Mahmoud Khalil was detained and arrested at his Manhattan apartment. The video is chilling. Plainclothes agents are there. They refuse to give their names. He’s handcuffed and shoved into the back of a car. His wife — eight months pregnant — watches and tries to understand what’s happening.

This is not a scene from some dark chapter of a distant past filled with black-and-white photos of bygone dictatorships. This happened here, in the United States of America, in 2025.

In this podcast series, in the lead-up to the country’s 250th anniversary, journalists Michael Fox and Marc Steiner look at the battle for our free speech rights today, and attacks on people speaking out in the United States.

Hosted by Michael Fox and Marc Steiner.
Theme music by Michael Fox, Jordan Klein, and Daniel Nuñez.
Other music from Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound.
Production and Sound Design by Michael Fox and Stephen Frank. 
Editorial support by: Kayla Rivara and Heather Gies. 
Research by Ben Schweiger.

Guests: 

• Lisa Femia, Staff Attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Corinna Mullin, CUNY professor
• David Rubin, Staff Attorney, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
• Allen Chaney, Legal Director, ACLU - South Carolina

Resources: 

• The Charlie Kirk purge: How 600 Americans were punished in a pro-Trump crackdown  
• Clemson Settles With Professor Fired for Kirk Comments
• Retired police officer jailed over Charlie Kirk post settles lawsuit for more than $800K 
• The war on our sight

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