Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said Sunday that the United States is in “one of the most dangerous moments America has ever faced” as he accused President Donald Trump of using the federal government to target his political opponents.
“The president of the United States is now employing the full power of the federal government, the FCC, the Department of Justice, in order to punish, lock up, take down off the air all of his political enemies,” Murphy told ABC News’ “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl.
He continued, “As you know, this is what happens in Iran. This is what happens in Cuba. This is what happens in China, in deeply repressive states in which if you have the courage to stand up and speak truth to power, you are silenced. I mean, there is no more fundamental right in America than the right to protest your government.”
In a February interview on “This Week,” Murphy asserted the U.S. was in the midst of “the most serious constitutional crisis the country has faced, certainly, since Watergate.” He said then that he believed Trump was “attempting to seize control of power and for corrupt purposes.”
Sen. Chris Murphy speaks with ABC News while appearing on This Week, Sept. 21, 2025.
ABC News
On Sunday, he questioned when Republicans would call the president out.
“The question today is, when is enough, enough for Republicans?” Murphy said. “Next week, we need every Republican in the Senate, in the House, not only speaking up, but going to Donald Trump and telling him that they are not going to let him get away with this massive, new contraction of speech. This is a decisive moment for the country. It is a decisive moment for Republicans who have to decide to serve this core, fundamental American value: the freedom of speech.”
Trump has rejected criticisms that his administration is trying to restrict free speech, saying that he is seeking to address to what he calls unfair treatment of him by the press.
Murphy introduced a bill called the “No Political Enemies Act” last week, which he said would create “a specific legal defense for those targeted for political reasons.”
“Doesn’t the First Amendment cover that? Is that — is it necessary to have another piece of legislation?” Karl pressed.
“You have Trump sycophants, not just in charge of the DOJ, but sitting in courthouses all over the country. And so, you have a legal system that is increasingly getting rigged against those who are daring to speak up against the president,” Murphy alleged. “Our legislation just simply makes it easier for you to raise First Amendment defenses in court.”
Here are more highlights from Murphy’s interview:
Reaction to the preemption of ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’
Karl: A lot of the president’s allies will point to a decision like the one made by ABC Disney regarding Jimmy Kimmel in saying, look, this is a private company making a decision that a private company has a right to do.
Murphy: Well, I think there’s a real difference because these companies made that decision in the context of a threat from the FCC, right? This is a federal regulator who is using the power of government to coerce, both Nexstar and ABC, to take Jimmy Kimmel down off the air. Listen, every single president, every single politician has drawn issue with something that a media figure has said and may use the power of persuasion to try to get them to change what they say. That’s very different than using the power of government in a coercive way that’s actually illegal. The Supreme Court has said, no, you cannot use the regulatory power of the government to say to a broadcaster, if you don’t say what I want you to say, as the president, United States, there will be a official legal consequence that’s illegal. And that’s the fundamental difference here.
On the firing of the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia
Murphy: This is a Republican U.S. attorney in Virginia who came to the conclusion that the attorney general of New York did nothing wrong. There was no evidence of a crime. And so, Donald Trump, because he doesn’t care about the facts, all he cares about is the threat of imprisonment for his political enemies so that it suppresses the speech of other people who might speak up, is now going to put his own political loyalists in charge of that investigation.
On whether socialism is the future of the Democratic Party
Karl: There was a poll out earlier this month from Gallup that asked views of socialism and capitalism. And I want to take a look at this part of that poll. It showed that 66 percent of Democrats have a favorable view of socialism. Independents, 38 percent. Just 38 percent. Republicans, 14 percent. Is that — is that the future of the — of the — of the Democratic Party is a more favorable view of socialism?
Murphy: No, it is not. But I have seen, I think, even more interesting polling that shows you, across party identities, people in this country are sick and tired of corporations having so much control over our lives and are sick and tired of work not paying. So I think the Democratic Party has an opportunity to reach into Donald Trump’s base, to really build upon a potential realignment in this country. If we are aggressively talking about deconstructing concentrated corporate power, including in the media, and we are talking about fundamentally increasing the amount of money that people make and the protections that they have when they go to work, that’s not socialism. That’s just rightsizing the economy so that people have power instead of corporations having power.