Project 2025 Remains the GOP’s Blueprint as Senator Introduces Bill to Ban Porn
The bill from Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), a top Trump ally, would expand the definition of obscenity and effectively criminalize porn.
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Throughout 2024, we warned that President Trump would do, well, everything he’s thus far set out to do, because his top allies published an agenda called Project 2025 that so neatly outlined all of it. Trump and his supporters wrote off concerns as liberal fearmongering, but now, here we are. Republicans, led by top Trump ally Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), are trying to ban pornography at the national level.
Last week, Lee introduced the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act (IODA), a bill that would criminalize all pornography by establishing a new definition for “obscenity,” a category of speech that isn’t entirely protected under the First Amendment. Under Lee’s bill, “a picture, image, graphic image file, film, videotape, or other visual depiction,” or any media that “appeals to the prurient interest in nudity, sex, or excretion,” would be criminal. The bill largely focuses on the creators and distributors of such content, more so than people who might own and consume it, but it should be obvious why a bill like this still poses a huge threat to all of us.