This news article appeared today in Brazil’s largest newspaper, Folha de S.Paulo, in Portuguese; the translated article in English appears below.

The media company of U.S. President Donald Trump, along with the American video platform Rumble, filed a joint lawsuit in a U.S. federal court today against the notorious Brazilian Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes. The platforms seek a judicial declaration that Moraes’ recent orders — which mandate that Rumble close the account of right-wing commentator Allan dos Santos and turn over all of his user data — violates the sovereignty of the United States, the U.S. Constitution, and American law. Moraes issued the orders in secret, and required Rumble not to disclose the contents of the order.

Rumble left Brazil in December, 2023, due to what it described as numerous unjust “censorship orders” from Moraes to ban multiple creators and voices on the platform, including elected members of Congress. At the time, Moraes ordered Rumble to keep those orders secret, and threatened the company with being shut off in Brazil if it failed to immediately comply: similar to how, last August, Moraes ordered X closed in Brazil for failure to comply with orders banning users and removing posts. 

We obtained and published a copy of one such secret order — directed to multiple platforms — in January, 2023. They gave the platforms two hours to comply or face substantial daily fines. Rumble shut off its service in Brazil rather than comply.

But with a new Trump administration vowing to protect American technology companies from censorship demands by foreign governments, and with Moraes recently withdrawing an order blocking the Rumble account of the podcaster Monark, Rumble made its content once again available in Brazil earlier this month. Almost immediately, Moraes sent orders to Rumble’s former lawyers in the country, directing them to once again represent Rumble so that they could receive his orders on the company’s behalf. 

Moraes’ new order at the center of the lawsuit is one that directed Rumble to fully close the account of dos Santos and prevent him from opening any new ones. Unlike prior orders from Moraes, this one does not merely force the platform to block dos Santos’ content from being available in Brazil. 

The order requires that Rumble ban dos Santos entirely from using or monetizing Rumble in any way, including outside of Brazil. As prior orders did, it gave Rumble only two hours to comply.

Dos Santos was charged in Brazil with several crimes relating to the alleged disinformation he posted about the STF and 2022 election. But in April of last year, the Biden administration rejected Brazil’s extradition request on the ground that such acts are not and cannot be considered crimes in the U.S., as they are protected by the right to free expression. 

Under extradition treaties, countries generally refuse to extradite a foreign national if the acts that form the basis of the request are not crimes in that country. Dos Santos’ application for political asylum in the U.S. is pending, and he remains a legal resident of the U.S. 

Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski said in a statement that the American rejection of that extradition request should have put an end to Moraes’ attempt to limit dos Santos’ speech in the U.S. Instead, he said, “[Moraes] is now attempting to sidestep the U.S. legal system entirely — using secret censorship orders to pressure American social media into banning the political dissident worldwide.”

Rumble’s lawyer E. Martin De Luca, of the large law firm Boies Schiller, said that, as a legal resident of the U.S., Dos Santos’ “speech is fully protected under the First Amendment.” The purpose of the suit, he said, is “to ensure that American businesses remain governed by American law and that no foreign court can unilaterally dictate what speech is allowed on American platforms without proper authorization from the U.S. government.”

It has become a top goal of American technology companies to enlist the Trump administration in their fight against political censorship imposed by foreign governments. When Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in January that Facebook’s “fact-checking program” would end, he asked the U.S. Government to protect tech companies against foreign governments who are “going after American companies and pushing to censor more.” When asked about Meta’s announcement, Trump expressed approval for it.

Lawyers for Trump’s media company argue that any attempt to disrupt Rumble’s operations in Brazil would also harm Trump’s company, Trump Media and Technology Group Corp. (Trump Media), and its Truth Social media platform. Rumble provides Truth Social with the cloud services on which the site depends. Any blocking of Rumble, Trump Media argues, will destabilize Truth Social as well, giving the company a legal basis to challenge Moraes’ orders directed at Rumble.

The political consequences of this new lawsuit could be at least as significant as its legal implications, perhaps more so. Many key figures in Trump’s new government have long harbored animosity toward Moraes and toward what they see as Brazil’s increasingly repressive censorship regime. Focusing a light on Moraes and depicting his orders as an attack on American sovereignty, American companies and the free speech rights of U.S. residents is likely to inflame tensions among Moraes’ now-powerful American opponents.

Chief among those is Elon Musk, the person arguably most powerful in the new American government. During X’s battle with the STF, Musk launched multiple harsh rhetorical attacks on Moraes, calling him “a tyrannical dictator masquerading as a judge” and a “criminal.” In August, Musk published an AI-generated photo of Moraes behind prison bars and wrote: “One day, @Alexandre, this picture of you in prison will be real. Mark my words.”  

The decision by Trump’s media company to join Rumble’s lawsuit against Moraes undoubtedly signals the new administration’s intent to combat many of the Brazilian judge’s censorship orders. Thus far, the Trump administration has largely avoided specifically targeting Brazil with the kinds of retaliatory tariffs, demands and punishments imposed on other countries. But this lawsuit against Moraes from Trump’s media company can, and almost certainly will, inflame these latent conflicts between the two governments.

In addition to seeking a ruling that Moraes’ order violates American sovereignty and law, the lawsuit also requests an order be issued to Apple and Google, requiring them not to abide by any directives from Moraes to remove Truth Social or Rumble’s platform from their stores. It also requests a jury trial to determine the validity of the companies’ claims against Moraes.

Journalist Glenn Greenwald has a contract with Rumble to provide exclusivity for his online show for 12 hours; Rumble has no editorial control (or any other control) over the show or Greenwald’s journalism.

The following is an abridged transcript from System Update’s most recent episode. You can watch the full episode on Rumble or listen to it in podcast form on Apple, Spotify, or any other major podcast provider.

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First: The German-based journalist, James Jackson, has been covering free speech attacks in Germany extensively and he will be here with us tonight to explain all of them. 

Then: Several top national security officials of the Trump administration – including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump envoy, Steve Witkoff – met today in Saudi Arabia with senior Russian officials including Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. It was the first real dialogue between high-level officials of both countries – by the way, the world’s two largest nuclear superpowers – that took place in many years and there is every reason to celebrate even, indeed, – to breathe a sigh of relief – over the fact these two countries are now agreeing to maintain open dialog and work together, cooperatively, not only to end the devastating war in Ukraine but on numerous issues of common interest beyond Ukraine as well. 

Plus: there was a bizarre and extraordinary hate crime that took place in Miami over the weekend that you likely heard very little about. A Jewish American man who identifies as an ardent Zionist shot and tried to kill two people solely because he thought they were Palestinian. The two men he shot were actually Israeli. 

For their part, the two victims also mistook the ethnic background of their shooter: they announced on social media that he was Arab and that he tried to kill them just for being Israelis and then added on their social media accounts, “Death to Arabs.” 

There's a lot to say about this incident, especially the reaction to it or, more accurately, the very subdued lack of reaction.

The interview: James Jackson

The issue on which our show has mostly focused over the last year or so has been the relentless assault on free speech after October 7. It resulted in all sorts of executive orders in the U.S., purporting to ban criticism of Israel or activism against it, the shutting of pro-Palestinian groups on campuses and even the shutting of TikTok as one very prominent senator admitted over the weekend: the true impetus for shutting down TikTok in the United States was that it was perceived to permit too many criticisms of Israel. 

Meanwhile, throughout Europe, the targeting of Israel critics and pro-Palestinian activists, particularly people engaged in activism against the Israeli war in Gaza, has been even more severe. While it's taken place throughout Europe, undoubtedly the country where it has been most extreme is Germany, which has furnished immense amounts of arms to Israel that it used to bomb and destroy Gaza and therefore has a very intent motive to prevent anyone from claiming that those are war crimes or genocide because it would make Germany complicit – a strain Vice-President JD Vance did not mention when criticizing Europe for the attacks on free speech at the Munich Security Conference, last week. 

James Jackson is an independent journalist and broadcaster from the United Kingdom who is based in Berlin. He hosts Mad in Germany, a current affairs podcast. He has previously covered news, business and culture in Germany and Central and Eastern Europe for publications like the BBC, Sunday Times, and Time Magazine. He has really become one of my top two or three go-to sources for understanding events in Germany, particularly these assaults on free speech. We are delighted to welcome him to his debut appearance on System Update. 

G. Greenwald: James, it's great to see you. Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us. I know it's late there. 

James Jackson: Hi Glenn. Thanks so much for having me on here. You know, long-time reader and follower of yours. So, really great that you've picked up the free speech cause in Germany particularly because it's not something that has got very much attention until, of course, the vice president of the United States and “60 Minutes” as well brought it to the world's attention. But it's been something I've been trying to get the message out on for a while. So, I'm happy that it's gone global, but as you said, the most egregious attack on free speech JD Vance did not mention and that is the assault in Israel. I think we understand why, you know, politics plays a very important role in this. 

G. Greenwald: Right, sometimes politicians do constructive or positive acts or take constructive and positive steps even if it's always not for the best motives. And who knows, you know, JD Vance is politically constrained. I've never heard him defend or demand censorship of pro-Palestinian activism but in any event, he certainly did end up generating a lot more attention to this issue. 

I want to just step back from current events taking place in Germany which we'll get to in a minute including what happened today at this film festival. I think one of the very first articles I ever wrote when I became a journalist or a blogger back in 2005, 2006, was precisely about the fact that there is a vastly different tradition in Western Europe when it comes to perceptions of free speech than there is in the United States. One of the few unifying views in the United States was, at least until recently, the idea that even the most horrendous political views are permitted to be expressed. The state can't punish you for them. And I remember what prompted my article was a conviction in Austria of the British historian David Irving for having engaged in revisionism and denial of the Holocaust. He was criminally convicted and sentenced to a prison term. I essentially wrote that these things are unimaginable in the United States but they're common in Europe and in Germany in particular. After World War II, you could even say, for understandable reasons, there emerged these restrictions on speech particularly when it came to denying the reality of the Holocaust, its magnitude, trying to revise what happened, as well as praise for Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party and the Nazi ideology. And so, you started off with this kind of exception to free speech justified by these extreme events of World War II and they've obviously, as we're seeing now, have expanded aggressively as censorship usually does. That's its trajectory. It starts off justified by some extreme event that people can get on board with and then before you know it, it's a power that is being used all over the place. 

Professor Norman Finkelstein is a good friend of the show. He's appeared here many times. He is, without a doubt, one of the most informed scholars on the history of Israel and the Israel-Palestinian conflict. He is, among other things, the author of the 2000 book “The Holocaust Industry,” which describes how Israelis and Zionists exploit the Holocaust as a massive industry in order to exploit the world to get huge amounts of money that end up supporting the Israeli government. 

He's been a vocal critic of the Israeli government before the destruction of Gaza but during the destruction of Gaza has really emerged as a strong, morally clear and highly informed scholar and analyst of this situation. We are always delighted to have him here. He's a guest to whom our audience reacts very positively, as somebody who helps them navigate and understand very complex issues. 

We sat down with him today a little bit ago and we explored a wide range of issues beginning with the cease-fire in Gaza and the Trump administration's policy toward that region and a whole variety of other related issues. Here is our discussion with Professor Finkelstein that we recorded earlier today:

G. Greenwald: Norman, it's great to see you. Thank you for joining us. We haven't spoken since the imposition of or the agreement to the cease-fire that was agreed to just days before Donald Trump's inauguration on January 20. There have been violations of that cease-fire and there are a lot of imperfections with that cease-fire, but do you think the cease-fire itself is a positive step forward when compared to what came before it? 

Norman Finkelstein: That's a difficult question to answer because there's an immediate effect, which of course is positive. The people of Gaza were celebrating the fact that after 16 months of relentless and historically unprecedented bombing, the genocide in that form had come to an end and it would be verging on satanic on my part to be critical of that development. There was huge human relief at the end of the cessation of the bombing. 

As to where it will lead, I'm a little bit skeptical about the terms of the agreement based on two facts: number one, if you look at the historical precedents all of the terms attached to agreements after Operation Cast Lead in 2008-9, after the Mavi Marmara incident on May 31, 2010; after Operation Protective Edge, in 2014, all of the terms, apart from the actual cease-fire, all of the terms to lift the medieval criminal blockade of Gaza, to ease at least the criminal medieval blockade of Gaza, those terms were never honored and it was striking that after Operation Pillar of Defense, in 2012, when Israel had to decide whether to agree to a cease-fire which also included easing the blockade or lifting the blockade – Ehud Barak who was the defense minister at the time he said “Once the cease-fire is agreed to, all the terms are forgotten” and it was on that assumption that Israel agreed to the cease-fire. 

My guess this time around and I don't pretend to have any insider knowledge on the subject, nor have I followed it closely, my guess this time is Donald Trump wants to take credit for having gotten all the hostages released and he can claim that as a huge “diplomatic victory” and so he is waiting for the hostages every last one of them to be released. 

He'll become a hero in Israel, and he will, as I said, be able to claim a major diplomatic victory, but all the rest seems to me completely far-fetched to believe that will be followed through on and that brings me to my second reservation. It strikes me as totally far-fetched that after spending 15, 16 months trying to render Gaza unlivable which was the main goal after October 7, to render it unlivable so that those who weren't killed would be faced with only two options as the senior government official, government advisor Yoav Gallant put it, they'll be left with only two options: to stay and to starve or to leave. 

I find it completely untenable that suddenly the Israeli government is going to do an about-face and say, “All we are saying is give peace a chance.” That doesn't seem to me very plausible and with Donald Trump's announced plan of deporting the entire population – in his view, it will be a willing deportation because of new opportunities he promises to open up to them – but whether it's willing deportation or unwilling deportation, the fact remains deportation is incompatible with humanitarian aid to make life sustainable and it's certainly incompatible with reconstruction – a reconstruction not the turning of Gaza into a Riviera but a reconstruction that enables the population to stay in place. Its humanitarian aid reconstruction is simply incompatible, fundamentally, not just incompatible, in contradiction with Israel's announced goal objective after October 7, to render Gaza unlivable, and it's incompatible with Donald Trump's announced objective of turning Gaza into the Riviera minus its indigenous population. 

So, I believe that once all of the Israeli hostages are returned, Israel will be given a free hand and the prospects of sufficient humanitarian aid and reconstruction which – humanitarian aid was integrated into stage one and stage two and reconstruction in this nebulous stage three, even stage two is nebulous. I can't see that happening. 

G. Greenwald: Yeah. I take your skepticism and not just take it but share it completely. At the same time, I'm wondering whether you know it's certainly true that the Israeli goal from the start was to drive the Palestinians out of Gaza in order to claim it for themselves and, in order to do that, as you also correctly observed, there was a need to make Gaza uninhabitable. If you listen to Trump and everyone around Trump, the premise of everything they're saying is that Gaza is already uninhabitable. Steve Witkoff, his envoy, went to Gaza on a short little excursion into it, protected by the IDF and basically came back and said, “There's nothing there but rubble”. Trump's whole argument for this pipe dream of cleansing Gaza is that there's nothing left of Gaza, there's no civilian infrastructure, and there are basically no buildings left. All of this is true. So, just focused for a moment on the narrow question of whether Israel intends to resume bombing or whether Trump wants the Israelis to resume bombing, why does Israel really need to keep bombing, given that they've essentially turned Gaza into nothing but a pile of rubble?

Norman Finkelstein: I totally agree with that. I would just like to add a couple of relevant observations. Number one: those who are outraged at what Trump has been saying it ought to be born in mind – the perfectly obvious ought to be born in mind – that Trump is ostensibly simply reacting to a situation enabled, created, by the Biden administration. If I understood from day one and I said it from day one that Israel's goal was to render Gaza uninhabitable, certainly, the Biden administration, Mr. Blinken, they were aware of that goal, they green-lighted that goal, and they enabled that goal. So, the situation to which President Trump is speaking was created under Biden's watch. If there were any doubt about what Israel's goal was, all you have to do is read the statements coming out of Israel, at the highest levels to the base of Israeli society, from one end of the spectrum to the other end of the spectrum, and in both official institutions and civil society institutions. There was a consensus and here I would want to note that, by now, we have so many compendia of collecting all the genocidal statements that were uttered during the past 15 months. We have in May 29, 2024, South Africa submitted a letter to the Security Council and it was accompanied by 121 pages single space of documentation in its entirety comprising the genocidal statements by Israeli society and I want to emphasize that because sometimes you can say a genocidal policy is a state policy but I do not believe that's an accurate description of what unfolded in Gaza the past 16 months. It was a national project encompassing the whole of Israeli society and so there was simply a kind of explosion of the id, the unconscious, the subconscious whatever departments of the psyche you believe in. There was this explosion of the most horrendous genocidal statements every day, every hour. On every social media option, there was this explosion, so you can't really say that the Israelis didn't know, as the Germans pretended after Hitler's defeat, you can't say they didn't know, and you certainly can’t say the Biden administration didn't know. If I knew, they knew. All you had to do was converse with Israeli officials or read your daily updates provided to senior officials by the CIA and other institutions. All you had to do was read them.