‘Free Speech’ GOP Threatened Billboard Company To Remove Democrats’ Ads About Medicaid Cuts

Free Speech

from the doesn't-seem-very-free-speechy dept

The “Party of Free Speech” is at it again. House Speaker Mike Johnson just bragged about using legal threats to remove his opponents’ political advertising — perhaps the most constitutionally protected form of speech that exists. And he did it while lying about them lying.

As he says in that clip:

Do not believe the hype. Do not believe the lies the Democrat Party has said. We had their ads taken down. They were running ads around the country in swing districts trying to convince people Republicans are going to ‘gut Medicaid.’ It’s just simply not true & that’s why their ads & billboards had to come down. We sent them a cease-and-desist letter because they were lying.

This isn’t just hypocritical coming from the party that claims to have “brought free speech back” — it’s potentially a serious First Amendment violation. And Johnson seems almost proud of it.

The fact that Johnson is so cavalier about admitting that he helped remove ads from an opposing political party shows the new norm for the GOP: that it does not care about free speech at all, and is willing to censor at will.

The hypocrisy is particularly striking given how Republicans react when their own ads face scrutiny. Just last year, the MAGA world erupted in outrage over “cEnSOrSh!p!” when Google briefly restricted a Trump campaign ad:

That was a private company enforcing its own rules. Here we have government officials, who control all three branches of government, using legal threats to remove constitutionally protected political speech from their opponents.

It turns out that the media did report on this (though not very widely) back in March when it happened. The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) sent a threatening cease-and-desist not to the Democrats, but rather to the billboard advertising company they used, Lamar Advertising.

Before we get to the legal threats themselves, let’s be clear: the Democrats’ ads were accurate and not even remotely defamatory. The GOP’s attempt to claim otherwise relies on a semantic dodge that falls apart under the slightest scrutiny.

It has come to our attention that your company may imminently be planning to display billboards containing patently false claims in the respective home districts of six Members of Congress: Representatives Gabe Evans (CO-08), Don Bacon (NE-02), Ryan Mackenzie (PA-07), Monica De La Cruz (TX-15), Jen Kiggans (VA-02), and Rob Wittman (VA-01).1 The message House Majority Forward has evidently paid you to display is that each Representative “VOTED TO CUT MEDICAID TO GIVE BILLIONAIRES…TAX CUTS.” To avoid defaming a half-dozen sitting Members of Congress, your company must cease any and all plans to display these billboards to the public.

House Majority Forward’s claims are demonstrably false. A simple review of the concurrent resolution passed by the House of Representatives shows that Medicaid was not mentioned once in the document’s sixty pages.3 Instead, the resolution delegated broad authority to the House Energy and Commerce Committee to reduce the deficit at their own discretion. House Majority Forward’s billboards target Representatives who cast their votes for a topline budget number voted to put money back into taxpayers’ pockets – not to cut funding to Medicaid. Even legacy media outlets confirm:

The NRCC’s evidence that these ads are “demonstrably false”? Two carefully cherry-picked media quotes that actually prove the opposite when put back in context:

FACT: Medicaid “isn’t specifically mentioned in the budget resolution” and the “vote is simply one to begin the reconciliation process.” CBS News.

FACT: Medicaid is “not specified in the budget” and the resolution “calls for the Energy and Commerce Committee to identify more than $800 billion in reductions.” Politico.

Those two claims are the sole basis for the NRCC asserting that the ads are “lies.” But, that’s bullshit. Even their links disprove it. The CBS link for that first line also includes this “fact”:

Johnson wouldn’t commit to preserving Medicaid in its entirety as the reconciliation process continues, and the budget resolution instructs the committee overseeing Medicaid to find $800 billion in cuts.

So, uh, yeah, the bill does, in fact, cut Medicaid.

The Politico story is even worse. Note how it’s framed in the quote above with strategic use of quote marks to suggest that the $800 billion reduction is not about Medicaid. But in context in the Politico article, it’s literally noting that President Trump himself expressed concerns that Johnson’s budget would cut Medicaid!

This week, POTUS expressed reservations to some lawmakers about potential cuts to Medicaid, which while not specified in the budget, are expected given that the document calls for the Energy and Commerce Committee to identify more than $800 billion in reductions.

The level of sheer chutzpah to claim that that sentence proves that Medicaid won’t be cut, when it very clearly says that even Trump is worried that Johnson’s proposal will cut Medicaid is insane.

Indeed, basically every actual fact check notes that Medicaid is clearly on the chopping block because of the requirement for the $800 billion in cuts, even if it’s not specifically named:

Aguilar has a point that the $880 billion would have to touch Medicaid, unless lawmakers wanted to find the reductions in Medicare — which may be even more politically challenging. Plus, House Republicans already have talked about some options for Medicaid cuts, such as adding work requirements and finding efficiencies in the program.

Scalise is correct in saying the legislation doesn’t include the word “Medicaid.” But, again, there’s little doubt that the program would face spending reductions — and they could be substantial, as we’ll explain.

Even the Congressional Budget Office made it clear that there’s basically no way to cut $880 billion without cutting Medicaid.

So with the facts established — that the ads were accurate and the GOP is lying about lying — let’s look at the actual legal threat. The letter itself has all the hallmarks of a bullshit SLAPP demand, designed to silence and suppress protected speech.

Indeed, the First Amendment would clearly allow political speech suggesting that these Republicans “voted to cut Medicaid.” Not only is that a fair assessment of reality, in the political speech context, it is expected that certain rhetorical claims can be simplified.

And, really, Republicans like Mike Johnson should be the last ones to try to argue that political puffery may be defamatory. Hell, his claim that the Democrats “lied” would be even more defamatory than the claims that the Dems’ billboards were “false.”

Second, though, Johnson is trying to make it out like the Democrats pulled the billboards because they knew they were false, when that’s not the case at all. The ad firm pulled them because it feared the threats from the NRCC… and appeared to be courting the NRCC’s business itself:

“Lamar’s National Sales Campaign Specialist has confirmed that the copy is no longer running,” the vendor letter reads. “While your letter came to Mario Martinez’s attention, Mr. Martinez was not involved in the Advertiser’s campaign. Notwithstanding, Mr. Martinez…is available to assist the NRCC with counter messages or future campaigns.”

Indeed, the organization that put up the billboards separately noted that the billboards still ran… just from a different vendor:

a House Majority Forward spokesperson said the billboards criticizing Bacon and Rep. Gabe Evans, R-CO, are still up, because they are under a different vendor. 

So, to summarize, Johnson is lying about the Democrats lying. Their ads are accurate. The ads are certainly not defamatory. On top of that, one single vendor pulled the ads, not the Democrats themselves. And the billboards still ran via a different vendor.

Oh, and this just shows how the hypocritical Republicans are continuing their censorial anti-free speech campaign against anyone who calls them out. Here they’re issuing a blatant SLAPP threat, falsely claiming defamation in a scenario that is clearly not defamatory.

This incident fits a clear pattern: Republicans wielding government power to silence critics while crying “censorship” when faced with private moderation. The legal implications are particularly troubling given last year’s Supreme Court ruling in Vullo, where a unanimous Court made it clear that government officials cannot target intermediaries to punish speech they dislike. Republicans celebrated that ruling when it stopped a Democratic official from pressuring companies working with the NRA.

Now those same Republicans are trying to dodge Vullo by laundering their threats through the NRCC rather than coming directly from elected officials. It’s a transparently weak argument — especially given Johnson’s proud admission of involvement — but it reveals their playbook: use whatever tools available, legal or otherwise, to silence opposition speech while maintaining the fiction of being “free speech warriors.”

The GOP’s eagerness to suppress accurate criticism of their Medicaid cuts shows just how far they’ll go to hide their actual agenda — and just how much they know their actual agenda would be faced with massive criticism. When they say they’re the “party of free speech,” what they really mean is they want consequence-free speech for themselves while retaining the power to silence anyone who calls them out.

Of course, the end result here is a bit of a Streisand Effect. I had missed the GOP’s attempt to censor these ads, and now because Johnson is advertising it, I went back and found the details, including a better understanding of just how accurate those ads are, and how the GOP’s own threat letter points me to news articles noting that Medicaid cuts are absolutely a part of the plan.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, budget cuts, coercion, free speech, intermediaries, medicaid, mike johnson, nrcc, threats, vullo
Companies: lamar advertising, nrcc