Suppress & Punish Protestors
1990
1990-01-01 Trump told Playboy during a 90’s interview that he praised the Chinese government for their show of strength and paramilitary action during a pro-democracy student protest in 1989 at Tiananmen Square.
https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/trumps-praise-for-china-over-tiananmen-square-year
2020
2020-06-01 (for context) When peaceful protestors rallied near the White House at Lafayette Square to protest in the name of racial justice, the Trump administration allowed law enforcement to tear-gas protestors. The DOJ reached a settlement in 2022 for excessive force. Some news outlets reported that Trump made inquiries as to whether he was allowed to order law enforcement to “just shoot” the protestors.
https://www.acludc.org/lafayette-square-attack-timeline/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_photo_op_at_St._John%27s_Church
https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/02/politics/esper-trump-protesters
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/25/donald-trump-general-mark-milley-crack-skulls
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/09/1097517470/trump-esper-book-defense-secretary
2023
2023-12-30 Brendan Carr posted on X, “Free speech is the counterweight - it is democracy’s check on government control. That’s why censorship is the authoritarian’s dream…”
https://x.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/1827680330179842435
2024 March
2024-03-27 Governor Greg Abbott ordered colleges to revise free speech policies to target pro-Palestinian groups.
https://www.texastribune.org/2024/03/27/israel-hamas-war-texas-universities/
2024 April
2024-04-01 Keep in mind, there were multiple anti-war protests condemning the genocide in Gaza while Biden was still in office.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/31/biden-pro-palestine-protest-israel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_war_protests_in_the_United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_war_protest_vote_movements
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE9fOY1K1Pk
2024-04-05 Governor Greg Abbott threatened Texas college students with expulsion for protesting the genocide in Gaza.
2024-04-24 Mike Johnson called pro-Palestinian protestors “antisemitic”, floated retaliatory measures of cutting funding to the school, and demanded the Columbia University president resign.
2024 May
2024-05-01 During a rally in Waukesha Wisconsin, Trump referred to protestors as “radicals” and told his crowd to “save the universities for normal people”.
2024-05-02 During a peaceful protest at George Washington University, Boebert tried to rip a Palestinian flag down from a statue, failed, and then demanded the crowd to take it down.
2024-05-02 Charlie Kirk posted on X, “Hate speech does not exist legally in America. There’s ugly speech. There’s gross speech. There’s evil speech. And ALL of it is protected by the First Amendment. Keep America free.”
https://www.npr.org/2025/09/19/nx-s1-5544342/where-could-the-u-s-government-restrict-free-speech
https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/protecting-free-speech-in-the-face-of-government-retaliation
2024-05-30 A nurse from New York was fired after referring to the war in Gaza a genocide during her acceptance speech for the compassion award.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nurse-fired-hesen-jabr-calling-gaza-war-genocide-compassion-award/
2024 June
2024-06-03 Columbia Law refused to take down a Palestine article, so the board of directors took down the entire website.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/academic-freedom/2024/06/06/unprecedented-board-shutters-columbia-law-review2024-09-11 Trump was recorded on Fox News requesting preferred anchors for the debate.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-insults-fox-news-anchors-163830353.html
2025 March
2025-03-04 Trump threatened in a social media post to pull funding from any college that allowed protests and called protests “illegal”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/04/trump-university-funding-protests
https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/trump-columbia-university-federal-funding/
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114104167452161158
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/13/us/protests-legal-illegal-constitution-trump
https://www.axios.com/2025/03/04/trump-college-protests-israel-gaza-funding
2025-03-15 Leqaa Kordia was detained for overstaying an F-1 Visa but was also involved in protests at Columbia University and may have been targeted for that. Since then, she had been detained in a Texas immigration jail for over a year. She reported having seizures, being forced to shower with chains on, and was refused contact with family or lawyers. She was released in 2026 and stated the detention facility was “built to break people and destroy their health and hope”.
https://www.amnestyusa.org/urgent-actions/usa-release-detained-protester/
https://apnews.com/article/leqaa-kordia-ice-immigration-trump-f3c4cb201d00038313f202653b3f4673
2025-03-25 The Trump administration revoked a Tuft student’s doctoral visa because she co-authored a pro-Palestinian newspaper article the year prior. Rumeysa Ozturk was detained by ICE for six weeks after writing an op-ed at her university. Courts ruled the detention illegal and she was released. The Trump administration’s DHS accused her of supporting Hamas without any evidence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T98wJrupDMA
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/07/detained-tufts-student-rumeysa-ozturk-ruling
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/26/ice-agents-detain-tufts-university-graduate-student
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rumeysa-ozturk-tufts-student-denied-bond/
2025-03-27 Marco Rubio announced that over 300 student visas were revoked by the State Department as a crackdown on campus activism, particularly pro-Palestinian. He stated, quote, “Every time I find one of these lunatics I take away their visa”.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/27/marco-rubio-student-visas-palestine-00005141
2025 April
2025-04-03 Tufts University confirmed that a second student’s visa was terminated without notification.
2025-04-24 Governor Kim Reynolds signed House File 472 SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) which targets cases meant to intimidate a person from exercising their First Amendment rights.
2025 June
2025-06-02 Leaked emails exposed DHS use of mobile app Mobile Fortify, which used face scanning technology to put protestors in an ICE database.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/27/ice-facial-recognition-minnesota
2025-06-08 Stephen Miller described protests in Los Angeles as “an insurrection against the laws and sovereignty of the United States”. A double standard, considering the J6 insurrection.
2025-06-08 Trump posted on Truth Social that protestors in Los Angeles should be arrested for wearing masks. A double standard, since federal law enforcement agents wear masks.
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114650947329138948
2025-06-11 A federal judge blocked Trump from deporting Mahmoud Khalil, ruling that it was unconstitutional to detain or deport someone based on their political advocacy.
2025 July
2025-07-15 U.S. Army Veteran Bajin Mavalwalla was arrested at his home one month after he participated in an anti-ice protest and faced up to six (6) years in prison for alleged conspiracy to impede an ICE officer. During the time of the protest, 93 justice attorneys received a memo demanding they prioritize prosecutions of anti-ICE protesters. Of the attorneys who would not comply for obvious ethical reasons, they were either ousted or forced to resign.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/20/us-army-veteran-ice-protest-trial
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/jan/10/bajun-mavalwalla-ii-makes-first-public-statement-f/
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/insight/us-attorney-quits-over-ice-protest-case/gm-GM2CE84762
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujr8ktg4epY&t=458s
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/justice-department-prosecutors-immigration/
2025 September
2025-09-18 In a Scott Jennings podcast interview, Brendan Carr questioned whether The View on ABC still qualifies as a news program and is or isn’t subject to FCC’s Equal Time rule.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/18/fcc-brendan-carr-the-view-00572178
https://x.com/ScottJenningsKY/status/1968736369670504493
https://x.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/1852887210330341693
2025 October
2025-10-29 Kat Abughazaleh was indicted. She called the charges “yet another attempt by the Trump administration to criminalize protest and punish those who dare to speak up”.
https://theintercept.com/2025/11/01/briefing-podcast-kat-abughazaleh-indictment-protest/
2026 January
2026-01-15 Trump said he would invoke the Insurrection Act against protests in Minneapolis.
2026-01-24 Stephen Miller was implicated in accusations of encouraging DHS agents to force confrontations leading up to the killing of Alex Pretti.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/26/trump-administration-alex-pretti-shooting-statements
https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/27/politics/stephen-miller-alex-pretti-trump
https://www.axios.com/2026/01/27/trump-stephen-miller-massacre-minnesota-shooting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcpe9YceyyQ
https://newrepublic.com/post/208362/stephen-miller-orders-ice-alex-pretti-death
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/28/us/stephen-miller-alex-pretti-shooting.html
2026-01-30 Florida Republican James Fishback commented during a morning show that Don Lemon was “…lucky that he’s not getting executed in the public square”.
2026 February
2026-02-02 ICE arrested former Army Ranger and American veteran Ian Austin during a peaceful protest and federally charged him with terrorism.
TIMESTAMP 3:30 INTERVIEW https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogFdQx4H98g&list=WL&index=1&t=261s
2026-02-13 New York politicians proposed banning protests with a 25-foot buffer zone around every house of worship.
2026 March
2026-03-28 This was the date of the third No Kings Protest rally. The White House said in a statement, “The only people who care about these Trump Derangement therapy sessions are the reporters who are paid to cover them”.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq8wy7g1gd1o
https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/no-kings-protests-in-maryland/
2026 April
2026-04-08 The Pentagon made threats to the new Pope after the Pope criticized Trump. Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby said (according to quotes in articles) “The United States has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qZkia_-POE&list=WL&index=6&t=27s
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/pentagon-threatened-pope-criticized-trump-212552754.html
https://www.thefp.com/p/why-the-vatican-and-the-white-house
PAY WALL https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-official-gives-vatican-bitter-lecture-amid-growing-rift/
2026-04-14 (Context in this section because the Trump administration has show much support for white supremacists at the J6 riots, but are always arresting and threatening anti-war and anti-genocide protestors). The DOJ moved to vacate the most serious J6 convictions from the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, two white supremacist groups in the U.S. To vacate a conviction means to totally wipe an event from record as though it had never happened.
https://abcnews.com/Politics/doj-moves-vacate-convictions-proud-boys-oath-keepers/story?id=132042992
https://www.npr.org/2026/04/15/g-s1-117473/justice-department-toss-seditious-conspiracy
2026-04-16 Tennessee passed House Bill 1476, the “Charlie Kirk Act”, limiting campus walkouts and protests. So basically, if you disagree or cause what the GOP considers a disruption, you can be expelled from school.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ5hlrDtFYk&list=WL&index=3&t=98s
https://www.wkrn.com/news/tennessee-politics/charlie-kirk-act-passed/
https://www.newsweek.com/charlie-kirk-act-tennessee-free-speech-11837604
https://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/BillInfo/Default?BillNumber=HB1476&GA=114
2026-04-20 At least 62 elderly and disabled Veterans were arrested for conducting a peaceful protest at the Cannon House Office Building in Washington D.C. The protest was organized by About Face and against the war in Iran.
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5840253-protesters-occupy-capitol-building/
2026-04-27 The Trump administration instructed DHS and immigration officers to deny green cards to anyone who protested views that didn’t align with Trump, including criticizing Israel or supporting Palestine.
2026 May
2026-05-02 Police arrested 8 protesters in New York for protesting the violent arrest of a Nigerian man.
https://www.bbc.com/pidgin/articles/c8e8w0rnn2do
2026-05-03 Bay Bridge takeover by several vehicles. At least nine people were arrested and 77 vehicles were impounded. It is unclear if this was another protest against the war in Gaza (Israel is still occupying the West Bank and killing civilians).
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/charges-filed-bay-bridge-takeover/4081559/
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/bay-bridge-crackdown-traps-illegal-120800984.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFJYojZ4DMQ&list=WL&index=5
2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_tXMhvKvTs
2023 https://www.kcra.com/article/protesters-shut-down-bay-bridge-heading-san-francisco/45862462