CBS News: Free Speech Caused The Holocaust

CBS News’ Margaret Brennan claimed Sunday that free speech was to blame for the Holocaust.

During an interview with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Brennan spun a wild theory that free speech in Germany paved the way for the Holocaust, arguing that Vice President J.D. Vance’s criticisms of European attacks on free speech were problematic because, according to Brennan, free speech was “weaponized” in Nazi Germany.

“Well, [Vance] was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide, and he met with the head of a political party that has far-right views and some historic ties to extreme groups,” Brennan said. “The context of that was changing the tone of it. And you know that, the censorship was specifically about the right.”

Brennan’s assertion was not only historically inaccurate, but outright offensive to the millions who were murdered at the hands of the Nazi party.

But suppose Brennan was correct in her claim that free speech caused the Holocaust. Then, as The Federalist CEO and co-founder Sean Davis said in a post on X: “That means Trump needs to shut down CBS to prevent another Holocaust.”

“Not the path I would’ve chosen, but if Margaret Brennan says that allowing CBS to just say whatever it wants will lead to another Holocaust, who am I to argue? Better to be safe and shut down CBS than be sorry you let CBS bring Hitler back.”

But before Brennan and CBS News jumped on the “free speech causes genocide” train, the outlet fretted just three years ago that “free speech is under attack in the U.S.” Now to be clear, the “threat” referred to by CBS News was Republican-led efforts to prevent young school children from having access to pornography or graphic sexual information in school. The outlet enlisted “experts” to talk about how “scary” it was that free speech was allegedly being trampled on, while another expert talked about how “problematic” it was that people allegedly want to regulate speech they dislike.

By CBS News’ logic, attacks on free speech were bad just three years ago when Republicans were allegedly the culprit, but now the same free speech that CBS News defended is also responsible for genocide?

That would make CBS News complicit in genocide for advocating for free speech.

By suggesting that allowing free expression could lead to genocide, Brennan unwittingly mirrors the kind of propaganda used by totalitarian regimes: propagate notions totally divorced from reality and disseminate them as truth.

CBS News did not respond to an inquiry from The Federalist as to whether the network would continue to let Brennan broadcast.

Of course such a notion is ridiculous — but this is CBS News we’re talking about. Luckily, Rubio is a master at dealing with the propaganda press, correctly pointing out that “free speech was not used to conduct a genocide.”

“There was no free speech in Nazi Germany. There was none. There was also no opposition in Nazi Germany,” Rubio said. “They were a sole and only party that governed that country. So, that’s not an accurate reflection of history.”

As Rubio correctly pointed out, there was no “free speech” in Nazi Germany. In fact, the Nazis controlled all mediums, stifling (and murdering) anyone who dared speak freely in opposition.

But Brennan’s dangerous distortion wasn’t accidental — it was an attempt by Brennan to push the left’s anti-free speech agenda. While Brennan distorts history to justify censorship, the truth remains that Nazi Germany was a regime built on silencing dissent — not free speech.

As The Federalist’s Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway previously noted, “Democrats would win many fewer victories” without censoring dissent. Brennan’s rhetoric is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to demonize free speech in hopes of crippling Americans from pushing back against an ever-encroaching government.