California Governor Gavin Newsom had a meltdown over ABC's decision to indefinitely suspend Jimmy Kimmel after the late-night host lied about Tyler Robinson, the man who allegedly shot TPUSA founder and CEO Charlie Kirk last week in Orem, Utah.
In his Monday night monologue, Kimmel said, "the MAGA gang [is] desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it." This statement came after law enforcement showed Robinson was politically a Leftist with pro-trans beliefs who hated Charlie Kirk.
Not content with that tantrum, Newsom took to X to attack President Trump over the network's decision to take Kimmel off the air.
There is no such thing as free speech under Donald Trump’s reign.
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) September 18, 2025
This is especially rich coming from Gavin Newsom, who signed not one, not two, but three bills into law that directly attacked free speech.
The first bill, AB2655, required "large online platforms such as Facebook to remove or label deepfakes within 72 hours of a user reporting it." A judge struck down that bill in August:
A federal judge on Tuesday knocked down a California law requiring large social media companies to remove deceptive content from their platforms, saying federal law preempts the state.
Social media giants like X Corp. challenged Assembly Bill 2655, which requires certain platforms to remove “materially deceptive content” about political candidates, elections officials and elected officers. They argued the federal Communications Decency Act gives service providers like social media platforms immunity from content posted by a third party.
Senior U.S. District Judge John Mendez said from the bench Tuesday that he didn’t need to rule on First Amendment and constitutional arguments, instead relying solely on federal preemption. However, his ruling only applies to qualifying parties in the suit — X Corp. and Rumble.
“No parts of this statute are severable because the whole statute is preempted,” Mendez said. “No parts of A.B. 2655 can be salvaged.”
In September 2022, Newsom signed A.B. 587 into law. That legislation required social media companies to "publicly post their policies regarding hate speech, disinformation, harassment and extremism on their platforms and report data on their enforcement of the policies."
In September of last year, a court once again struck down key provisions of that legislation on First Amendment grounds:
A federal appeals court in California has blocked the state from enforcing a law that requires large social media platforms to report how they moderate especially controversial categories of speech, finding that certain provisions of the law violate the First Amendment.
In its decision last Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed a lower-court ruling that denied X Corp.’s motion to prevent the state of California from enforcing a law passed in 2022 that forces social media companies to provide the state attorney general information about whether and how they moderate controversial categories of expression, including hate speech, extremism, and disinformation or misinformation.
“The government reasonably has an interest in transparency by social media platforms,” Judge Milan D. Smith, Jr. wrote in the panel’s opinion. “But even ‘undeniably admirable goals’ ‘must yield’ when they ‘collide with the … Constitution.’”
And just last week, S.B. 771 cleared California's Senate. That bill would fine social media companies that "intentionally amplify violent or extremist content."
Here's what Politico had to say:
A California plan to fine large social media companies that intentionally amplify violent or extremist content is heading to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk after clearing the state Senate on Thursday, potentially teeing up another legal battle with Big Tech over free speech rights.
Why it matters: Democratic state Sen. Henry Stern’s SB 771 comes after Meta and X relaxed content moderation and rolled back fact-checking amid criticism from President Donald Trump and Republican allies that such policies have dampened conservative voices. Critics have argued this allowed violent, hateful and extremist content targeting minorities and other vulnerable groups to flourish on social media.
Of course, the Democratic supermajority in California gets to decide what is and isn't violent and "extremist." That includes the speech of guys like the late Charlie Kirk, who was and continues to be called "extremist," including by Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) -- who also included Kirk's supporters as "extremists."
One could draw a perfectly logical conclusion that under S.B. 771, any social media outlet that allows mainstream conservatives onto its platform could be fined for amplifying "extremism."
But tell us more about free speech, Gavin.