← Next Up with Mark Halperin
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Iran Ceasefire “Fog of Peace," Debating the "8 For 28," and The AI Revolution, with Jonathan Turley
01:00:45
This episode of “Next Up with Mark Halperin” tackles the growing uncertainty shaping today’s biggest geopolitical story, as Mark uses his reported monologue to unpack the “fog of peace” surrounding the Iran ceasefire and why even top officials can’t fully explain what’s happening behind the scenes. He also takes on tough criticism of his April “8 for ’28” rankings of the Democrats top presidential prospects, breaking down the backlash, what he stands by, and how he evaluates the evolving field. Then, Jonathan Turley joins for a wide-ranging conversation on history, technology, and the rule of law. He discusses the inspiration behind his new book and why Thomas Paine remains such a complicated and consequential figure, before drawing striking parallels between America’s founding and the disruptive potential of the AI revolution. Turley also weighs in on mounting concerns about bias and political pressure inside the Justice Department, and what it all means for public trust in Americ...
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Mark Halpern
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Jonathan Turley
Foreign.
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NextUp Host
And this is next up. We're in either time of peace or time of war. Hard to know. I'm the editor in chief of two Way Live interactive video platform. Your host here. Do everything Next up for all nexters to convene to visit to celebrate the complexities of life and the complexity of news. Glad you're here. Gonna make you happy you joined and invested the time together. We have lots to go on. First, my reported monologue on what I'm calling the fog of peace or the fog of ceasefire. This is extremely confusing moment in the war. By the time you hear this, maybe it'll be more confusing, maybe less. But I'm going to walk you through from talking to my sources why it is that things are so confusing right now on a range of issues. Then we'll unveil a new segment here. Last episode I unveiled my April edition of 8 for 28, the most likely Democratic nominees and Tom got some lovely feedback and maybe some feedback less lovely. We're calling this segment 8 for 28. Hate little tongue in cheek but gonna go through some of the feedback. Got some very constructive and and some more pointed I would say maybe some even brutal to what you all thought. Nexters think about the rankings. Some of you think they're spot on. Some of you less so. So I'll show you some of what the community's saying about where they think I'm wrong on this this month and then joined by great guest, somebody I've followed and respected a long time, Jonathan Turley. He's the author of the new book Rage in the the Unfinished Story of the American Revolution. We're in a celebratory year even though there's a lot of dark things going on. 250th anniversary of America. And Jonathan has written a book to match the moment about the founding, some of the founders of this country and how their lessons very much apply to some of the complexities we're grappling with now. Also talk to Jonathan about some of the legal issues that are swirling out there around the Trump administration and our politics, our government. So let's get into it. Let's talk about the fog of peace, so difficult for me to do reporting. Now. There's one of these situations where my sources are almost as likely to ask me questions about what I'm hearing as they are to tell me things because even the most well informed people are having trouble keeping up what's the state of play on the ground and in the negotiations. And it all comes in the wake of this week's decision by President Trump to coax the Iranians into a two week ceasefire and the prospect of negotiations this weekend in Islamabad, in Pakistan. And why is a two week ceasefire so complicated? Why is there fog of peace, fog of ceasefire? David Ignatius, the great communist who's been a guest here before, led his column this morning in the Washington Post by saying diplomats like ambiguity. And he's right. When you've got warring parties who went to war for a reason or various reasons, getting them to the negotiating table requires ambiguity, requires creating the opportunity for both parties to come in, not conceding defeat, not saying they're coming to surrender, and both to talk with some bravado about driving a hard bargain. Now, sometimes one party clearly has the advantage. The United States would argue, I think the government does argue, that they do come into these negotiations, if they occur, with an advantage. But the Iranians have both a swagger and a profession of strength and some strength. They still have a military capacity, despite the United States claims it's basically been decimated, destroyed. Rather, they still have control of the strait. And that's turned out to be an extraordinary source of both symbolic and substantive power. And then what caused them to get to the negotiating table? What allowed them to get there? News organizations around the world are covering a multi ring circus now in the wake of the ceasefire. Will there be peace talks in the Lamabad? Depends on a lot of variables. One for sure is what's going on in Lebanon, where there is now, as there has been for a lot of the last many years, clashes between the Israelis and Hezbollah based in Lebanon, a proxy for Iran. What's happening with those clashes is causing some of the confusion and then what's happening with the strait is causing confusion and then some of the disagreements that have long existed between the two sides. So I'm going to run through with you some of the areas of confusion, all of which are confusing to many of my sources and all of which add up to the reason why we have a fog of ceasefire. First is let me just show you a newscast. It's from Israel as S5 please. That just shows you how, how the current state of affairs is being framed. S5 please. Welcome to our daily TV7 Israel news bulletin broadcast from Jerusalem. A fragile ceasefire has taken effect between the United States, Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran. US Vice President JD Vance stresses that unless Iran negotiates in good faith, the joint U. S Israel offensive will resume. Jerusalem emphasizes that the ceasefire with Iran does not include a ceasefire between Israel and the Iranian proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon. So somehow the agreement to have a ceasefire for two weeks and to meet seemed to have not covered this question of what happens if Israel keeps going as they had been before the ceasefire against Hezbollah and Hezbollah keeps firing at Israel. You know, the, the ambiguity continues to exist. Benjamin Netanyahu and the United States said, no, Lebanon's not included. Israel is not in violation of the ceasefire if they continue to go after Hezbollah. Hezbollah keeps firing at Israel as they have for many years. And apparently Iran's less troubled by that. But the Iranians say, well, we can't show up for the negotiations as long as Israel's hitting Lebanon. And the US Said, well, maybe there's some confusion here. Maybe this is just a good faith mistake. Here's Vice President J.D. vance on the topic. S3, please things. First of all, I actually think, and there's a lot of bad faith negotiation and a lot of bad f, you know, propaganda going on. I think this comes from a legitimate misunderstanding. I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon and it just didn't. We never made that promise. We never indicated that was going to be the case. What we said is that the ceasefire would be focused on Iran and the ceasefire would be focused on America's allies, both Israel and the Gulf Arab states. So honestly, I still don't know what Iran's thinking here is, but what I do know is that Israel's not inclined to stop, Hezbollah is not inclined to stop. And is that enough for Iran to say they won't show up for the negotiations? We don't know. But that's a lot of ambiguity on an important thing because at this point Israel has a practical Desire to continue to fight back against Hezbollah. Hezbollah has the same motivations for hitting Israel. What's Iran's motive in citing this as a reason the talks may not go forward? Then we've got the strait. Okay, the strait's obviously not wide open. It's difficult to track what's going on there. But from the reports I've seen and from talking to my sources in the US Government, it's not wide open. And Iran has made it clear in its public statements that if it does open during this two week period, it's opening with conditions. It's not opening the way it was before the war. Iran wants the ability to continue to control the strait at least partially. And the President of the United States has said no, that's not good enough. The strait needs to reopen now. Just as we don't know how much Iran will give on the Hezbollah question, we don't know how much the United States will give on the strait. When I've asked people in the US government, does it really have to be 100% open the way it was before for the United States to engage in the talks in Pakistan? Not a clear answer. But what the current state is is not good enough. What's Iran's game there? You know, why, why is Iran not living up to what seemed to be a pretty fundamental part of the agreement? Not clear to my sources. But here's what we do know. Iran's leverage in these conversations comes from several sources, including having just survived the massive pummeling they took. But a lot of their source of their leverage now comes from the fact that they, they keep the straight closed and they could open it up maybe a little bit and still have that leverage. But right now can't tell you the connection between the likelihood of talks and the, the degree to which this trade is open. But there's a correlation there. There's definitely a correlation there. Then there's the question of what Iran has said about its willingness to give up its nuclear materials and its nuclear missile and nuclear weapon program. The President, I'd say a guy who tries never to be definitive for very long. On the same topic, if there's some danger of that position, the President, since the ceasefire was announced, he's been pretty clear most of the time Iran can't have nuclear material. But, and of course, I don't, I don't. I know people like to cite the six or seven reasons that the United States entered into this war, but the main one was to keep Iran from having nuclear weapons. That's the main one. And yet what you have now is some question, is Iran even open to that? The President says, yes, President, United States says, yes, that that's going to have to happen. Presumably Iran has said something to give assurances that they're open to that. Because while they claim to be open to that before this war started, the reason this war started was the US Stopped believing that Iran was a good faith actor at all on this question of giving up its nuclear weapons. When I ask people in the United States government, how can you negotiate with these people who have a long track record of lying, of cheating in the nuclear programs, of evading any sort of monitoring done by the international community, how can you trust them? The answer is, well, it's going to be a lot of verification. It's going to take a lot of convincing that Iran's telling the truth. So I was skeptical before the President's deadline on Tuesday that they could reach an agreement because they are so far apart on so many issues, including nuclear. Now, there's other things like Iran says America can't have military bases in the Middle East. That's a non starter too. But the President has made a non starter, getting rid of the nuclear material. And honestly, I don't think there's anybody in the US government, maybe in the Iranian government, who can tell you, yes, Iran's going to give up its material. Don't know. And the last ambiguity I want to, I want to talk about is this, this notion of a 10 point plan. Okay, Iran put out a 10 point plan before the ceasefire. That was a joke. I mean, I think seven of the 10 were absolute non starters and the other three probably were non starters for the U.S. and then the president said, we have an Iranian 10 point plan. That's a good basis to have ceasefire conversations. Everybody kind of assumed, and it was reported that he MEANT the original 10 point plan. Now the White House says, no, there's a different 10 point plan, maybe not the second, but the third Iranian 10 point plan. And that's the plan that the President was encouraged enough by to say, let's talk about it. Talking off of that plan. I don't know what that plan is. It's a lot of secrecy, ambiguity. The White House premise is if you saw that plan, you wouldn't think it was crazy to assume that there could be a deal. And the President has spoken favorably about the prospects of a deal. But how can we know how to evaluate the Iran situation, the Iran willingness to strike a bargain without knowing what it is? They're even Proposing now, diplomats have to keep things secret, as David Ignatius says, to implement, like things where there's some flux in there. But for those, whether they're on the right or the left or independent, for those who are concerned that the President's not going to drive a hard enough bargain, got to know what the Iranians are even asking for. And it's going to be tough. Bridging Hezbollah and Lebanon, not that tough. But bridging the Iran nuclear program, bridging the Iranian demands to give up its nuclear program in terms of access to sanctions, relief or investment or whatever it is, it's going to be tough and looming over it all, hugely important for the financial community. Everybody I know in the financial community says, number one issue is opening the strait. But this war didn't start to open the strait. That wasn't the goal. The strait was open before the war. This war, this war started to make sure Iran was not a threat to Israel, the United States and other countries through its nuclear and weapons program, missile program. And those problems still exist. The missile program is, is certainly set back, but Iran still has missiles and the ability to launch them. Iran still has, as best we know, its nuclear material. And Iran now is strengthened by controlling the strait. So it's confusion. It's the fog of a ceasefire that occurred because everybody thought it was preferable to the United States and Israel destroying Iran. But if you're asking me, and I hear you asking through the magic of audio and video, are we more likely to see a resumption of hostilities or a peace deal come out of that Islama spot, at least in the short term? Unfortunately, I believe it's a resumption of hostilities. There's a lot of confusion. But what we do know is reaching any sort of deal. And the Americans will tell you this, reaching any sort of deal is going to be a challenge because of the lack of trust, because of the distance we know the parties have between them on things like nuclear, and because, honestly, the fog of this ceasefire. All right, that's my reported monologue. Thank you for listening. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, our new segment, 8 for 28 Hate. You all get to tell me what I got wrong. 8 for 28 hate is next up. Hey, let me ask you something. Do you own physical gold? Most people do not. And given the current state of the world, it's definitely worth thinking about. Acre Gold makes it simple. You pick a plan that fits your budget, make monthly payments, and when you've accumulated enough, they ship you a beautifully designed 24 karat Swiss gold bar. Tom Gold now up 70% year over year, and central banks are still buying it at record levels. Smart money has been moving into hard assets for a reason. Acre Gold has had subscribers stacking consistently now for six years because once you hold it in your hand, you understand the difference between owning something real versus a number on a flickering screen. Right now they're giving away over 18 grams of gold in their Acre declassified sweepstakes. Enter for free enterprise and subscribe to Gold@getacregold.com Mark Again, right now, go to getacregold.com Mark okay, so here's the list. Just a reminder. Number one, Gavin Newsom, most likely person to be the Democratic nominee, according to my sources, Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania. Number two, Pete Buttigieg, former Indiana mayor and Transportation Secretary Kamala Harris. Number four, Rahm Emanuel, number five, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, six, Mark Kelly, seven. And the governor of Illinois, Mark J.B. pritzker is eight. So, you know, my sources don't always agree. They don't agree there's discrepancies there. And the discrepancies, of course, are who should be higher, who should be lower, who should be off the list, who should be on. And sometimes people say, well, I think you should flip 3 and 4. But some of you have stronger opinions than that. So if you go back to the list, I've got two guys on there, Rahm Emanuel and Josh Shapiro, Shapiro's two, Rahm Emanuel's five. Now, they're both more moderate Democrats. And some people think, well, Democrats have moved far left. They're not going to nominate a moderate. They both happen to be Jewish. And some people say there's no way the party's going to nominate someone Jewish. Here's some reaction from Twitter. This is from Sarah Lee on Twitter. Good handle. SSX0077 Sarah Lee, Sarah Lee says Rom and Josh should rise to the top of that list quickly. So she's more bullish on them than my sources were. And that's a reasonable point of view. Okay, here's an agreement. Mark Kennedy, Emmanuel is qualified. Shapiro could be a number two. There's no one else on the list that could be taken seriously. If the Democrats can get past their party's anti Semitism, they have a chance. Otherwise, they are running another Biden. That will not work a second time. So here are two people, two nexters who say, yeah, Emmanuel and Shapiro not only should be on the list, that they should be higher. But not everybody agrees Here is Meyer Lansky the Meyer lansky on Twitter. B7 Shapiro and Emmanuel don't have a chance. They're both highly qualified, but they're both Jewish and let's face it, the progressive base is not voting for them. So Meyer the Meyer Lansky on Twitter at the Meyer Lansky is high on the Shapiro and Emanuel like the others reaction we looked at but says the party won't nominate them. And again, that's what this is all about. Not who the nominee, who should be the nominee, but who it will be. All right, a lot of criticism, maybe call it hate from folks who say I got the wrong people on the list. These are two names I hear a lot this time. Who I left off before. Please, two folks who could be on the list. Andy Beshear, governor of Kentucky has been on past months, but not this month. John Ossoff, governor or senator from Georgia who's running for reelection. I heard from a lot of people. A lot of my sources put those guys on, but I didn't because the consensus was they're not in the top eight. But Elena Hatfield says John Ossoff and Andy Beshear probably have better odds than half of this list. So she'd like to see them on again. Constructive criticism. I I've heard from people who've said when they saw the list Kamala Harris shouldn't be on the list. I've heard from people say Kamala Harris should be number one. I've heard from people who say Rahm Emanuel, as we've heard just now, should be on the list. I've heard from people I heard from one person who said who whose opinions I respect. Who said I I I'm a joke. He said, you're a joke. If you have Rahm Emanuel, people will laugh at you for including Rahm Emanuel on the list. All right, here's a few other a few other opinions about the list. This is a B8, please. I enjoy this one. Brandon Bees says that is the most hilarious list. The Democrats have zero contenders now. Brandon someone will be the nominee. Maybe Brandon means nobody can win a general election. Here's a couple. I put this in the hate category. B9 from RPK 1831 you left at Spongebob and Blackwell Brawl Blackwell Barra. B10 asks, Is this an SNL skit? No, it's not an SNL skit. It's a serious attempt to figure out who the nominee is going to be. All right, a couple more serious ones. B6 please. This person likes two of the other candidates who both on my list and both high on my list. My number one, my number three Bobby at Now Vintage says this will be between Newsom and Buttigieg because once debates start, the others won't be able to keep up in debates or fundraising. Harris can fundraise but doesn't have good political instincts. Unless AOC decides to run and then it will be something else. So Newsom and Buttigieg are two of the ones I'm highest on and so is so is that person. But other people have told me Newsome shouldn't be on the list. Here's one. This is from plumber Tad B5 who also high on Gavin Newsom, but maybe not in the kindest way. We're talking about Democrats. They say they hate Jews like Rahm and Josh Shapiro. Pete's too gay. Kamala too dom. AOC too left. Kelly is a nobody. JB too big, spelled too wrong. Has to be Gavin, but he's too white, wealthy, greasy. Yup, it's Gavin. My guess is that person's not a big fan of the field overall. But, but that's a, that's a process of elimination, I'll say that. Finally, this is, this is a time to reflect on hate. The list is meant to be fun, but it's also serious reporting. Love to get your feedback every time. We'll do it again in in May and look forward to more of your spicy feedback, which we call 8 for 28 hate. Thank you for that. All right, so there you have it. Glad you got a chance to take your best shots and I look forward to to your follow ups and critiques when we do this again in a month. Email me your thoughts on the thoughts, more feedback of what I've said today. You can send me an email@nextup halpernmail.com and of course, don't just listen to the show. Make sure you're subscribed to NextUp. If you're watching on YouTube you can subscribe there and get our full clips that come down and also exclusive content that's YouTube.com@nextup. Halpern if you're listening to the podcast, same thing, make sure you're subscribed. Make sure you have downloads, automatic downloads turned on so you get everything as soon as it's available. All right, we're going to take a quick break and then next up, Jonathan Turley, the legal scholar, author of the new book Rage in the Republic, the Unfinished Story of the American Revolution. Jonathan Turley is next up. Please stay with us. Hey, did you Know that husband high blood pressure is the number one risk factor for mortality. One in two adults has it. That means there's a 5050 chance that you are a walking time bomb. But here's some good news. You can take control of your blood pressure naturally without relying on Big Pharma. 120 Life is a blend of great tasting super fruit juices that have been shown to help lower blood pressure. It's backed by hundreds of doctors entrusted by thousands of people who've seen measurable results. And here's the best part. It's completely risk free. Try 120 Life for two weeks and if you don't see a difference in your numbers, you get your Money back. Go to 120Life.com that's 120Life.com and use the code NextUp to save 20% and get free shipping. This is serious. This is your life we're talking about. 120 life can help.
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Mark Halpern
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Jonathan Turley
Another pina colada.
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Mark Halpern
Yes, please. Open a new retail location with 36% more square feet.
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Jonathan Turley
Fantastic.
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Mark Halpern
Hire 36% more help.
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Jonathan Turley
You're hired and you're hired.
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Mark Halpern
Shopify has the world's best converting checkout up to 36% better than other e commerce platforms. What you do with those extra sales is up to you. Switch to Shopify today@shopify.com setup and get a $1 trial. Shopify.com setup it's tax season and at
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NextUp Host
Lifelock, we know you're tired of numbers, but here's a big one you need to hear. Billions. That's the amount of money in refunds the IRS has flagged for identity fraud. Now here's another big number. 100 million. That's how many data points LifeLock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, we'll fix it. Guaranteed. One last big number. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com Special offer for the threats you can't control. Terms apply. All right, next up and joining me now, a real treat, Jonathan Turley, George Washington University law professor, author of a new book, it's called Rage in the the Unfinished Story of the American Revolution, out a little bit earlier this year and extremely timely. Many of you have failed to start to celebrate, commemorate and think about the 250th anniversary of this country. But this is a great opportunity to think about our founding principles and how they apply today. And the book is basically a look back in order to understand some of the challenges we face now, and grateful to have Professor Turley here. Congratulations on the book.
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Jonathan Turley
Thank you very much, Mark. I'm so happy to be with you today.
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NextUp Host
Explain, as I ask almost every author I talk to explain your motivation for writing it. What was the idea you had that no one had done in a book yet?
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Jonathan Turley
Well, you know, this is really a book about revolutions and how they begin and perhaps more importantly, how they end. Most revolutions do not end well. And the book, the first half of the book, looks backwards at what really were the elements that contributed to the creation of the American Revolution and the American Republic and compares it with its contemporary revolution in France. And I do that, telling the story of various figures, but most importantly, Thomas Paine, who was one of two major figures that played roles in both revolutions, the other being Lafayette. And Paine is an interesting model to look at the elements that made the difference between the American republic becoming the most successful and oldest democratic system today, and the French Revolution, which of course became the Terror, and to try to understand why they took these very different trajectories. Then the second half of the book looks at whether that republic can survive in the 21st century. Can it survive us? We are looking at some really existential threats, including what I talk about, which is a combination of robotics and AI and changing economic conditions. The question is, can we preserve this republic in the times that lay ahead?
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NextUp Host
Yeah. So the founding was a turbulent time, but again, as you argue in the second half of the book, we're in another turbulent time. And I think the question is the predicate strong enough to get us through? And we'll talk about that second piece, but I want to talk about the first. It's so timely for me because I was just at versailles with my 9 year old and we were talking about Lafayette and we're exposing him to Hamilton. Not necessarily the best parenting choice because some of the language and the plot lines are questionable for a nine year old. But he loves the music and. And talking about, of course, Hamilton, everybody learned that the founders were pretty darn interesting people. And the two you write about are every bit as interesting as Hamilton. I'm not sure they're going to turn yours into a hit Broadway show, but they could. But they could. So talk about the two characters, and then we'll talk about one American, one French, and then we'll talk about the connection, both symbolic and practical, between the two revolutions. So first explain why Thomas Paine is such an interesting character to you.
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Jonathan Turley
Well, thanks, Mark. And what a wonderful Trip for, for you to take. I did that same trip when my kids were about that age. The, you know, Thomas Paine is perhaps the most inexhaustible subject I've ever taken up. I'm viewed as a Madisonian scholar and I certainly talk about Madison a great deal. But Paine is endlessly interesting. He's a very complex figure. He's often disregarded by historians. Even today he was disregarded back then. He was viewed as a sort of Johnny come. Lately, people like John Adams appeared to sort of resent him a bit. He, they tended back then, as they do today, to prefer figures like Thomas Jefferson. You know, tall and handsome and erudite and educated and a slave owner. Thomas Paine was vehemently against slavery. He was self educated, he was obnoxious, he was rude, he was reckless. He was also principled and courageous. That's what makes him so darn interesting. What also made him interesting for me, Mark, was that Paine did not accept many of what were called the auxiliary precautions that James Madison put into place in the US Constitution. Paine, like the French revolutionaries, wanted more direct democracy. And in that sense, he was a natural ally of the Jacobins. In some ways, we needed both. Thomas Paine was the righteous rage that the revolution needed, and James Madison was the pious logic. But Paine knew what it would take to bring a people to revolution, and Madison knew what it would take to move a revolution to a republic. But the other reason I'm fascinated with Paine is he may have not only been the most revolutionary of the American Revolution, he may be the ultimate American. Pain failed in everything he ever attempted before coming to this country. He had been fired, literally from every job he held, every business he created. Ended up in bankruptcy and he ended up in London. Just a pile of human wreckage. When an individual looked at him and saw something that literally no one else saw. That individual was Benjamin Franklin. And he told Payne to go to the colonies and paid for him to do that because he had no money. Franklin saw something in pain. That was one of Franklin's strange skill sets. Maybe it takes a genius to recognize genius, but he sent him here to write. And I think that I truly believe that Franklin saw in Paine that righteous rage, that voice that maybe was still missing in the colonies. Within two years, Paine would be called the penman of the Revolution. He would write Common Sense. Two years. Even his critics, John Adams, said, you know, when, when Common Sense came out, it was anonymous and, and there was a lot of speculation who wrote it. And John Adams wife wrote him and said, people say you did. And John Adams wrote back and said, I couldn't have written that book, but I think I know who did. And he said, I met a man named Thomas Paine. And he related how he had genius in his eyes. And I was thinking this sort of is perhaps what Benjamin Franklin saw. He was a genius. He was flawed. But one of his great character positives was that he would recognize when he was wrong. When he went to France, he saw what the book begins with, a quote from a Frenchman that says that revolution, like Saturn, devours its own children. Payne watched that happen, literally. He was associated with the Girondins, which was the more moderate wing of the Jacobins. And he watched as one after another of his associates was executed. And the book actually talks how he was at one point at an inn outside of Paris with the seven remaining associates, all Girondins. And one by one, the knock came and they were taken away. Eventually they came and even took the innkeeper away, leaving Payne completely alone in this inn. And then they came for him, and he almost died. He would came within 24 hours of being guillotined and only survived by a complete fluke accident that a door that had been marked for all four of the. The occupants to be executed had been opened to give Payne air because he was ill. And they never saw the marking.
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NextUp Host
An amazing life. And, and, and as you suggested in some of your description, one of the historical geniuses of what occurred was you had people arguing for revolution, the ultimate act of instability and, and change, and yet other colleagues of theirs, smart enough, thoughtful enough to simultaneously break something and build something and build something that was required to not just get the country going, but then has sustained us through 250 years. So talk about how Lafayette fits into that. How does Lafayette interact with this concept of revolution and then building at the same time?
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Jonathan Turley
Well, Lafayette himself is fascinating. He was deeply loyal both to the United States and to France. What's interesting is Lafayette also saw that Madison was correct, that the biggest concern of the founders, as I discuss in the book, was the tendency of democracies to become mobocracies, as Benjamin Rush called it, that is to create democratic despotism. That's what they wanted to avoid. That's the pattern historically that they. That they saw, and that's what. What played out in France. And Lafayette and Paine weren't really that much of acquaintances during the Revolution. They got to know each other in Paris, and in fact, they met with Gerondon in Lafayette's home to try to create a moderate constitution. But at every juncture, and I talk about this with later revolutions, the Russian and. And Chinese revolutions, the most extreme factions tend to prevail. And that was certainly the case with the Mountain, which was the more radical faction associated with Robespierre and Marat. And they outmaneuvered the gendarme and started to execute them in droves. And so the Constitution never really had a shot. But the interesting thing about Lafayette, as he was intensely loyal and even though he was constantly threatened with arrest, he continued to try to fight for France. And he was hated by many of the Mountain, but he kept on coming back to France to try to save it. And as I talk about in the book, one of the most moving moments for me regarding Lafayette was when he died. He had come to the United States for one last tour and then he went back to France and he. He passed. And at his funeral and his burial, his son named George Washington Lafayette did the final act that was requested by his father. He spread the soil of Bunker Hill over his grave. And it's. It's a chilling moment because like Paine, he was a person that had a foot in each country, that had alliance and allegiance and fealty and love for both countries. But he wanted to make sure that while he was buried in France, he was covered in the soil of America.
- [36:54]
NextUp Host
Beautiful. These are two great characters. And again, the first half of the book is going to tell you great, great characters, great, great plot developments and great meaning for understanding the founding of the country. But as I said, also laying the predicate for the second half of the book, which is about where we are now. And I'm determined, Jonathan, to not be on the wrong side of history for, For. For. For my country and for my son. In trying to ring the alarm bell about the AI revolution and just how massive it is, it may. It may revolutionize life in a positive way. It may destroy the planet. But explain the connection between the revolution of the founding of this nation and the revolutionary moment we find ourselves in now.
- [37:35]
Jonathan Turley
Well, what I talk about is I take the most conservative studies, there's a great number of them, the United States, Canada, Europe, on AI and robotics. And it's really the combination that I'm interested in because it seems like that combination is what's going to cost, caused the greatest economic and social upheaval. I take the most conservative estimates, and even at those estimates, we're looking at a job loss that the world has never seen, certainly this country has never seen. And the Problem is that you'll have a large population of not just unemployed, but potentially unemployable citizens. You know, I have. I'm a great believer in the free market, and I think that the free market will create new jobs for a new economy, but it will take time. And during that period, we're very likely looking at some type of universal basic income or some other subsidy for a large number of citizens. And what I ask is that how does that change the relationship between citizens in the state? Well, a lot of those other studies look at how it changes the economics. I'm more interested in how it changes that critical relationship for any republic when you have citizens who are dependent entirely on the government, and a large percentage of them. What I say in the book is that this republic doesn't work if it has a kept citizenry. That is, if the citizens are dependent on the government. This Republican just doesn't function the way it's designed. And we can't have an arts and cross craft citizenry where we all just allow the government to teach us, you know, pottery and glass blowing. That also will not work. Not with us. Maybe it worked with other countries, but not with us. And what I ask in the book is, I often repeat a question of a wonderful book by a Frenchman whose name was Creve Coeur, who wrote at the beginning of the American Republic, and he wrote a bestseller in France, because people were fascinated by us. They couldn't understand what we were. We were a bunch of people that had no connection to each other, no history, no connection to the land, no calcified or stable or stratified structures. We just seemed to come together in this place and create the world's first Enlightenment revolution, a revolution built on the notion of natural rights, rights given to you by God, not by the government. And so Crevcour wrote this wonderful piece in the middle of the book. He asks, what then is this American? And I thought it was an incredibly poignant question. And I ask in the book whether we can answer that question today, not just who were we then and who are we now? Unless we can answer that question then, no, we won't survive as a republic. It's a dangerous conceit to believe that we can survive another 250 years unless we can answer that question. And one of the things I say in the book is that this is the 250th anniversary, not just of our independence, but of the publication of Adam Smith's wealth of Nations. And wealth of nations was not a big success in Europe. It was a success here. The founders recognized immediately that what Adam Smith was talking was the perfect economic theory that could be the companion of their political theory. That they believe that you could not truly be free unless you were free economically. And so what I ask in the book is, how do we preserve a liberty enhancing economy for the 21st century? And that's going to be tough. And I try to identify what I think are all the wrong moves that I'm quite confident Congress will commit. You know, they will do what they always do. They will try to subsidize failing industries. They'll try to subsidize failing jobs. Those jobs are not going to come back, right? You're going to see fewer taxi drivers, you're going to see fewer radiologists. What you have to do is to look at how we can position this country for a new economy, which I think we're uniquely suited to do, as long as we can answer that question.
- [41:56]
NextUp Host
And again, just to make it more explicit for those who want to understand the book and go read it, what's the connection between the first half of the book as you grapple with the second half? How does the experience of Lafayette, the experience of Paine and the others, how does that inform how we grapple now with the revolution of robotics and AI?
- [42:13]
Jonathan Turley
Well, Mark, that's a great question indeed. That's the heart of the book. Because as we answer Crefcore's question, what then is this America? It brings us back to the moment of creation, our moment of creation. What were we then? What made us unique? And what made us unique is that people that came to this country were a lot like Thomas Paine. He had been a failure. He came to this country to reinvent himself. He even added an E to the end of his name. He came off that ship as a complete human wreck and found his voice in this country within two years. He found that what was in his head was always the most valuable thing he had to offer the world. People come to this country like pain. They want to be something different. They believe that this is a place where you can pursue your own manifest destiny. That is what we have to preserve. The ability for people to pursue their greatest creation themselves. And I think that we can do that, but we have to protect the system the way we did then. My concern in the second half of the book is with the rise of what I call the new Jacobins, there are many people today that are saying that the Constitution is a failure, that we should scrap it, including law professors and law deans. Erman Chermernsky, a very brilliant legal mind, wrote a book saying, no Constitution, no Constitution lasts forever. And others have been saying the Constitution is now a threat to us. And many of the measures that people are seeking are the types of direct democratic action that the founders warned against. I think they were correct then, and I think they're going to be even more correct, if that's possible. Certainly more relevant today. We are going to need Madison's precautions more than ever in dividing power, not to let it be concentrated in empowering individual citizens, putting the stress on individual rights, allowing for that democratic process to work the way that Madison hoped to bring factions to the surface where they can compromise on majoritarian results. That's going to be the key. You know, I recently I was presenting this book, or parts of it, in Europe in Prague, and an EU member came up and said, you know, your book seems very confident that the US will survive the 21st century. I was a little uncertain about whether you thought we would in the eu. And I said, I'm very surprised by that because I thought it was perfectly clear. I don't think you will survive. And I think that you're going to end in spectacular failure. And what concerns me is that you don't have a clue what's going to follow you, because historically, if the EU collapses, historically what ends up is a form of tyranny. And the reason I believe that the EU will collapse is that they've destroyed all of those elements I talk about in the first half of the book.
- [45:18]
NextUp Host
Yeah, beautifully said. The. The line from Hamilton that I think about, that it defines the difference between the US and Europe and defines those of us who are optimistic that we will conquer AI and turn it into something positive, even if there are some short term problems, is from. I'm not throwing away my shot. I'm young, scrappy and hungry. And that is that that defines the United States today. It defines why we're ahead in AI and robotics over the others. And the Europeans, if they don't listen to J.D. vance and Marco Rubio and figure out how to get younger, scrappier and hungrier, they will suffer the fate, almost certainly, that you describe. It's a fantastic book. I recommend it to you all. Again, it's a great read and it's brilliantly woven both the story of our past and the story not just of our present, but of our future. And Jonathan Turley. Will, will, will, will sell the book again in the next block, but we'll take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to take the opportunity to talk to Jonathan about some current legal issues. More with author Jonathan Turley, author of Rage in the Republic, the Unfinished Story of the American Revolution. That is Next up. Are you being lied to? They tell you to defer paying your taxes by saving in a 401k or an IRA because then you'll retire in a lower tax bracket. But if that were true, why are so many retirees in the highest tax bracket they've ever been in? It's time to get the truth and discover a better way to grow and protect your money. Bank on yourself is the proven retirement plan alternative that banks and Wall street desperately hope that you never hear about. It gives you guaranteed predictable growth that doesn't go backward when the market drops. It can provide tax free retirement income under current tax law, putting you in control of your future tax rate. You also have control of your money. Access it whenever you need it with no government penalties or restrictions. And your money keeps growing even when you use it. You can get a free report that reveals how you can bank on yourself and enjoy tax free retirement income, guaranteed growth and control of your money. Just right now. Go to BankOnYourself.com mark to get your free report. Again, that's BankOnYourself.com mark. Get your free report right now at BankOnYourself.com mark when it's time to scale
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NextUp Host
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Jonathan Turley
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NextUp Host
Select homes only. All right, next up, more with author Jonathan Turley. Great book about the founding of the country and what we're dealing with. But Jonathan is also one of the best legal scholars and legal analysts in America and take the opportunity to chat with you about that. A lot of conversations about the the Trump Justice Department. You know many career prosecutors and have over time and we're in now transition from the first Trump Attorney General to an acting Attorney General and maybe someone else. What's the state of the institutional Justice Department as a Protector of our liberties as a prosecutor of crimes, as an investigator of terrorism. Is it a fully functioning body now, or is it as it's transitioned from the Biden Justice Department, the Trump Justice Department, in some crisis or peril from a personnel point of view?
- [49:03]
Jonathan Turley
You know, Mark, I think that often people are apocalyptic in their language when it comes to agencies, including the Justice Department. The Justice Department operates largely as designed, 98% of what the Justice Department does. It doesn't change a whole lot. Now, yes, there are very different priorities and policies, but it's still functioning. It's still prosecuting criminal cases. It's still defending the government. All of those things are. Are constants. But the. The department has been put through the ringer for the last eight years, and it has had a failure of leadership. You know, the. I was highly critical when Trump entered office with the actions of Sally Yates, who was about to leave the Department of Justice in a matter of days, and she issued what I consider to be a grossly inappropriate, if not unethical memo telling the department to stand down and not to assist Trump in his immigration policies. And I disagreed with those initial memos. I identified what I thought were glaring mistakes in the memos. They were cranked out pretty quickly, but those were later corrected in a series of amended orders. But what I said at the time was the basic argument, legal argument that Trump was making, I thought would prevail, and it didn't matter if I was right on that. The point is that it was at least a close question. So I thought it was grossly inappropriate for Yates to tell department not to assist the sitting president. And ultimately, they won. You know, they rewrote aspects of it. But this, the primary issue is the president's authority on immigration was in fact, upheld by the Supreme Court. Well, we've seen, particularly in the Biden administration, the targeting of Trump and others that I also was highly critical about. I've also been critical of some of the moves of the Trump administration, which I. I think that some of these cases targeting opponents have been very weak. They've been rejected by grand juries and by judges. So the criticism goes both ways. But for the most part, the Justice Department is still functioning as it was designed. It's not clear if you know who's going to be the next attorney general. They have a deep bench, and a lot of these individuals have assets that might appeal to President Trump. The. The point, though, ultimately is that the Justice Department is going to the change. The Justice Department is going to continue to function and do Its work. The changes that you see on the surface, I, you know, will continue to, to draw a lot of attention of Congress. You know, there are some legitimate concerns about targeting political opponents, but some of the objections are policy issues that President Trump has every right to change. You know, his, his work against DEI and different forms of discrimination. That's no different than when Obama and Biden did the inverse of. Of those, his efforts to tighten immigration enforcement. It's no different than the, the orders that loosened immigration enforcement. And while people are claiming that that's somehow a sign of tyranny, I think that they're being a rather blind to their own bias.
- [52:48]
NextUp Host
Has there been damage done to our judicial system, to our sense of, of a proper role for the judiciary for prosecutors? From the prosecutions of President Trump to now his attempts to inspire the Justice Department to indict some of his political enemies, including some of the people involved in prosecuting him. Is that just kind of the norm, or has there been damage done, do you think?
- [53:10]
Jonathan Turley
I think there's been damage done from various sources. I've been very critical of many district court judges who have been issuing national injunctions or trying to enjoin whole areas of policy with. We just had a judge who's done this repeatedly, Judge Murphy in Boston, who just enjoined another policy in terms of the temporary protective status of Ethiopian immigrants. And I do believe that many of those judges are exceeding their authority, and they're showing too great of an inclination to try to enjoin this administration because they don't agree with the policies or perhaps the rhetoric coming out of the White House. So I think damage has been done there. But, you know, I just had a debate with a Harvard professor not long ago who insists that we're in a constitutional crisis and we're not in a constitutional crisis. You know, the as raging the republic talks about. Our Constitution was written for bad times, not good times. It was written in times like ours. I mean, people often have this conceit that their times are so unique that the system's not designed for it. This is the time that the Constitution was written not just for, but in. And what people like my friend from Harvard called a constitutional crisis sounded a lot like it was a crisis because you weren't getting what you wanted. That is, he was saying, look, nothing's being done in Congress. We can make no reforms to get nothing through. I said, this sounds like you're complaining about democracy, because this country is divided right down the middle. So if we're divided down the middle, Less gets done. And maybe that's a good thing, that that's the problem. You have to convince people, right? We can't just sit here and yell at each other. Eventually we're going to have to talk to each other, and that's what happens. You know, my. My earlier book talked about what I call the age of rage. This isn't our first age of rage. And historically, the rage burns off and we have this awakening where we realize, frankly, that we've become grotesque, that we became rage addicts. And that's what people today won't admit, is that not only is rage contagious and addictive, but that they like it. And if you go on the Internet and watch some of these, these videos, you can see it. You can see a face of addiction, but you can see how much they needed it allows you to hate completely, not even think about the other person as a human being anymore. You know, I was watching this woman at the airport last week who's a doctor in New York, screaming at these two ICE officers who were very polite and calling them pigs and, and abusing them. And it was the face of rage. It was the face of that addiction.
- [56:11]
NextUp Host
She.
- [56:12]
Jonathan Turley
She loved it because they were no longer human beings. That's what rage does for you. So we're not in a constitutional crisis. We're in a crisis of faith. We've just lost faith in each other. But I really do think that the rage will burn off. And these issues, Mark, that you talk about, in terms of the controversies with the Justice Department, those will also dissipate.
- [56:39]
NextUp Host
We traditionally think that grand juries will indict anybody. The famous expression grand jury will indict a ham sandwich. And yet we've seen very high profile, somewhat numerous instances in which grand juries have declined. Is that a product of vast overreach by these prosecutors trying to do the bidding of the president? Is it a sign of the times that grand jurors are just going to be more independent because of social media and kind of being liberated by access to information? What, what do you think is driving that? And is, is it going to grow or is it just a one off?
- [57:13]
Jonathan Turley
You know, Mark, I think that it is a sign of our times. Grand juries were supposed to be a check on the government. And when the country is divided, grand juries will become divided. I do think that there are some cases that were distorted by the sort of political profile of a jury pool, like the Trump, you know, trial. I thought New York was outrageous. I thought it was an abuse of the system. I, and you know, it's very hard to face a New York or D.C. jury in a highly political case if you are on, on, on the Republican side. But I, I also think that we can't discount that people are, that the grand juries are doing their jobs in looking at some cases and saying, I don't see it. I just don't see why this is a crime. I'm suspicious about the motivations. That is what the grand jury was supposed to be about. That's why it's such a powerful institution.
- [58:15]
NextUp Host
Yeah, I'm all for it in the abstract. I'm not commenting on these particular cases, but I think it was intended to be a check. And, and I don't know statistically whether these cases are, are, you know, part of a larger trend or just in their, the numbers we know about make them significant. But, but I think it's, it's, it's prosecutors have so much authority and if they can just go in and get anybody indicted they want to without a check on them now, you know, then the check comes at trial. But the grand jury was intended to be a check along the way. So I'm all for it in the abstract, but I do wonder, I do wonder if it's going to grow it within, within the Supreme Court now we've got, we've had some big rulings. We, there's some other big cases on the docket. What do you think about the culture of the current court? They're polarized too. We see lots of six to three decisions, although not always, but maybe most pointedly and resonantly for people on the left is we see stirring dissents from the three liberal justices. We see very emotional, often read from the bench, which they do when they feel strongly about it. How unusual is that division and how significant are those three voices, do you think, for, for our national culture now?
- [59:29]
Jonathan Turley
Well, it's very significant because you have various Democrats, both members of Congress and pundits, who have said publicly that as soon as the Democrats regain power, they will push to pack the Supreme Court and produce an instant liberal majority, even though most of the public is against that wisely. In this case, the public is wiser than their leader. What's also interesting is that they are pursuing that even though the narrative is falling apart. You know, I, I, I've covered the Supreme Court for newspapers and networks for 30 years, and every year I, I write a column to rebut many of the other columns saying that the Supreme Court is this robotically divided institution, the Supreme Court still, and this hasn't changed much in terms of its percentage over the last 20 years, the Supreme Court largely rules unanimously or nearly unanimous. The majority of opinions end up unanimous or maybe short one vote. Also, the 6:3 decisions are not often the 6:3, you think. Gorsuch, Kagan have been known particularly to switch sides. Barrett has switched sides. So the narrative sort of falls apart when you look at it now. There are some cases, a relatively small number, we're talking about less than a dozen usually or around there, that end up in a more traditional ideological divide. There have been, as you noted, Mark, some difference in atmospherics. But that also is sort of fascinating. I just wrote a piece about Justice Jackson's jurisprudence, and she has drawn the ire not just of conservatives, but her liberal colleagues. We haven't seen a lot of that. These are very pointed criticisms of Jackson's jurisprudence. Most recently, Justice Kagan dropped a footnote and, and basically accused Jackson of discarding the longstanding distinction between conduct and speech, suggesting that what Jackson would do is effectively gut the First Amendment if, if, if they did what she. She was asking. And she was the lone dissenter in the conversion therapy case of Childs. So that's a little bit different. We've seen those sharp exchanges with Jackson, also from Gorsuch and Barrett. Even Sotomayor has had a moment or two. That is interesting because, you know, Jackson is often cited by the left as their model for the new justices. And if they do go forward to pack the court, that is a concerning factor for some of us.
- [62:28]
NextUp Host
Jonathan, I could ask you a million more questions, but we're done. Grateful. Grateful to you for sharing all that. And really, my congratulations on the book.
- [62:36]
Jonathan Turley
Thank you.
- [62:37]
NextUp Host
Everybody should buy it. It's a great read. And you got to read about and think about this 250th anniversary and how we can learn from the past. And Raging the Republic, the unfinished story of the American Revolution is a great way to do it because you'll enjoy the stories. They'll be. They'll be compelling to you. They're cinematic and resonant and both human and emotional and intellectual at the same time. And that's hard to find. Jonathan, thank you.
- [63:00]
Jonathan Turley
Thank you, Mark. Thank you.
- [63:02]
NextUp Host
All right, that's it for today's program. We'll be back next week on Tuesday, brand new episode. Don't keep the program to yourself. Share it with family, friends, definitely. Everybody you know, make sure they get to become part of the Nexters. Catch us on YouTube, listen to us as a podcast wherever you want. To get the program. Make sure though, you're part of everything we do, so you always know what's coming. Next up. Lifelock.
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Jonathan Turley
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NextUp Host
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