Viewers at cspan and on the internet. Will President Trump threaten free speech. Im publisher here at the Cato Institute and our event today will be attended and represent a conversation among the group you see in front of you. Primarily the three experts on the First Amendment. I want to begin today by introducing each of them briefly, i should say these people have accomplished a great deal in law and the First Amendment so im going to give you a very concise biosav bio o. My first is one who served at the danish publication, he is the author of several books including above all the tyranny of silence. Hes been awarded many literary prizes in denmark including a literary award from the leading intellectual newspaper just last week. Frank buckley, is foundation at the scalia law school, duel canadianamerican citizenship and author of request of the way back. Our final partner will be bob corn revere, a partner in the washington d. C. Office, where he specializes in the First Amendment named 2717 lawyer in d. C. By best lawyers in america in categories of First Amendment and litigation of fist amendment. I thought to get our conversation started today on our event that i would as verbatim as possible read some quotes over the last year or so by now President Trump on First Amendment and free speech issues. In february of 2016, then candidate trump said quote im going to open up our liable laws so when they write purposely and negative and false articles we can sue them and win lots of money, were going to open up those liable laws so when the New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace or Washington Post which is there for other reasons we can sue them and get money because theyre totally unprotected. In october 2016 he elaborated that he thinks the First Amendment provides too much protection that he would like to laws changed to sue media companies. He lamented that quote our press is allowed to say whatever they want unquote. Mr. Trump recommended at that time moving to a system like in england where someone who sues a Media Company has quote a good chance of winning unquote. At the same interview he said he is quote a tremendous believer of the freedom of the press, nobody brings in it stronger than me, unquote. November 2016, after having been elected president of the United States, mr. Trump tweeted nobody should be allowed to burn the American Flag. If they do there must be consequences perhaps loss of citizenship or a year in jail unquote, and finally yesterday mr. Trump tweeted if uc berkeley does not allow free speech and practice violence on innocent people with a different point of view then all caps, no federal funds, question mark, unquote. Fleming . Could you get us started here by offering some thoughts on mr. Trumps statements and your views . I would be happy to. And welcome. Its nice to be here and thank you for the invitation, john. I think i would say in general about President Trump that he promotes a culture of intolerance and the example you provided with the flag burning and the suggestion that people might be stripped of citizenship if they entertained in that kind of activity i think indicates what im pointing to, this is a traditional approach in populists in europe when they insist on speaking on behalf of people and believe they have a right to determine who belongs to the people and who dont. And if you do not agree then you are not part of the community and you can be stripped of your citizenship, so this i think this culture of intolerance and bullying is one general trend. When it comes to liable law, i think mr. Trump by now understands that theres no federal liable laws, there are only state law i think that you can use. And or apply. And here i dont think that mr. Trump is maybe the main perpetrator but he is contributing to a climate that is changing the creation of the relationship between media and public. Since the versus the New York Times 1964, its very difficult to win a case against a media if they had determined that somebody is news worthy. I think that is changing and trump is playing into that climate. We had the hulk versus case i think when they gawker went bankrupt and you can disagree on the facts or on what gawker did, but i think the conclusion is that no court anymore will provide the news media the final say when it comes to determine whether something is news worthy and trump by labelling the media, discussing people, dishonest people is playing into the under mine ing trust in the media. I have a correct something john said. John said he had assembled a panel of experts on the First Amendment. Im none of that. Im here only because im a trump supporter so im the sa sacraficial lamb. I worked as a reporter in canada, i completely get it, okay, theres just america and theres iran and nothing in between, right . [ laughter ] so everywhere else the world is a world of despetism somehow it lands in europe. True. And we dont do fascism, and as for the liable laws that trump wanted, well, working as a newspaper reporter, i worked for a thompson paper, in prince albert, and i was asked my politics and i said i had been president of a tory club and thought the universe us unfolding as it should but i learned a bit about liable law and it was fascinating that i had some responsibility for the truth. If you report that norman p. Brown is dead, and turns out hes alive and its norman b. Brown is dead, of course its fascism, its not america, what else could it be . But the newspaper industry in britain is pretty darn good and people have had the experience of trying to get the news from the telegraph or daily mail. Toronto has four dailies and all doing rather well, theyre all suffering from the ravages of classifi classified ads and the internet. And millennials that cant read, but theyre doing well, right . Global and mill the same, National Post 200,000, so theyre doing rather well and i havent heard too many complaints about them suffering under this facious law. First i have to congratulate you on this title will President Trump threaten freedom of speech. I think i have to modify it to say when will President Trump threaten freedom of speech. [ laughter ] what time is it . It is one threat to freedom of speech after another. But, you know, the thing that makes it unusual is it really is nothing different from most administrations, the difference is trump is a bit like a fouryearold with trets syndrome so you have these constant outbursts that probably express the most inner thoughts of poll titicians but he just s them out loud. There have been more panels about donald trump, ive been practicing 30 years, there seems to be one every week assessing what the impact is going to be. And i get that with statements that we need to open up liable laws and the press being the most dishonest on the face of the earth, but i think we need to look at what the difference is from this administration to the previous ones, after all while president obama didnt make the same kind of inflammatory comments about the press that trump does, he did in his administration initiate more leak investigation and prosecution for leak investigations in history combined, also if you compare President Trump to Hillary Clinton, i dont think she was any more transparent than trump would be or friendly to the press for that matter. You know, both candidates this year campaigned on a platform of appointing Supreme Court justices that would under mimin First Amendment freedoms, if you except trumps statement and opening up liable laws as some indication who he wanted to appoint, that was one goal, Hillary Clinton campaigned on the idea of someone who overturned Citizens United and i cant remember a time when candidates from both major parties campaigned hoping to under mimine existing protectio for the First Amendment so when the question is raised will trump threaten the First Amendment, the answer has to be compared to what . You know, i think both major parties, most politicians are hostile to the First Amendment if they could liewould like to the liable laws, so the question is what exact things that trump might do could under mimine the First Amendment. I think first in terms of you know just practice with the press. Weve already seen the opening of that. Threats to limit press access to the white house. Steve bannon saying its time for the press to sit down and shutup. Well, no, thats not going to happen. And i think those will have an affect but its hard to tell whether or not that will be more in favor of free speech or against because i think news organizations will adapt and may actually improve journalism, rather than just relying on access of people in power, the new york city, Washington Post, other news organizations are already investing more in their white house coverage so it may end up being a net positive because at least you know who your adversary is with the administration describing the press as an opposition party, if thats the case, lets see a real opposition. Secondly in terms of policy, who trump might appoint to key various positions, i think that could be a mix of things, Jeff Sessions is confirmed as attorney general, i dont think that its going to lead to any more openness when it comes to leaked prosecutions, and during his confirmation hearing was noncommittal about whether or not he would continue that trend. There was talk about the obscenity enforcement unit. Trump did take the pledge to crack down on porn, which is odd for someone whos been in a couple of soft porn videos himself, but theres a chance for people that move in that your. But i know some are quite concerned what might happen under a Trump Administration and sessions department. But they are liking to move in a more First Amendment friendly movement. Things can happen once your chairman and subject to the political pressures of that role, and weve seen chairman talk a good First Amendment game in the past when push comes to shove be more restrictive but im very hopeful about that. So i think well proceed by people wanting the floor and taking it in a normal conversation and well see how it goes. Ti ill do some time, matter place stuff if you want to. About the u. K liable laws, i agree that the British Press is not bad and are doing quite well within the friame work of the current liable laws but in fact have been changed a bit and ten or 15 years ago, russian and Saudi Arabian bill nionaires we to court to suppress information they didnt like. Theres a u. S. Citizen who published a book on financing terror and she named Saudi Arabian billionaire in her book and he sued her in u. K. Court, and she was in fact convicted. I think three books were sold on the u. K. Amazon. Com and she couldnt go to u. K. And i think Congress Passed the law to make it clear that she couldnt be prosecuted in the u. S. , so these liable laws are in fact being used to suppress critical information. Suppress lives or suppress truths, i dont know so i cant comment. But i do get into conversations with people in this country the subject of cato, and often comes down to you care we have the First Amendment and you dont have it the same way and therefore again youre iran and that seems to me to be a piece of may i say First Amendment fetishism, its not the case that you could easily compare freedom in one country versus another one, but if you do which is something cato does, and if you like freedom, then were you given the chance to swap all american laws and the constitution and the First Amendment, or the Canadian Parliamentary system and liable laws and medicare, you would be intelligent to swap because if you did that, you would find yourself living in a freer country, according to cato i rest my case and the countries ahead on that list, all of them are mostly countries with briti british common law, canada, by the way has the most proplaintiff liable laws anywhere, theres a tendency to look at laws in isolation, canada has extremely navy friendly liable laws and the United States is just the opposite. American procedural law rarely becons them to come to court. The differences may not in practice be all that good, but in general they matter. I discuss this im not practicing but assembled this group called scholars and writers for america, i thought it would be amusing to find people calling themselves scholars supporting trump, then what happened is the press went through the list trying the find dirt on the person, and found dirt on one person, 30 years back one had been smeared as a na nazi sympathizer, you would realize the charges were ridiculous, was cleared, but nevertheless smeared the story on this nasty list and wouldnt this be a Good Opportunity to put them out of business and i discovered by putting her name on the list, she is now a public figure and the New York Times and theres no such thing as new york city and sullivan, and the canadian courts decided expressly not to follow that decision, and i regretted that, you know, if one did a momentary search on the internet, you would have discovered that there was a story then these ten counter stories and it would have been just too complicated to do, so i regret that. Yes, there are times where i will mention this one last thing, i dont know about the case you mentioned, but there are cases where its important to vindicate truth. As you mentioned, british courts the david irvine case, he is a holocaust it was austria he was convict today ed to a prison term. But im talking about the liable case in britain. I sort of know what happened in the holocaust but will approach it with a fair and open mind and having read all the material i determined that david irvine is and has to pay up to 200 Million Pounds and truth becomes an important thing to vindicate in all of this and that which gives newspaper writers so sort out truth is not always a bad thing. Let me jump in in arguing about Campaign Finance and free speech issues for a long time, one thing ive noticed is people generally believe that lives should not be permitted to be spoken. The only problem is that generally speaking, everybody believes what the other side is saying were in a bu f bifurcated rule here. Somebody could see it differently, no, even people who are supposed to be in favor of the First AmendmentCampaign Finance issues i found really dont want people running for office to say things that they think are lies, so once you in a sense and were now in the fake news era and all of this stuff, i would say that the culture out there in a sense is people actually dont have that kind of leeway, that kind of flexibility or theres a danger they dont, and to think that without that flexibility you have really created some justifications for First Amendment or free speech violations or limiting free speech. Thats why having government be the arbiter of truth, if youre talking about private litigation as in the case of liable as trying to set that bar is why the new york city versus sullivan developed the way it did with a strong presumption that it is up to the plaintiff to demonstrate the statement is false and reigned about with other constitutional canada, i like their syrup and they do have different liable laws, but i think it would be an extraordinarily bad thing to try and import here. Thats one of the reasons why i wasnt so worried about candidate trump talking about opening up the liable law as, one he didnt have the slightest idea what he was talking about, second i dont think he was going to find judicial appoint e appointe appointees, and if you look at neil gorsuch, you have a rather strong case in media and defamation cases so im not so worried about President Trump fulfilling promises in terms of candidate trump. And i speak as a former journalist myself, so i know a bit about the daily rigors of trying to find a story and to make sure that its accurate. We saw in a case just a few years ago what the consequences are when the government does try and enforce standards of truth and that was alvarez versus the United States, and it could punish people criminally for lying about having won military honors. What the court ultimately determined was that it really is a bad idea to have the government enforce standards of truth by law and that it is much better handled through the marketplace of ideas through other people pointing out when someone has been untruthful about their military accomplishments. And i think that really does maintain the constitutional balance. Those similar laws have been attempted in trying to maintain truth by political candidates if you can imagine that. Seems like you would have to have night courts operating 24 hours a day if youre really going to enforce standards of truth by candidates, and frankly i think the current inhabitant of the oval office would have to worry about it as well, but we learned th