On Thursday’s CNN This Morning, the panel reacted with alarm to stories that the Division of Homeland Safety is compiling information on anti-ICE activists. Host Audie Cornish performed a clip by which an ICE agent, in what she described as a “tossed off” comment, informed a protester she was now thought-about a “home terrorist.” Cornish claimed that such language, as soon as written right into a report, “turns into an actual drawback for somebody.”
Republican panelist Kristen Soltis Anderson urged viewers to “take into consideration what would have occurred in the course of the Tea Occasion period, when the shoe’s on the opposite foot, about how upset conservatives would have been on the concept of the federal government monitoring their speech in any type of approach. And so I at all times simply assume it is helpful to think about, like, what if the events have been flipped right here? And I feel a number of conservatives could be in, could be unbelievably outraged, and rightly so, if a Democratic administration was attempting to trace them.”
However conservatives don’t must think about such a situation. They’ve already skilled it.
In 2009, the Obama administration’s Division of Homeland Safety issued a report titled Rightwing Extremism, sparking backlash from conservatives and veterans’ teams who argued it forged suspicion on broad swaths of right-leaning activists. Throughout that very same interval, the IRS admitted to subjecting Tea Occasion-affiliated organizations to heightened scrutiny in reviewing purposes for tax-exempt standing — a transfer broadly condemned on the best as authorities overreach concentrating on political speech.
Extra just lately, underneath the Biden administration, DHS homeland risk assessments described home violent extremism because the “most persistent and deadly risk” dealing with the nation. Whereas the language centered on violence, many conservatives argued it blurred strains between legal actors and broader conservative actions.
Then in 2023, an FBI Richmond area workplace memo referencing “radical-traditionalist Catholics” and potential extremist infiltration into sure Catholic communities ignited nationwide controversy earlier than being withdrawn. Critics noticed it as one more occasion of federal authorities casting a very broad internet round constitutionally protected spiritual expression.
When Soltis Anderson invitations viewers to image conservatives reacting to Democratic speech-tracking, she overlooks latest historical past. The “flipped events” situation isn’t theoretical. It already occurred.
Notice: We’ll cease wanting classifying Soltis Anderson as a tame “CNN Republican,” however, as we reported right here, this is not the primary time she’s taken a “pox on each their homes” method.
Here is the transcript.
CNN This Morning
2/19/26
6:23 am ET
TOM HOMAN: We’ll create a database the place these individuals which are arrested for interference, impeding, assault. We’ll make them well-known. We’ll put their face on TV. We’ll let their employers, of their neighborhoods, of their faculties, know who these persons are.
AUDIE CORNISH: Border czar Tom Homan, not attempting to cover it. DHS is constructing a database. And when you publicly criticize ICE, or attempt to monitor their actions, you would end up in that database. The New York Occasions stories that Google, Reddit, Discord and Meta have all obtained lots of of administrative subpoenas, not judicial ones, administrative subpoenas from DHS demanding information and persona details about what they name anti-ICE accounts. Google, Meta and Reddit have already complied with a few of these requests.
TIKTOK CLIP OF YOUNG WOMAN: This clearly utterly violates our First Modification proper within the Structure to free speech, as we’re 100% allowed to critique any authorities company, division, or legislation enforcement as we please.
ANOTHER TIKTOKER: DHS says that is about [air quotes] security. Okay, however many individuals are frightened that it might be misused or misunderstood. You assume?
YET ANOTHER TIKTOKER: It is fascinating to me that there are Republicans that will assist this sort of authorities overreach.
CORNISH: Okay, DHS claims it has broad administrative subpoena authority and desires the knowledge to maintain immigration brokers within the area secure.
So, the Group Chat is again. This has lengthy been a dialog that Tom Homan, particularly, has talked about. And I simply wish to play yet one more piece of tape for you about how that is enjoying out on the bottom. Witness this alternate, January twenty third in Maine, between a protester and an ICE official.
PROTESTER: It isn’t unlawful to document.
ICE AGENT: Precisely.
PROTESTER: Yeah.
ICE AGENT: That is what we’re doing.
PROTESTER: Yeah. Why are you taking my info down?
ICE AGENT: As a result of now we have a pleasant little database.
PROTESTER: Oh, good.
ICE AGENT: And now you are thought-about a home terrorist. So have enjoyable.
PROTESTER: [Laughs] For videotaping you. Are you loopy?
CORNISH: It was that line. Now you are a home terrorist, type of tossed off. However in a report once you file that, that turns into an actual drawback for somebody.
ISAAC DOVERE: Yeah. And I feel a part of what is going on on right here is that anyone who makes use of Gmail or Fb or any of this stuff, likes to assume that is my private information. However really it is the corporate’s information as soon as you place it in there, and the businesses can do with it what they wish to, for essentially the most half,
What’s totally different right here is that that is one more time the place we see the federal government transferring into acquire information, acquire info on individuals. We do not know for what, to what extent they are going to be utilizing it or how they are going to be utilizing it. However they might not even have to undergo the entire subpoena course of.
CORNISH: I used to be going to ask about that. So I used to be noticing, in L.A., a federal decide rejected the federal government’s argument that protesters monitoring federal officers met the bar for interference. In Chicago, a bunch of people that have been arrested for this: dismissed, let go.
And by some means the administration, when it lastly has to get to court docket. So is it actually the journey? Is it the vacation spot? Is it nearly scaring individuals off of the speech?
MEGHAN HAYS: I feel so, I feel it is in regards to the threats right here. I feel it simply makes — and it is also one thing that is going to rile up the left, it should rile up the the progressives and the bottom and make it much more intense. And it will be extra speaking factors, however they’re really not most likely going to have the ability to do something with this information. Or I imply, as quickly as a brand new president is available in, they are going to wipe all of this clear. That is simply, it is a actually un-American factor to do. As we all know, it’s a violation of their First Modification. And I simply, it is simply extra scare ways by the administration.
CORNISH: I wish to ask you one thing that I discovered, as a result of in the course of the break, you have been speaking about Europe, form of this divide between free speech in Europe versus right here.
As we converse, Reuters reported this morning that the U.S. division is growing a web based portal that can allow individuals in Europe and elsewhere to see content material [chuckles] banned by their governments, which embody alleged hate speech and terrorist propaganda.
KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON: Properly, yeah. And when you when you spend any time on just like the conservative web, you’ll often see tales popping out of locations just like the UK that get individuals up in arms. As a result of they’re genuinely insane, the place individuals have the cops come kick of their door as a result of they tweeted one thing that the federal government did not like, or that was thought-about perhaps, probably, hate speech legal guidelines.
CORNISH: “Genuinely insane” will not be a statutory proper.
KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON: Proper, proper, proper. However basically, there are lot of conservatives who will take a look at issues just like the very strict guidelines round speech that exist in different international locations and go, that is horrible. It is so nice that we do not have that right here. Now we have the First Modification.
And but we’re additionally on this period of type of massive authorities Republicans, the place the Rand Pauls within the get together, who’ve been saying fairly constantly, no matter who’s in energy, for a very long time, civil liberties matter, we should not be invading.
You realize, take into consideration what would have occurred in the course of the Tea Occasion period, when the shoe’s on the opposite foot, about how upset conservatives would have been on the concept of the federal government monitoring their speech in any type of approach.
And so I at all times simply assume it is helpful to think about, like, what if the events have been flipped right here? And I feel a number of conservatives could be in, could be unbelievably outraged, and rightly so, if a Democratic administration was attempting to trace them.
