After Kirk’s killing, confusion spreads about 2012 law and ‘propaganda’ Three days after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, President Donald Trump shared a supporter’s video pleading with him to reinstate a Cold War-era law she said punished media organizations for spreading falsehoods. "I am hoping and praying that you will revisit what Barack Obama and Joe Biden got rid of back in 2013, which is the Smith-Mundt Act," the narrator said in a TikTok video that Trump reposted Sept. 13 on Truth Social. The supporter described the law as one that "held news corporations accountable for lying to the American people and spreading propaganda instead of truth." The narrator urged Trump to reinstate the law and rename it the "Charlie Kirk Act." Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, seemed up to the task; on X, he posted, "In the coming days, I’ll be filing my previously drafted legislation to restore Smith-Mundt, and renaming it the Charlie Kirk Act. Domestic, political, government-funded propaganda must end now." The Smith-Mundt Act was amended, not repealed. And it didn’t punish news corporations for their content. PolitiFact previously rated False the claim that Obama allowed the media to "purposely lie" when he signed the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act. That bill folded in the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act, which was introduced in 2012. Claims that the Smith-Mundt Act held media "accountable for lying" mischaracterize that law, which did not apply to news content by private corporations. The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act amended the law to remove a ban on government-funded broadcasters disseminating their programming to American audiences upon request from media entities and others. The Smith-Mundt Act, or the U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948, was enacted during the Cold War to enable the government to distribute information about the U.S., its people and policies to foreign audiences. The law led to the creation of the international broadcasting station Voice of America and its surrogates. It also allowed U.S. media organization representatives to physically examine government-sponsored content at the State Department. But it prohibited the dissemination of that content to the American public. In 2012, Democrat and Republican lawmakers co-sponsored the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act, which aimed to modify the existing law they called "outdated." "Eliminating the ban updates the law to reflect technology advances, removes a barrier to more effective and efficient public diplomacy programs, provides transparency of these programs to U.S. citizens, and allows the material to be available to inform domestic audiences," the lawmakers said in a press release. We rated the social media post False. — Loreben Tuquero | 
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