who make those decisions.”