Trump Is Trying to Literally Erase the History of Slavery

The Trump administration’s censorship campaign has extended to the National Park Service.

The White House has ordered the removal of signs and exhibits documenting American slavery, including a 1863 portrait of an ex-slave, often referred to as either Peter or Gordon, and the thick, variegated whip scars on his “scourged back.” Gordon’s photograph became one of the most widely circulated images of the horrors of U.S. slavery during the abolitionist movement.

The mass information scrub is all in an effort to make the Park Service compliant with Donald Trump’s March executive order that directed the Interior Department to erase any information that could be misconstrued as a “corrosive ideology,” according to four sources that spoke with The Washington Post.

That order has been interpreted by the Parks Service to mean any information relating to racism, sexism, slavery, gay rights, or the persecution of Native Americans, the Post reported Monday night.

Sites affected include Harpers Ferry National Historic Park in West Virginia, where abolitionist John Brown led an unsuccessful raid that eventually led to his capture and the start of the Civil War. Staff at Harpers Ferry flagged more than 30 signs, according to the Post.

Another affected site is the President’s House Site in Philadelphia, where George Washington kept slaves. Exhibits at that location apparently do not comply with the Park Service’s new order, according to sources that spoke with the Post.  

All signage under the department’s purview is subject to review, according to Park Service spokesperson Rachel Pawlitz.

“Interpretive materials that disproportionately emphasize negative aspects of U.S. history or historical figures, without acknowledging broader context or national progress, can unintentionally distort understanding rather than enrich it,” Pawlitz said.

But the White House’s intrusion is historically unprecedented, according to historians.

“This represents an enormous increase in federal power and control over the things we learn,” Jonathan Zimmerman, a University of Pennsylvania professor who studies the history of education, told the Post. “Brought to you by the team that says education should be state and local.”

America’s parks aren’t the only ones undergoing an enormous rescission. Over the course of the summer, the president has wielded a heavy hand in reshaping the Kennedy Center’s programming, and forced the Smithsonian Museum to remove mentions of Trump from its exhibit on impeachments under pressure from the White House. (Those mentions were later reinstated.) 

The administration also issued a memo challenging the application of educational lenses on race, gender, and oppression in U.S. history, and accused the Smithsonian directly of advancing a “divisive, race-centered ideology.” 

Attorney General Pam Bondi is earning scorn—even in the MAGA media ecosystem—for her uninformed claim that the First Amendment has a hate speech exception.

Bondi made the distinction in a Monday appearance on The Katie Miller Podcast, suggesting that hate speech—specifically with regard to the slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk—will “absolutely” be targeted by the Justice Department.

“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,” she said. “We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech, anything, and that’s across the aisle.

Observers on the right were quick to call out her threat to get the government involved in the reckless doxing campaign MAGA is leading against people accused (often falsely) of glorifying Kirk’s death online.

Many noted that Kirk himself once tweeted, “Hate speech does not exist legally in America.”

“There obviously shouldn’t be any legal repercussions for ‘hate speech,’ which is not even a valid or coherent concept,” wrote podcaster Matt Walsh of The Daily Wire on X—though he said those who celebrate Kirk’s death should face social consequences. “We don’t need Pam Bondi swooping in to throw the entire conversation off the rails by completely missing our point,” he continued. “And having a ‘hate speech’ crackdown in the name of Charlie Kirk—a man who absolutely rejected ‘hate speech’ laws—is especially grotesque.”

Right-wing commentator Savannah Hernandez called Bondi’s sentiment “destructive,” adding, “She needs to be removed as attorney general now.” Talk show host Dave Rubin similarly called for Bondi’s “immediate resignation,” describing her statement as an “unbelievably bad take.” Provocateur Mike Cernovich tweeted that the “hate speech” claim, paired with Bondi’s mishandling of the case of Jeffrey Epstein, shows that the attorney general “really isn’t ready for this moment.”

“Our Attorney General is apparently a moron,” wrote conservative radio host Erick Erickson.

Bondi sought to do damage control Tuesday morning, stating on X, “Hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is NOT protected by the First Amendment.”

The GOP has turned so hard on free speech that now even “libertarian” Rand Paul is calling for a “crackdown” on those using their First Amendment rights.

“I was assaulted six, seven years ago, attacked from behind, had six ribs broken and part of my lung removed, and still online, on a daily basis people say they wish that it would happen to me all over again,” Paul said Tuesday on Fox Business. “And by sort of making light of what I suffered, they are encouraging other people to do it. That oughta be taken down, and social media oughta be able to take that down.

“People say, ‘Oh people have a right to say things.’ Well, actually, they don’t necessarily have a right to say things; many people have in their contract what we call a morals clause … or a conduct clause,” Paul continued, as he compared the First Amendment to a military conduct code. “I think it is time for this to be a crackdown on people.”

While it’s ironic to hear a libertarian talk about attacking free speech and civil liberties, that has been all too common in the days following Charlie Kirk’s assassination. People who were haranguing liberals and leftists for policing speech are now going full Big Brother. Vice President JD Vance (who chided all of Europe over free speech in February) said on Monday, “When you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out, and, hell, call their employer.” Other right-wing ghouls like Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok and Laura Loomer have also been on an intense, often inaccurate doxing campaign of anyone they think is saying bad stuff about a man who made a career off of his own hateful speech. And The Washington Post fired opinion columnist Karen Attiah for expressing very measured opinions about Kirk’s politics.

Republicans are banking on the electorate being too obtuse to notice their obvious hypocrisy. But people like Zeteo’s Medhi Hasan are already noticing, and using Charlie Kirk’s own words to call them out.

“Hate speech does not legally exist in America. There’s ugly speech. There’s gross speech. There’s evil speech,” Kirk said last year on X, as Hasan pointed out. “And ALL of it is protected by the First Amendment. Keep America free.”

A New York state court on Tuesday dismissed all terrorism charges against Luigi Mangione, the 27-year-old accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, with Judge Gregory Carro ruling they were “legally insufficient.”

To meet the definition of terrorism, Carro noted, an action must have the intent to “intimidate and coerce a civilian population.”

But while the prosecution put “great emphasis on [Mangione’s] ‘ideological’ motive,” Carro wrote, ideological belief does not necessarily meet that criteria, despite the prosecution falsely conflating the two.

“There is no indication in the statute that a murder committed for ideological reasons (in this case, the defendant’s apparent desire to draw attention to what he perceived as inequities or greed within the American health care system), fits within the definition of terrorism, without establishing the necessary element of an intent to intimidate or coerce,” Carro ruled.

“While the defendant was clearly expressing an animus toward UHC, and the health care industry generally, it does not follow that his goal was to ‘intimidate and coerce a civilian population,’” and there was “no evidence presented” that he had such a goal, the judge said.

Mangione still faces second-degree murder charges in New York, as well as federal charges and Pennsylvania state charges.

This story has been updated.

Attorney General Pam Bondi accidentally revealed that she doesn’t have a clue how First Amendment law works in the United States—that, or she just doesn’t care.

Speaking on The Katie Miller Podcast Monday, Bondi, who regularly pushes the legal limits to support President Donald Trump, said she planned to crack down on “hate speech” following the death of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.

“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,” she said, adding: “We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech, anything, and that’s across the aisle.”

But Bondi may have a hard time “targeting” anyone, as there is no legal definition for hate speech in the United States, and it is generally protected by the First Amendment—no matter how heinous.

It also seems clear that, despite her words, Bondi has her own narrow definition of hate speech—specifically, that it was only rhetoric about right-wing figures. For example, she seems entirely unbothered by her boss calling his political enemies “vermin,” promising to imprison his opponents, and joking about Nancy Pelosi and her husband being attacked or putting Liz Cheney in front of a firing squad.

Later, speaking on Fox News, Bondi claimed that employers had an “obligation” to fire workers who spoke ill of conservatives.

“You need to look at people who are saying horrible things. And they shouldn’t be working with you,” she said. “Businesses cannot discriminate. If you wanna go in and print posters with Charlie’s pictures on them for a vigil, you have to let them do that. We can prosecute you for that.”

Crucially, there is no legal obligation to get rid of employees for their speech. Businesses are barred from discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex, or national origin—not political affiliation. They can discriminate based on speech, but only if it targets one of those protected characteristics.

Bondi’s remarks quickly summoned a torrent of criticism from figures across the political spectrum with any knowledge of how the First Amendment works. The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh wrote on X that there “obviously shouldn’t be any legal repercussions for ‘hate speech,’” and conservative talk show host Erick Erickson noted, “Our attorney general is apparently a moron.”

The attorney general tried desperately to defend herself Tuesday.

“Hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is NOT protected by the First Amendment,” she wrote on X. “It’s a crime. For far too long, we’ve watched the radical left normalize threats, call for assassinations, and cheer on political violence. That era is over.”

Bondi cited a federal law stating it was illegal to transmit “any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another” across state borders. She also cited a federal law that bars using the U.S. Postal Service to send threats, and another law against threatening to assault the family members of public officials.

“You cannot call for someone’s murder. You cannot swat a Member of Congress. You cannot dox a conservative family and think it will be brushed off as ‘free speech.’ These acts are punishable crimes, and every single threat will be met with the full force of the law,” she wrote. “Free speech protects ideas, debate, even dissent but it does NOT and will NEVER protect violence.”

In fact, it’s the far right that has undertaken a massive doxing campaign in the wake of Kirk’s death.

Bondi even noted that she didn’t think hate speech cut both ways. “It is clear this violent rhetoric is designed to silence others from voicing conservative ideals,” she added.