The American Mind, a project of Project 2025 partner The Claremont Institute, published a piece on October 23 advocating for a second Trump administration to seek the Supreme Court to overturn New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, a key decision protecting the First Amendment.

Legal scholars have described the Sullivan decision, which established the “actual malice” standard in libel law, as “one of the Supreme Court’s most significant First Amendment rulings.” As Oyez outlines: “When a statement concerns a public figure, the Court held, it is not enough to show that it is false for the press to be liable for libel. Instead, the target of the statement must show that it was made with knowledge of or reckless disregard for its falsity.”

The Claremont Institute’s Carson Holloway recently argued that “President Trump should seek the reversal of New York Times v. Sullivan,” casting his argument as a continuation of the Dobbs decision that reversed the constitutional right to abortion. Holloway celebrates Trump as singularly responsible for Dobbs, describing it as his “signature accomplishment” in his “already impressive legacy” of the “restoration of self-government.” Continued:

Holloway then lays out a three point plan for how to accomplish this. 

First, he suggests, “President Trump should make the case for revisiting the Sullivan ruling a more prominent and recurring part of his public rhetoric.” He has good reason to believe this is viable. In 2016, Trump promised that if he won he would “open up our libel laws” to make it easier to sue the press, singling out The New York Times and The Washington Post. On the Supreme Court, Justices Thomas and Gorsuch have both signaled their openness to reconsidering Sullivan.

More recently, Trump has been ramping up his attacks on journalists, advocating for revoking broadcasting licenses and launching other legal attacks. Brendan Carr, a Trump-appointed member of the Federal Communications Commission that oversees broadcasting licenses, could be a key ally in this threat. Carr wrote the chapter on the FCC in Project 2025’s policy book, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.

Holloway’s next suggestion on stripping the press of legal protections is a given: “President Trump should continue his first-term policy of appointing serious constitutionalists to the Supreme Court and, indeed, to all federal judicial vacancies.”

Finally, Holloway states: “President Trump should direct his Department of Justice to seek the reversal of the actual malice doctrine and restore judicial respect for the original meaning of the First Amendment. This policy should include the regular filing, in appropriate cases, of amicus curiae briefs by the Justice Department urging the courts to revisit this question.”

This argument harmonizes with the vision of a weaponized Department of Justice outlined in Mandate. As Gene Hamilton, vice president and general counsel of former Project 2025 partner America First Legal, wrote in his chapter on the Justice Department, DOJ policy “must always be consistent with the President’s policy agenda and the rule of law.” Project 2025 would gut the federal government’s system of checks and balances through a radical consolidation of executive power.

Project 2025’s emphasis on personnel would also bolster a second Trump administration’s attacks on free speech. Through the initiative, The Heritage Foundation has assembled a prevetted database of Trump loyalists, which it calls a “conservative LinkedIn,” of potential administration hires that have taken loyalty tests to prove they’d be willing to stretch or even violate the law in order to enact his agenda. Project 2025 also advocates for the implementation of a policy known as “Schedule F,” which would remove civil service protections for politically neutral career bureaucrats so they could be fired en masse and replaced with pro-MAGA sycophants. Remaking the federal workforce in this way would allow Trump to more easily exercise control over the Department of Justice and enact a retributional, anti-free speech agenda.