“The Bully’s Pulpit: Trump v. The First Amendment” is a 13-episode podcast chronicling the unprecedented, coordinated assault on free speech, academic freedom, press independence, and the right to association under the second Trump administration. The idea driving the series was to connect constitutional principles to human lives—documenting this moment and people’s stories for history and underscoring that the fight for First Amendment freedoms cannot wait.
As Martin Luther King, Jr. warned, there is such a thing as being too late. We launched this series in that spirit—rejecting apathy, meeting the “fierce urgency of now” with rigorous journalism and storytelling.
Each episode pairs a Knight Institute legal expert with someone directly impacted: student activists marked for deportation for their political views, journalists barred from the White House press room, educators resisting attacks on academic freedom, and community leaders confronting government censorship. We set three goals: to document the scope of First Amendment violations in real time; to humanize abstract constitutional issues through lived experience; and to inspire action by showing how people are pushing back—and winning.
From Tufts PhD student Rümeysa Öztürk’s months-long incarceration to a Colorado public radio station’s fight to survive federal cuts, these stories remind us that rights only endure when defended.
From the outset, “The Bully’s Pulpit: Trump v. The First Amendment” was conceived to meet a moment of crisis with clarity, urgency, and depth. Against the backdrop of a relentless stream of executive orders, directives, and sweeping policy changes from President Trump and the federal government, our aim was to deliver clear, distilled information about First Amendment rights—content that would both inform and empower our listeners.
We built the series around a simple yet distinctive format. Each episode featured two guests: an in-house or “friend-of-the-Institute” legal expert providing rigorous constitutional analysis, paired with someone directly impacted by government actions. This approach allowed us to weave together lived experience and legal insight, transforming abstract principles into human narratives and equipping audiences with the tools to understand and defend their rights.
Initially envisioned as a five-episode season, we quickly realized that the scale of attacks on free speech, academic freedom, press independence, and the right to association demanded more. We tripled our goal to fifteen episodes, determined to capture the breadth of violations—and the stories behind them—as they unfolded in real time. While we ultimately released thirteen episodes, (pausing for the July 4th holiday and setting aside one planned installment to accommodate other Institute priorities), the expanded scope allowed us to address the complexity of the moment without sacrificing depth.
One of our earliest and toughest calls was choosing a host. This wasn’t just about finding a good interviewer—it was about finding someone who could navigate the legal, political, and emotional weight of these stories with precision and empathy. After a lot of deliberation, we chose Cristian Farias, a seasoned legal journalist whose bylines include The New York Times, Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, and New York Magazine. Cristian’s background, as an editor, reporter, and former Radiolab “More Perfect” producer, meant he could distill complex legal issues without losing their human core. His voice became the throughline that held the series together.
The challenges did not end there. Producing the series in real time demanded extraordinary agility. Coordinating with sources, including some facing legal jeopardy, employment retaliation, or personal risk, required building trust and safeguarding communications, often under intense time constraints. At the same time, our production team balanced rapid turnaround with meticulous editing, fact-checking, and sound design, ensuring each episode carried the weight and urgency it deserved.
The result was a podcast that chronicled First Amendment violations under the Trump administration as they happened. No other series combined on-the-ground narratives with constitutional expertise in quite this way, offering both an indispensable historical record and incisive analysis.
“The Bully’s Pulpit: Trump v. The First Amendment” set out to document First Amendment violations in real time, humanize constitutional principles, and inspire action. We achieved all three—and did so with reach and range that exceeded our expectations.
Our editorial coverage was far-reaching, spanning the full spectrum of First Amendment challenges. The diversity of stories underscored the depth and breadth of the threats, and of the people fighting back.
Remarkably, we never struggled to identify or confirm guests. That access reflected the “fierce urgency of now” that drives this work: people living these realities understood the stakes and wanted their stories told. This allowed us to move quickly, ensuring each episode captured the immediacy of unfolding events.
Our audience responded. Across thirteen episodes, downloads consistently ranged from over 500 to more than 1,000, with standout episodes like “The Students Are Winning” surpassing 1,000 downloads and others, like “ICE and LA’s Day Laborers” (869 downloads), “Protests, Deportations, and the Climate of Repression on Campus” (835 downloads), and “Amid Funding Cuts, Scientists Speak Out” (733 downloads), drawing sustained engagement.
The series also resonated beyond our core audience. Cristian Farias wrote about it in Vanity Fair, it was discussed on other podcasts (including two Amicus episodes which featured Cristian as a guest), and it was referenced in interviews with Knight Institute leadership, amplifying its reach in legal, journalistic, and advocacy circles. In a crowded media landscape, “The Bully’s Pulpit” stood out for its urgency, rigor, and humanity.
