Americans have the right to call their president a fascist

Top Trump officials say heated political rhetoric is illegal “incitement"

They're wrong — it's free speech.

Oct. 1, 2025, 5:35 PM EDT
By Anthony L. Fisher, Senior Editor, MSNBC Daily

You have the right to call President Donald Trump a fascist. It doesn’t matter if it’s literally true, even though there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that it is. Trump’s own former White House chief of staff, retired Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, said shortly before the 2024 election, “He certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure.” It’s an opinion and a political label that, even used pejoratively, is still protected speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

But Vice President JD Vance — who reportedly in 2016 fretted about Trump’s potential to become “America’s Hitler” and before the 2024 election unabashedly spread racist lies about Haitian immigrants — has been on a tear since the assassination of MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk, openly calling for cancellations in the form of firing people for speaking negatively of the late rhetorical pugilist’s legacy. Vance exhorted Democrats, “If you want to stop political violence, stop telling your supporters that everybody who disagrees with you is a Nazi” ...

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/jd-vance-stephen-miller-trump-fascist-rcna234588