Sen. Eric Schmitt discusses government involvement in online censorship, arguing that federal officials worked closely with major technology companies to influence what Americans could see and share online.
Speaking at CPAC, Schmitt reflects on the Missouri v. Biden case, the debate over free speech in the digital age, and the growing power of companies such as Facebook, Google, and other major technology platforms. He describes evidence uncovered during litigation and explains why he believes protecting free expression remains one of the most important political and constitutional issues facing the country.
The discussion also explores antitrust enforcement, Section 230, the relationship between government agencies and technology companies, and the broader debate over censorship, content moderation, and the future of online speech in America.
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Well, thank you for coming. We're going to talk about Big Tech, Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple,
and what we need to do to end their gatekeeping power over information and commerce. And this
started under the Trump 45 administration, where we saw our hundred-year-old antitrust laws get
dusted off, and we ended Big Tech's antitrust amnesty, where we want to use antitrust,
which is law enforcement, to go after these trillion-dollar Big Tech monopolists, who
they have too much power, and they use that power for bad things, and they're anti-competitive.
And we saw that Trump 45 Justice Department started this. I always said that the only thing
that the Biden administration did right was they continued President Trump's antitrust enforcement
under the Biden antitrust division. And we're seeing with President Trump that he is fully
committed to finishing the job with antitrust. You see this with his appointment of Andrew Ferguson
to chair the Federal Trade Commission, and we're seeing this with President Trump's pick of Gail
Slater to lead the antitrust division. And it's critically important because these trillion-dollar
Big Tech monopolists, they crush competition, they shutter small businesses, and they cancel
conservatives and others with whom they disagree. And I'll tell you that the tip of the spear
in this fight has been Senator Schmidt from Missouri. He has been a warrior against Big Tech,
and so I'm very pleased to talk to him today about these issues. And I just want to start this off,
Senator, to just get your thoughts on antitrust and Big Tech generally and what you think needs
to happen. Well, I think, great to be with you and great to be back at CPAC. What a great crowd.
And this feels a lot different now that we won in November than it did just a couple years ago,
doesn't it? There's a new sheriff in town. So I think that for most people, especially people in
this room and conservatives, they have seen, Mike, over the last four years in particular,
what happens when you have these massive concentrations of power. And you see that
sort of collide with this fundamental belief that we have as conservatives that we're born
with certain rights. And those rights come from God. And the first one that's mentioned in our
Constitution, our bill of the right to speak your mind, this idea of fundamental human expression,
right? And government's only role is to make sure it protects those rights. That's like the
foundation of the country. And we believe that. So when you have these massive companies then,
then infringe upon that right, and sometimes with the behest of the federal government,
it's a scary situation. My previous job for this one, I was attorney general for the free state of
Missouri. It was a great gig. I loved it. And we launched the Missouri versus Biden lawsuit,
which turned into Murphy versus Missouri. But you got to remember. So I think it's important to sort
of go back in time in 2021, 2022, really before Elon Musk had bought Twitter, before Jim Jordan was
holding hearings. We filed this lawsuit and it's interesting, Jen Psaki, you got to go back. This
is COVID, forced masking, forced vaccinations. The real raw power of the federal government was
on display. And Jen Psaki was standing there up at the podium saying, flagging this for Facebook.
They need to take this down. They wanted to start a disinformation governance board. Remember Mary
Poppins who was singing, what was her name? But she's singing about how great it is.
This information, this information must be taken down by the government. So you saw this,
when we filed the lawsuit, we got discovery before the temporary restraining order that ultimately
went to the Supreme Court. And what we found was shocking. We had an idea of what was happening,
but could have never been prepared for what we found, which was high level government officials
working directly through a secret portal with the big tech companies at Facebook, at Twitter saying,
take this down. This is misinformation. You need to take this down. And then saying, okay,
what else can we do? They were also threatening, threatening to take away section 230 protections
that they didn't do more censorship. So as this unfolded, it really, I think showed to the world
and to this country, the real risk of these concentrations of power with the federal
government working directly with big tech giants to censor speech. And I think this is the fight.
This is the fight long-term for us. The Democrats, the liberals even have seeded this ground,
the high ground of defending your right to speak your mind. And so as conservatives,
I think we should own this issue. It's the right thing to do. And clearly American people,
I think watched all this last four years and they sent back president Trump to fix it.
