Rep. Keith Self quoted Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels at congressional hearing. Here’s the context

On April 1, 2025, the U.S. Home of Representatives Committee on Overseas Affairs held a congressional listening to titled, “Censorship-Industrial Complex: The Need for First Amendment Safeguards at the State Department.” 

Throughout the listening to, Rep. Keith Self, a Republican from Texas, allegedly quoted Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister of Nazi Germany, as saying, “It’s the absolute proper of the state to oversee the formation of public opinion.” 

The declare was shared in a video on X by the account of Rep. Julie Johnson, a Democrat from Texas, and rapidly went viral on a number of platforms as a result of, properly, it purported to indicate an American politician quoting a Nazi propagandist.

Based mostly on a video of the full hearing uploaded to the Home Overseas Affairs Committee Republicans YouTube channel, the declare is true — Self did quote Goebbels on the listening to. Nonetheless, Johnson’s submit was deceptive in that it omitted the context of Self’s comment and the explanation he quoted Goebbels within the first place. 

Self replied to Johnson’s post the following day:

Nina Jankowicz

Self’s Goebbels quote got here on the finish of his questioning, which targeted on Nina Jankowicz, the CEO of the American Daylight Venture, a nonprofit that describes its mission as “growing the price of lies that undermine democracy.” 

Jankowicz is a disinformation researcher who wrote the 2020 e-book “The right way to Lose the Data Struggle,” and in accordance with The New York Times, as soon as served as an adviser to Ukraine’s Ministry of Overseas Affairs. She based the American Daylight Venture in 2024 in response to a big, ongoing campaign by conservative Republicans “to silence suppose tanks and universities that expose the sources of disinformation” by arguing that measures to battle disinformation unfairly goal conservative speech.

The Disinformation Governance Board

Nonetheless, Self did not wish to talk about Jankowicz’s private document as a disinformation researcher — he needed to debate her 11 weeks main the Disinformation Governance Board (DGB) throughout former President Joe Biden’s administration.

In early 2022, the Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) established the advisory-only DGB, led by Jankowicz, with a aim of combating “disinformation coming from Russia and rebutting deceptive info geared toward migrants hoping to journey to the U.S.-Mexico border,” in accordance with Politico.

It didn’t go significantly properly for the board. Republicans instantly started making comparisons to George Orwell’s “1984,” and the Biden administration floundered in response. Even then-DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas mentioned on CNN that officers “most likely might have executed a greater job of speaking what [the DGB] does and doesn’t do.”

In accordance with CNN, DHS paused the board’s actions in Could 2022 in response to the backlash and Jankowicz resigned after the pause was introduced. The board was fully shut down that August. 

Self’s questioning

A video of the listening to is available on YouTube, uploaded by the Home Overseas Affairs Committee. Self’s questioning begins at 1:01:33.

Self opened his questioning by asking Jankowicz her private opinion, having labored within the authorities (“for 11 weeks,” Jankowicz famous), on the federal government’s position in “implementing free speech.” 

Jankowicz responded that the First Modification, which grants the suitable to free speech, is “sacrosanct,” and that she thought the federal government shouldn’t be “arresting individuals for exercising their speech.”

Self then learn a supposed quote from Jankowicz throughout her time main DGB saying that “legislation enforcement and our legislatures [needed] to do extra,” implying that she was advocating that the federal government utilizing legislation enforcement to limit free speech. 

Jankowicz mentioned the quote omitted necessary context, particularly that she was “speaking about on-line harms and threats towards individuals on-line for exercising their speech,” not free speech itself.

Self’s ultimate query, which he requested in 4 other ways (Jankowicz gave an identical reply the primary 3 times and didn’t have interaction with that a part of the query on the fourth), was the next: “What’s the mission of the state, the suitable of the state, to kind public opinion?” Self’s alternative of wording clearly alluded to the Goebbels quote.

Right here is the transcript of the alternate from Self’s ultimate query by to the Goebbels quote [the annotations are ours, to add as much context to the exchange as possible]. The transcription begins on the 1:04:07 mark of the video:

Self: What’s the mission of the state, the suitable of the state, to kind public opinion? As a result of we’re speaking about — our authorities has been concerned in doing that for the previous few years.

Jankowicz: In my view, the federal government has a First Modification proper to free speech as properly, and SCOTUS [Supreme Court of the United States] has simply affirmed with a case final June, we simply heard a case that got here in federal court in New York, that, truly confirmed that NewsGuard was not appearing as an envoy of the state.

Self: So what’s the position of the federal government?

Jankowicz: The position of the federal government can categorical its free speech, proper? And residents have a proper to their free speech as properly. I do not actually perceive your query, sir, I am unsure the purpose. 

Self: I am asking you what’s the position of presidency in public opinion? As a result of we’re speaking about actions right here which have tried to kind public opinion. On the Hunter [Biden] laptop computer, on the Russia disinformation, all of that. I am asking you what’s the position of presidency in that matter?

Jankowicz: Completely, congressman. So the federal government is allowed to specific its personal opinions, its viewpoints, as we’re seeing this administration do, as we noticed the earlier administration do—

Self: Effectively, what’s their position when it’s completely incorrect? The Hunter laptop computer might be the perfect instance we might roll out right here. 

[This is a reference to social media companies trying to slow the spread of the original New York Post article about Hunter Biden’s laptop published just before the 2020 presidential election. Jankowicz was not an employee of the government at the time.]

Jankowicz: I truly disagree with that, as a result of when Twitter determined so as to add friction [slow the spread] to the Hunter Biden laptop computer case, it truly received extra views. You’ve got additionally heard Mr. Taibbi discuss 22 million tweets, hundreds of thousands of issues censored by the GEC [Global Engagement Center] to the Election Integrity Partnership [EIP]?

[Journalist Matt Taibbi, another witness at the hearing, was the lead author of the “Twitter Files,” a report comprising internal Twitter documents Elon Musk gave journalists shortly after buying and taking over the social media platform. 

The Global Engagement Center was an agency in the State Department founded in 2016 to combat “foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining or influencing the policies, security, or stability of the United States.” It folded in 2024 after the Republican-controlled Congress refused to fund it.

The EIP was a partnership of misinformation researchers between Stanford University and the University of Washington that helped track false and misleading information during the 2020 and 2022 elections. According to NPR, it faced massive conservative backlash and was the focus of claims that it was a front used by the Biden administration to suppress speech. It also folded in 2024.]

Jankowicz: You know the way many emails went between the GEC and the EIP? 15. You’ll be able to look it up in Chairman Jordan’s paperwork that he launched on the finish of final yr. Fifteen emails. I’ve despatched extra textual content messages to my husband about our toddler’s potty coaching within the final week than emails went from the GEC to the EIP, and people have been all about overt Russian propaganda — RT and Sputnik — apart from one, when the GEC analyst mentioned to the oldsters there, “I am unable to touch upon this one as a result of I am a authorities worker, however I feel it is best to test it out.” That is all that occurred, sir.

Self: So I am gonna depart you, and I will yield again a bit of little bit of my time, a direct quote from Joseph Goebbels. “It’s the absolute proper of the state to oversee the formation of public opinion,” and I feel which may be what we’re discussing right here.

So it is true that Self quoted Goebbels, however because the context clearly exhibits, he was trying to liken Jankowicz’s views to the Nazi propaganda minister’s. 

Sources