On Thursday’s CNN This Morning, the panel reacted with alarm to reports that the Department of Homeland Security is compiling data on anti-ICE activists. Host Audie Cornish played a clip in which an ICE agent, in what she described as a “tossed off” remark, told a protester she was now considered a “domestic terrorist.” Cornish claimed that such language, once written into a report, “becomes a real problem for someone.”
Republican panelist Kristen Soltis Anderson urged viewers to “think about what would have happened during the Tea Party era, when the shoe’s on the other foot, about how upset conservatives would have been at the idea of the government tracking their speech in any kind of way. And so I always just think it’s useful to imagine, like, what if the parties were flipped here? And I think a lot of conservatives would be in, would be unbelievably outraged, and rightly so, if a Democratic administration was trying to track them.”
But conservatives don’t have to imagine such a scenario. They’ve already experienced it.
In 2009, the Obama administration’s Department of Homeland Security issued a report titled Rightwing Extremism, sparking backlash from conservatives and veterans’ groups who argued it cast suspicion on broad swaths of right-leaning activists. During that same period, the IRS admitted to subjecting Tea Party-affiliated organizations to heightened scrutiny in reviewing applications for tax-exempt status — a move widely condemned on the right as government overreach targeting political speech.
More recently, under the Biden administration, DHS homeland threat assessments described domestic violent extremism as the “most persistent and lethal threat” facing the country. While the language focused on violence, many conservatives argued it blurred lines between criminal actors and broader conservative movements.
Then in 2023, an FBI Richmond field office memo referencing “radical-traditionalist Catholics” and potential extremist infiltration into certain Catholic communities ignited national controversy before being withdrawn. Critics saw it as yet another instance of federal authorities casting an overly broad net around constitutionally protected religious expression.
When Soltis Anderson invites viewers to picture conservatives reacting to Democratic speech-tracking, she overlooks recent history. The “flipped parties” scenario isn’t theoretical. It already happened.
Note: We’ll stop short of classifying Soltis Anderson as a tame “CNN Republican,” but, as we reported here, this isn’t the first time she’s taken a “pox on both their houses” approach.
Here’s the transcript.
CNN This Morning
2/19/26
6:23 am ET
TOM HOMAN: We’re going to create a database where those people that are arrested for interference, impeding, assault. We’re going to make them famous. We’re going to put their face on TV. We’re going to let their employers, in their neighborhoods, in their schools, know who these people are.
AUDIE CORNISH: Border czar Tom Homan, not trying to hide it. DHS is building a database. And if you publicly criticize ICE, or try to track their movements, you could find yourself in that database. The New York Times reports that Google, Reddit, Discord and Meta have all received hundreds of administrative subpoenas, not judicial ones, administrative subpoenas from DHS demanding data and persona information about what they call anti-ICE accounts. Google, Meta and Reddit have already complied with some of those requests.
TIKTOK CLIP OF YOUNG WOMAN: This obviously completely violates our First Amendment right in the Constitution to free speech, as we are 100% allowed to critique any government agency, department, or law enforcement as we please.
ANOTHER TIKTOKER: DHS says this is about [air quotes] safety. Okay, but many people are worried that it could be misused or misunderstood. You think?
YET ANOTHER TIKTOKER: It’s fascinating to me that there are Republicans that would support this type of government overreach.
CORNISH: Okay, DHS claims it has broad administrative subpoena authority and needs the information to keep immigration agents in the field safe.
So, the Group Chat is back. This has long been a conversation that Tom Homan, in particular, has talked about. And I just want to play one more piece of tape for you about how this is playing out on the ground. Witness this exchange, January 23rd in Maine, between a protester and an ICE official.
PROTESTER: It’s not illegal to record.
ICE AGENT: Exactly.
PROTESTER: Yeah.
ICE AGENT: That’s what we’re doing.
PROTESTER: Yeah. Why are you taking my information down?
ICE AGENT: Because we have a nice little database.
PROTESTER: Oh, good.
ICE AGENT: And now you’re considered a domestic terrorist. So have fun.
PROTESTER: [Laughs] For videotaping you. Are you crazy?
CORNISH: It was that line. Now you’re a domestic terrorist, kind of tossed off. But in a report when you file that, that becomes a real problem for someone.
ISAAC DOVERE: Yeah. And I think part of what’s going on here is that anybody who uses Gmail or Facebook or any of these things, likes to think this is my personal data. But actually it’s the company’s data once you put it in there, and the companies can do with it what they want to, for the most part,
What’s different here is that this is yet another time where we see the government moving into collect data, collect information on people. We don’t know for what, to what extent they’re going to be using it or how they’re going to be using it. But they may not even need to go through the whole subpoena process.
CORNISH: I was going to ask about that. So I was noticing, in L.A., a federal judge rejected the government’s argument that protesters tracking federal officials met the bar for interference. In Chicago, a bunch of people who were arrested for this: dismissed, let go.
And somehow the administration, when it finally has to get to court. So is it really the journey? Is it the destination? Is it just about scaring people off of the speech?
MEGHAN HAYS: I think so, I think it’s about the threats here. I think it just makes — and it also is something that’s going to rile up the left, it’s going to rile up the the progressives and the base and make it even more intense. And it’ll be more talking points, but they’re actually not probably going to be able to do anything with this data. Or I mean, as soon as a new president comes in, they’re going to wipe all of this clean. This is just, it’s a really un-American thing to do. As we know, it is a violation of their First Amendment. And I just, it’s just more scare tactics by the administration.
CORNISH: I want to ask you something that I found out, because during the break, you were talking about Europe, sort of this divide between free speech in Europe versus here.
As we speak, Reuters reported this morning that the U.S. department is developing an online portal that will enable people in Europe and elsewhere to see content [chuckles] banned by their governments, which include alleged hate speech and terrorist propaganda.
KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON: Well, yeah. And if you if you spend any time on like the conservative internet, you will frequently see stories coming out of places like the UK that get people up in arms. Because they are genuinely insane, where people have the cops come kick in their door because they tweeted something that the government didn’t like, or that was considered maybe, possibly, hate speech laws.
CORNISH: “Genuinely insane” is not a statutory right.
KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON: Right, right, right. But essentially, there are lot of conservatives who will look at things like the very strict rules around speech that exist in other countries and go, that’s terrible. It’s so great that we don’t have that here. We have the First Amendment.
And yet we’re also in this era of kind of big government Republicans, where the Rand Pauls in the party, who have been saying pretty consistently, regardless of who’s in power, for a long time, civil liberties matter, we shouldn’t be invading.
You know, think about what would have happened during the Tea Party era, when the shoe’s on the other foot, about how upset conservatives would have been at the idea of the government tracking their speech in any kind of way.
And so I always just think it’s useful to imagine, like, what if the parties were flipped here? And I think a lot of conservatives would be in, would be unbelievably outraged, and rightly so, if a Democratic administration was trying to track them.
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