CBS News’s flagship program broadcast a call to protect the First Amendment in spite of a Trump administration that has repeatedly threatened its integrity.
As part of its “The Last Minute” feature on Sunday’s weekly broadcast, the Absence of Malice star Sally Field shared a personal story about what freedom of speech guaranteed by the United States Constitution means to her.
“When I was in the seventh grade, I was asked to memorize something that I never forgot,” Field, 79, said. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peacefully to assemble.”
“It’s the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I barely knew what it meant at the time,” she continued. “I certainly didn’t know the importance of it. And now, almost 67 years later, I understand it like never before.”
“I have the right to speak out, make a sign, and peacefully join a protest without fear of punishment or retribution, or worse,” the Forrest Gump actress added. “I have learned that this fragile thing called democracy needs to be protected, that the brilliance of our Constitution begins with the words, ‘We the People.’”
“I believe in the resilience of our Constitution, and I believe in the goodness and strength of the people,” Field concluded.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
The second Trump administration has fiercely attacked Americans’ unalienable First Amendment rights.
President Donald Trump, 79, has himself led the charge in the undermining of the media, painting any negative press he or his administration receives as “fake news.”
In October, the Pentagon, led by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, issued a policy mandating that credentialed Pentagon reporters must not report on information unless formally authorized for release.
After the vast majority of traditional media outlets declined to agree to the new rules, a new Pentagon press corps filled with MAGA-fied outlets took over, debilitating key press access to one of the country’s most important departments.
Also in Hegseth’s MAGA Pentagon, the self-styled “Secretary of War” has attempted to impose his Christian nationalist views throughout the nation’s military, even leading prayer events at the government building despite the essential American ideal respecting the separation of church and state.
In August, the president signed an executive order enabling the prosecution of those who “desecrate” the American flag, despite a 1989 Supreme Court case protecting that act as a form of political expression.
