It’ll take a moment to put this in context, so bear with us.
It all started with TMZ’s Harvey Levin going after Trump over Lemon’s indictment and arrest:
TMZ's Harvey Levin goes nuclear on Trump over the arrest of Don Lemon:
— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) January 30, 2026
Arresting Don Lemon, who covered a protest in Minneapolis, is just insane. Ridiculous. Dictator-like. This is the playbook that dictators use to destroy democracies and take the will of the people away. It is… pic.twitter.com/B4BffbZTRq
As usual, we will give you the cut off text, but to be blunt, it is not a transcript. It cut out huge portions from his argument, so if you really want to consider his point of view, you should actually hit play. With that in mind, here’s the cut off text:
It is as simple as that.
Watch that video. He is covering the protest. That is what journalists do.
I covered riots. I was a local reporter in Los Angeles for 15 years, and I covered riots and floods and earthquakes and all sorts of things where I had to step into areas where there were police, where there was activity, private property. When you’re covering an event like this, like a protest, which I have covered many, you step into it. That’s what journalists do. And that’s what Don Lemon did.
It is insane that they are making this stupid argument. This is a ridiculous assault, and I don’t want to say just on the First Amendment. It’s a ridiculous assault on democracy. The Trump administration should be ashamed of itself, but they’re not. And they will continue to do this. And they are going after journalists. They’re getting search warrants for their homes.
It is obvious what’s happening in this country. So wise up, everybody. This is an outrage.
One point he makes is to claim that all Lemon did was cover the events and journalists routinely cover criminal conduct. Now, of course, journalists can cover crimes in progress, live—we wouldn’t have live police chases otherwise—but there is a world of difference between coverage and participation. For instance, in this video from Nate the Lawyer, he intercuts the allegations in the indictment with video from the event:
We find it amusing that at about the 7 minute mark, Don Lemon talks about not naming the church he is outside of, or showing it on camera because he is so famous people will figure out where he is and somehow warn the people at the church. Dude, we are pretty sure at least 90% of the American people had no idea who you were before this controversy arose and maybe now it has dipped to 85% of the people. Get over yourself.
But that part is significant because it shows the difference between what Lemon was doing and what Levin was describing. For instance, Levin mentions riots. As we said when diving deep in to the Lemon indictment:
That adds up to Don Lemon—or really, any person—being typically allowed to observe even criminal conduct and report on it. He is even allowed to record and broadcast it. And if he knows ahead of time these people intend to engage in criminal conduct, he doesn’t typically have a duty to even report that intention to the police, let alone take any steps to stop it.
So any citizen acting as a journalist can see a riot, decide to report on it, and even live streaming it. They can even know or suspect a group of people are going to riot and follow along to cover it. But there is a world of difference between that and Don Lemon choosing not to pass information to his viewers because someone might get wise to what this group was planning to do. There is a world of difference between observing and interviewing the people who planned to invade this church and Lemon warning them to keep the details of the operation secret so as not to tip off their hand.
Levin also responds to the claim that this was private property by making the correct observation that generally churches are open to the public during services/mass. But he ignores the part when the pastor tells them to leave. That is the moment it became absolutely clear trespassing, and there is no ‘but I’m a reporter!’ exception to the law of trespass. Seriously, Levin, how about we have this author spend a week in your living room, ‘reporting’ on events in your home even after you ask us to leave? How would you like that?
Anyway, this led to this rah-rah quote Tweet post:
bro do you know how bad it is when TMZ is explaining the Constitution to their audience https://t.co/tIJjeDGQGh
— Keith Edwards (@keithedwards) January 31, 2026
Which led Ted Lieu to get all chest-thumpy quote posting Edward. But Lieu used a naughty, naughty word, so we are only going to quote him with censorship, rather than embedding the post:
Dear @WhiteHouse: Your authoritarian s**t is backfiring.
The American people are strong and we are good.
WE WILL NEVER BEND THE KNEE TO YOU.
WE WILL NEVER YIELD.
WE WILL NEVER SUBMIT.
There are more of us than you, and we are protected by the Constitution.
You guys… he is so brave!
Anyway, a Twitter/X user responded, leading to this exchange:
“Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) January 31, 2026
We think 'Back2Basics' meant to say 'Enforcing the laws that Congress passed isn't authoritarian' (emphasis added) and Lieu understood it the same way.
In any case, that is when Frank Fleming, of IMAO fame, made this observation:
Did he just yada yada freedom of religion? https://t.co/k1uz78RUwb
— Frank J. Fleming (@IMAO_) January 31, 2026
Why, yes … he did. As you probably know, the full text of the First Amendment says the following:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
(Emphasis added.) Mind you, it is acceptable in some contexts to skip over parts of the Constitution—or any other law—when it is not relevant to the discussion. We do this all the time. But since this person was trying to say that Don Lemon’s freedom of the press trumped the parishioners’ freedom of religion, it is kind of a big deal that Lieu skipped over the language in the First Amendment explicitly protecting freedom of religion.
The reality is that both freedom of expression and freedom of religion requires, to some degree, the right of private people to exclude and silence others. For instance, how can a minister give a sermon if people have a right to run into the church and shout the entire time over the minister so no one can hear the minister? Put aside whether or not Don Lemon and his church-invading friends were engaged in things like intimidation, oppression, etc., merely disrupting the service and refusing to leave when asked was a violation of the minister's and his congregations’ freedom of religion. They had a right to worship without listening to those people and the invaders’ sense of entitlement did not override that right.
Ted thinks Donnie is a journalist so he gets a “get out of jail free” card
— KeithH (@kch50014) February 1, 2026
Keith is identifying a common and historically illiterate view.
…and a yada-yada for peaceably assemble too.
— Dan Dalthorp (@DalthorpDan) February 1, 2026
Fair point. Do we need to get the ramen guy out again?
Well he’s a communist so yeah, he would do that
— dad wing extremist (@dadwingpolitics) February 1, 2026
I notice there isn’t a permission slip for breaking any laws in the constitution.
— Come and take it (@rignerd) February 1, 2026
If the law is unconstitutional, it is a complete defense to violating it, but otherwise… yes.
He's not just a Democrat, but a California Democrat. Would you really expect anything else?
— firefly_actual (@firefly_actual) February 1, 2026
They can speech and press all they want just not while trespassing on private property while detaining churchgoers trying to leave
— Geoism (@GeoTranstrum) February 1, 2026
That’s just crazy talk, dude.
And they didn't. You can be a journalist without violating the FACE Act.
— Jeffrey Collins (@Collinstaxacct) January 31, 2026
And that also points at more confusion from Lieu. The language he cites literally starts with ‘Congress shall make no law…’ Is he claiming the FACE Act is unconstitutional? Because he didn’t seem particularly concerned when the law was used to throw pro-lifers in prison for peacefully blocking an abortion clinic. But as we have noted before, there is no right to abortion in the Constitution. But there is a right to freedom of religion in it.
And for that matter, is he claiming that the Klan Act is also unconstitutional? Well, to be fair, Democrats claimed that when the law was first passed, too. Again: What party switch?
But really, we like the way that First Amendment lawyer Marc J. Randazza explained the anger Democrats are feeling over the FACE act right now. As he said this on Twitter/X, but he used also used a naughty, naughty word so we will only quote him with some censorship:
The FACE Act was a great compromise.
The left wanted people to be able to get abortions in peace.
I think that’s fair.
We wanted to go to church in peace.
That’s fair.
And the left agreed in large part because they probably thought ‘what kind of a banshee goblin f**ktard would want to go and start intimidating people from going to church?’
They felt like they gave up nothing.
Fast forward and they’ve become such a bunch of nose ring gothapottamus lunatics that they can’t even leave churches alone.
Finally, someone pointed out that Lieu has dutifully helped to advance the cause of equality between Asian Americans and the other races:
Ted continues his efforts to disprove Asian stereotypes.
— Pyrus (@pyruscreed) February 1, 2026
*Stifles laughter* If you encounter some racist who says that all Asians are smart, you can point at the counter-example of Ted Lieu.
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