Hello Mark, thanks for joining
us. Sure. The the the respect for
Marriage Act said that the federal
government will recognize any
union that the state where it was
conducted said that it was valid and
it added religious protections for
pastors or churches who may decide
they don't want to conduct gay
weddings on their religious grounds.
Why did you vote against it?
Yeah, cause the religious
protections aren't real.
Listen, I'm a religious liberty
lawyer and this is what I do.
It's a constitutional lawyer.
Before I ran for Attorney
general and now in the Senate,
I can tell you that you can drive
a truck through those supposed
religious liberty protections.
This bill gives to individuals and
organizations a right to sue other people,
including churches,
including probably Christian
colleges and universities,
certainly including Christian business
people or others in the public square.
You can sue them under this bill
if they don't do what you want.
What to do?
And so I think what you're going to
see is a another wave of suits by
against a bakers and against a website
designers and against those who say
that it's against their religious
beliefs to participate in a wedding
ceremony that's against their faith.
And,
and I'm opposed to that.
I think there should be real
religious liberty protections.
And of course I'm also opposed
to the Obergefell decision.
I think it's just wrong on the
Constitution from almost 10 years ago now.
And so I'm not in favor of
codifying that in the Federal law
Democrats who drafted this proposal.
And and and energize.
The push behind it pointed
to the Dobbs decision,
specifically the portion where
Justice Thomas suggested that the
court should reconsider rulings
that legalized gay marriage,
the Obergefell decision that
you just mentioned there.
When we take your vote on this
bill and your statement just now,
does that mean that you want
to see the US or or Missouri
move to ban gay marriage?
Will
Missouri can't because it's it's the law
of the land according to the US Supreme
Court interpreting the Constitution.
So while I think the decision
is wrongly decided, I also don't
think it's going to go anywhere.
I mean, I think it's going to be the
law of the land for probably ever.
I mean I I don't see the Supreme
Court changing that.
I don't think anybody is seriously
litigating to try to change it.
You you said the Dobbs decision,
but what you cited is not
in the Dobbs decision.
It is a single concurrence from Justice
Thomas that is his own opinion which
he's welcome to express his own.
Use justices do that all the time.
That was one vote out of nine,
so I don't think obergefell's
going anywhere anytime soon.
I raised his opinion because at the
time you specifically said you agreed
with portions of Justice Thomas.
I wondered if you agreed with that part
of it that that you wanted to see and you
just said you disagreed with Obergefell.
Yeah, I do. I think Obergefell is
wrongly decided. But do I think
it's going to be overturned?
No. And do I think that that
ought to be a top project? No.
I see on top projects and
on priorities of the party.
A recent Gallup poll which surveys the
views and values of Americans found
that in 2022 support for gay marriage
reached an all time high at 71%.
You just spoke to us in the last week or two,
in the aftermath of the midterm
elections about the Republican
need to build a majority party.
How can you govern?
How can you build a majority
party standing among the 29%?
Well, I might remind you that I
represent the state of Missouri in the
United States Senate and the voters
of Missouri overwhelmingly by over,
I believe 70% approved a constitutional
amendment to our state constitution saying
that their preference was for marriage
to be between one man and one woman.
And I respect the voters in my state.
I also agree with them on substance.
So my view is, is the Constitution
leaves this matter to the states.
It is silent. It does not dictate a
view of marriage one way or another.
By the way, the federal Constitution
now the Supreme Court.
Disagrees with that.
That's the Obergefell decision.
And they have said that these that
the Constitution commands same sex
marriage in every single state.
I disagree with that outcome,
but it's the law of the land.
I want to pivot quickly to some of
your recent comments and work on
the issues surrounding free speech
and big tech as it relates to Apple.
I understand Tim Cook and Elon
Musk have had some sort of a
conversation and worked things out.
There were some concerns that
the App Store might remove.
Or limit access to Twitter over concerns
of some of the types of speech that
they feared might proliferate in the
aftermath of some of the purge going
on at Twitter headquarters there.
But I I want to understand what your
line is between government limiting
free speech and private companies or
individuals freely associating with
content or views that they wish to.
How is that an imposition on free speech?
How
is what an imposition on free speech?
The App Store. Using its monopoly
power to set out Twitter.
Is that your question?
Well, Monopoly would be a
different discussion, would
well, they are a monopoly.
The Apple Store is a monopoly.
Apple is a monopoly,
and the App Store is, I think,
unquestionably a monopoly.
And they frankly ought to face
antitrust scrutiny for it.
So yeah, I'm concerned when the government
and big tech monopolies partner together.
There's a history of this,
by the way, it's happened in the past.
That happened in the 1930s in Europe,
where you had big government and big business
worked together to force a particular.
Agenda on the rest of society.
That's what this administration
is trying to do.
When I say this administration,
I mean Joe Biden.
And by the way,
we know that thanks to Missouri's lawsuit
currently proceeding in federal court,
which has turned up evidence that Biden
officials met with members of of Big
Tech leaders of Big Tech and worked
actively to coerce big tech leaders
to censor speech of otherwise First
Amendment speech protected speech
that they the government didn't like.
I think that is both.
Illegal and unconstitutional.
So yes, I'm concerned about it.
And yes,
I think that Tim Cook should not be
able to use his monopoly power to
censor speech that he doesn't like.
Why does Tim Cook not like Twitter?
Probably because he gets criticized
on Twitter.
Well,
I've got news for him that's that's America,
and they ought to welcome that.
But Apple doesn't care too
much for America these days.
As you can see from where
they make their products,
overwhelmingly in China,
95% I believe their products
are now made in China,
and they are actively,
they apple.
Actively working with the Chinese
government to censor and shut down and
quell speech and protest in China.
It's despicable.
I'm unaware of anybody being censored
or banned or restricted on Twitter
because they simply criticized Tim Cook.
Instead, rather, and maybe ironically,
people are being restricted on on Twitter
for using anti-Semitic or racist language.
The very kind of content that was
on the rise in the 1930s that
you're just alluding to. That's
not what Apple that's not why
Apple was going to ban them.
It threatened to ban Twitter.
From there, from the App Store,
that's nonsense.
Elon Musk has taken additional
steps to to take down,
to get rid of that kind of hate speech.
In fact, he as you can see,
if you look at Twitter and look
at the data Twitter's released,
that kind of hate speech
has dropped precipitously.
And I'm glad it has since
he has taken the reins.
And we all know why these companies,
whether it's whether it's Apple or
whether it's the European Union,
why they're going after Twitter,
it's suddenly become a haven for free speech,
a little bit more free speech friendly.
But the left doesn't believe in free speech.
Anymore.
And certainly Joe Biden doesn't
believe in free speech,
which is why he is actively
coercing big tech companies to
carry out censorship on his behalf.
That is unconstitutional.
And I look forward to the further
depositions of the leaders of his
administration as to what they've been
doing with this sort of collusion.
All right, Senator, I have some follow-ups,
but I'm afraid we're out of time.
We'll have to connect with you later.
All right. Talk to you soon. We'd
like to set the record straight,
to add some important context there for
any viewers who might have heard those
remarks from Senator Hawley and heard
him suggesting that somehow censoring
hate speech might incite some of the
same hatred we saw in the early 1930s.
It was that very hate speech that was in fact
at the center of much of the censorship,
or the different information
that was flagged, removed,
or filtered from social media. In fact,
as soon as Elon Musk took over Twitter,
there was an immediate.
Urge in that kind of anti-Semitic
hate speech specifically directed
at Jewish people.
Musk made a specific point in
his public takeover of that
company to reinstate Kanye West,
now calling himself Yee the rapper
who who whose account was suspended
for anti-Semitic hate speech.
In fact, just while we were talking
with Senator Hawley, Kanye West
went on a conspiracy theory program,
one that was hosted by someone who Musks.
Twitter still won't allow back
on that social media platform.
And he said this,
you see it on your screen, he praised.
Adolf Hitler.
He went on to deny the Holocaust.
Elon Musk himself has not
said anything this extreme,
this egregious,
but he has taken aim at Jewish Americans,
including Alexander Vinman.
Vinman is a 20 year old year
army combat veteran.
You might remember him from some
of the impeachment trials and
testimony of former President Trump.
Venman was injured in combat,
awarded the Purple Heart,
also happens to be a Jewish
immigrant born in Ukraine.
His family fled the Soviet Union
and migrated to the US when he was
just a child in a recent tweet.
Elon Musk described vinman as
both a puppeteer and a puppet,
and questioned who pulls his strings.
That explanation,
that illustration that he's using,
is anti-Semitic.
According to Jewish publications.
A Jewish publication said that Musk's tweet,
deliberately or not,
evoked an anti-Semitic trope that
Jews control positions of power.
These are the types of speech,
and these are the types of speakers that
are being promoted on Twitter's platform.
3 platformed brought back into the
limelight and Elon Musk making a point
to say we're not going to limit or
censor or remove those types of speakers.
Also,
advertisers.
Nearly half of the major
advertisers on Twitter have started
exercising their free speech.
They're right of free association
by pulling their paid advertisements
from that platform for fear that their
brand would be associated next to
some of that racist or anti-Semitic comment,
commentary or images.
The idea about the Apple App Store
censoring Twitter or removing
Twitter came from Yoel Roth.
Yoel Roth was the person who Elon
Musk promoted to the head of public
safety before he later stepped down
and said he feared that Twitter was
heading in the wrong direction,
something that could be damaging and
harmful in the way that it allows,
or any kind of hateful speech to proliferate.
We'll leave it there.
For now,
we look forward to having Senator
Holly back on our program to talk more
about big tech and where you get your
information and what you can trust.