CBS News' Margaret Brennan Says Free Speech Caused The Holocaust

Posted • February 16, 2025: Today, Secretary of State Marco Rubio went on Face the Nation and was confronted with this historical illiteracy from host Margaret Brennan: Secretary of State Marco Rubio smacks down CBS News' Margaret Brennan after she bizarrely claimed the Holocaust happened because of too much free speech. All of this came as part of a larger discussion over some European leaders crying like babies because J.D. Vance criticized Europe’s descent into fascist limitations on Freedom of Expression. -- Secretary of State Marco Rubio defends @JDVance's "historic" speech last week in Munich, leaves CBS' Margaret Brennan speechless after she tries to claim that free speech was "weaponized" by the Nazis. Incredible exchange. https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1891154497877037056/pu/vid/avc1/1280x720/p9cPVmcKD2v5P8XV.mp4 -- Brennan, a journalist, is actually arguing against Freedom of Expression—and doing it with an absolutely historically ignorant argument.

And while we appreciate how Rubio pushed back against Brennan’s premise, we think he could have done a better job by recognizing what her actual claim is: Her actual claim is that if they only had hate speech laws in the Weimar Republic, that it might have stopped Hitler and, therefore, it might have stopped the Holocaust from happening. She isn’t stating it well, but we are pretty sure that this is what she really means. But this argument ignores the fact that the Weimar Republic did have hate speech laws and they actually helped the Nazis. First, as the Nazi party rose, these laws gave them the glamour of being ‘forbidden fruit’ (not to mention giving them a Streisand Effect). […] The censorship was cited as a concrete example of how various groups (including the Jooooooos) were controlling everything to the detriment of the regular German people.

In addition to that, these laws also helped the Nazis once they gained power because these laws established the principle that the expression of certain ideas that were deemed dangerous by the government could be suppressed, which Hitler and the Nazis exploited to justify suppression of anti-Nazi speech. If Weimar law had been strictly dedicated to the right to peacefully express any viewpoint, however vile, the way that American law is, then it would have been unprecedented for Hitler to censor his opposition and thus would have been seen as more alarming to the common German citizen. (…)

• More at: Twitchy - CBS News' Margaret Brennan Says Free Speech Caused the Holocaust
https://twitchy.com/aaronwalker/2025/02/16/watch-cbs-news-margaret-brennan-says-free-speech-caused-the-holocaust-n2408438
Rumble: Historical Fact: Hate Speech Laws Actually Helped Hitler And The Nazis
https://rumble.com/v6lw09s-historical-fact-hate-speech-laws-actually-helped-hitler-and-the-nazis.html