Iran Ceasefire “Fog of Peace," Debating the "8 For 28," and The AI Revolution, with Jonathan Turley

- Hey, everybody, I'm our accountant. And this is next up,

“where in either time of peace or time of war,”

hard to know. I'm the editor in chief of two way live Interactivity of platform air host year. To everything next up for all nexters to convene, to visit, to celebrate the complexities of life

and the complexity of news. Led your ear, gonna make you happy, joined and invested in the time together.

We have lots to go on first.

My report at my log on what I'm calling the FOG of peace or the FOG of ceasefire. This is an extremely confusing moment in the war by the time you hear this, maybe it'll be more confusing, maybe less, but I'm gonna 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, a last episode I unveiled my April edition of eight

for 28th, the most likely Democrat nominees. And I got some lovely feedback and maybe some feedback less lovely, we're calling this segment eight for 28th.

“Little Toney and Cheek, but gonna go through”

some of the feedback got some very constructive and some more pointed, I would say, maybe some even brutal to what you all thought and when 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 is saying about where they think I'm wrong on this month. And then joined by great guest as somebody I've followed and respected a long time, Jonathan Turley. He's the author of the new book, "Rage in the Republic,"

the unfinished story of the American Revolution. We're in a celebratory year, even those large 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, talked 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 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 and Pakistan. And why is a two-week ceasefire so complicated?

Why is there a fog of peace, fog of ceasefire? David Ignatius, the great columnist who's been against 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, that 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 claim

since it's basically been decimated, destroyed, rather.

They still have control of the straight 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 Lama Bay? 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 straight 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

from Israel as S5, please, that just shows you how the current state of affairs is being framed. S5, please. Welcome to our daily TV7 Israel news bulletin, broadcast from Jerusalem.

The fragile ceasefire is taken a fact between the United States, Israel, and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

that unless you want to go chase in good faith,

“joins U.S. Israel offensive will resume.”

Jerusalem emphasizes that the ceasefire with Iran does not include a ceasefire between Israel and the Iranian proxy has fallen, Lebanon. So somehow the agreement to have a ceasefire for two weeks and to me seem to have not covered the question

of what happens if Israel keeps going as they had been before the ceasefire against his blood. He has black-heave's firing at Israel, and the ambiguity continues to exist. Benjamin Enyahu, and the United States said no.

Lebanon is not included. Israel's not in violation of the ceasefire if they continue to go after his blood. He has black-heave's firing at Israel, as they have for many years, and early 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 U.S. said, well, maybe there's some confusion here. Maybe this is just a good faith mistake.

Here's Vice President JD Vance on the Topic S3, please. - Thanks, first of all, I actually think, and there's a lot of bad faith negotiation and a lot of bad faith propaganda going on.

“I think this comes from a legitimate misunderstanding.”

I think the Iranian 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's 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 its same motivations for anti-Israel. What's Iran's motive in citing this as a reason the talks may not go forward?

Then we've got the straight. Okay, the straight'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 straight at least partially. And the president of the United States has said, no, that's not good. And up this straight 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 straight 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? Why is Iran not living up to what?

Seems 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 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 degree to which the straight is open.

But there's a correlation there. There's definitely a correlation there. Then there's a question of what Iran has said about it's 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 know people like to cite that 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 of the 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 stop believing

that Iran was a good faith actor at all. On this question of giving up its nuclear weapons. Because when I asked people in the United States government, how can you negotiate with these people

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've rescheduled 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 day in big U.S. I want to talk about 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 a Iranian 10-point plan that's a good basis to have the 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 and beguity. The White House premises, 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 willing this to strike a bargain, without knowing what it is, they're even proposing? Now, diplomats have to keep things secret. His 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. Raging has relied on, 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 at all, hugely important for the financial community. Everybody I know in the financial community says it's number one issue is opening the straight.

But this ward didn't start to open the straight. That wasn't the goal. The straight was open before the war. This were 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 certainly set back. But Iran still has missiles, and they build it and launch them.

Iran still has as best we know it's nuclear material. And Iran now is strengthened by controlling the straight. 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 Islamist bond?

At least in the short term. Unfortunately, if 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, 8. You all get to tell me what I got wrong.

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(upbeat music) Okay, so here's the list, just a reminder. Number one, Gavin Newsom most likely person to be the Democrat nominee according to my sources. Josh Shapiro, Governor of Pennsylvania, number two,

Pete Buttigieg, former Indiana mayor and Transportation Secretary comma Harris, number four, Romomanial number five, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, six Mark Kelly seven and the Governor of Illinois and Mark J.B. Pritzker is eight.

So, you know, my sources don't always agree.

They don't agree, they, 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 will say,

“"Well, I think you should flip three and four."”

But some of you have stronger opinions than that. So, go back to the list, I've got two guys on there. Romomanial and Josh Shapiro, Shapiro's two, Romomanials five. Now, they're both more moderate Democrats

and some people think, "Well, Democrats have moved far left and not made a moderate. They both have to be Jewish." And some people say there's no way the party's done and I'm gonna make someone Jewish.

Here's some reaction from Twitter. This is from Sarah Lee on Twitter. Good handle, SSX-0077. Sarah Lee says, "Rom and Josh should rise 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, a manual 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 antisemitism,

“they have a chance, otherwise they're running another Biden,”

that will not work a second time.

So here are two people. Two nexters who say, yeah, a manual in Shapiro, now they 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 in a manual, 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 Lansky on Twitter, at the Meyer Lansky,

is high on the Shapiro in a manual, like the others reaction we looked at. But says the party won't nominate them. Again, that's what this is all about. Not food that nominee, who should be the nominee,

but who it will be. All right, a lot of criticism and 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, Senator from Georgia, who's running for reelection. I heard from a lot of people, a lot of my sources have put those guys on, but I didn't, 'cause the consensus was they're not in the top eight,

but Elena Hadfield 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've heard from people who said, when they saw the list, Kamala Harris shouldn't be on the list. I've heard from people who say, Kamala Harris should be number one.

I've heard from people who say, "Rama Manuous," we've heard just now, should be on the list. I've heard from people. I heard from one person who said,

"Who's opinions?" I respect who said, "I'm a joke." He said, "You're a joke." If you have "Rama Manuous," people will laugh at you, for including "Rama Manuous," on the list.

All right, here's a few other opinions about the list. This is a B-8, please. I enjoy this one. Brandon B's 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 B-9

from RPK 1831, you left that sponge Bob, and Blackwell Brawl, Blackwell Barra, B-10 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 gonna be.

All right, a couple more serious ones. B-6, please. This person likes two of the other candidates, who both on my list and both on my list. My number one, my number three, Bobby at now Vintage says,

"This will be between Newsom and Buttigieg "because once the baits start,

"indibates 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 that person, but other people, I've told me Newsom shouldn't be on the list.

Here's one, this is from Plumber Tad B-5, who also high on Gavin Newsom, but maybe not in the kindest way. We're talking about Democrats, they say, they hate Jews like Ron and Josh Shapiro,

"Peats to gay, Kamala to Dom, AOC to left, Kelly is a nobody, JB too big, spelled too wrong." Has to be Gavin, but he's too white, wealthy, greasy, outfits, Gavin, my guess is that person's not a big fan of the field overall, but that's a process of elimination.

I'll say that.

Finally, this is a time to reflect on hate.

The list has been to be fun, but it's also serious reporting. Love to get your feedback every time. We'll do it again in May and look forward to more of your spicy feedback which we call, eight for 28, eight, 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 your follow-ups and critiques when we do this again in a month. Email me a thoughts on the thoughts. More feedback of what I've said today, you can send me an email at [email protected]

and of course, don't just listen to the show, make sure you're subscribed to next up. 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 at next up. 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. (upbeat music) Hey, did you know that high blood pressure is the number one risk factor for mortality?

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This is serious. This is your life we're talking about. 120 life can help. (upbeat music) All right, next up and joining me now,

Real Tree Jonathan Turley, George Washington University Law Professor, author of a new book. It's called "Rage in the Republic "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 applied 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. - Thank you very much, Mark. I'm so happy to be with you today.

- Explain, as I asked almost every author, I talked to explain your motivation for writing it. What was the idea you had that no one had done in a book yet? - Well, you know, this is really a book

about revolutions and how they begin and perhaps more importantly how they are, most revolutions do not end well. And the book, the first half of the book looks backwards. It's 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 Payne,

who was one of two major figures that played roles in both revolutions, the other being Lafayette. And Payne 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 in 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

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. And the question is, can we preserve this republic in the times that lay ahead?

- Yeah, so the Foundering was a turbulent time,

but as again, as you argue in the second half of the book,

we're in another turbulent time, and I think the question is, is the predicate strong enough to get a third, 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 nine-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 nine-year-old, but he loves the music, and talking about, of course, Hamilton, everybody learned that the Founders were pretty darn interesting people, and the two you write about are, every been as interesting as Hamilton,

I'm not sure they're gonna turn yours into a hit Broadway show, 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 Payne is such an interesting character to you.

- Well, thanks Mark, and what a wonderful trip for you to take. I did that same trip when my kids were about that day. The Thomas Payne 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 Payne 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 appear to sort of resent him a bit. They tended back then as they do today to prefer figures like Thomas Jefferson, tall and handsome and aerodide and educated,

and a slave owner, Thomas Payne 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 Payne did not accept many of what we're called, the exhilarated precautions, the James Madison put into place in the U.S. Constitution. Payne liked 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. You know, Thomas Payne was the righteous rage that the Revolution needed.

And James Madison was the pious logic, but Payne 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 pain

is he may have not only been the most revolutionary

of the American Revolution, he may be the ultimate American. You know, Payne 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. It's 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 the Exit No Money. Franklin saw something and paid. That was one of Franklin's strange skill sets.

It maybe takes a genius to recognize genius. But he sent him here to write,

“and I think that I truly believed at Franklin's saw”

and paid that righteous rage, that voice, that maybe was still missing in the colonies. Within two years, Payne would be called the penment of the revolution. He would write, common sense.

Two years, even his critics, John Adams, said, you know, when common sense came out, it was anonymous, and there was last speculation who wrote it. John Adams and 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 relayed it how he had genius in his eyes.

“And I was thinking that 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 Jérardon, 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 Jérardon. 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 became within 24 hours of being guillotine”

and only survived by a complete flu, or accident, a door that had been marked for all four of the occupants to be executed, had been open to give Payne air because he was ill.

And they never saw the marking.

The amazing life 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 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 is Lafayette interact with this concept of revolution and then building at the same time? - Well Lafayette himself is fascinating. He was deeply loyal, both to the United States and to France.

And what's interesting is Lafayette also saw that Madison was correct, that the biggest concern of the founders, as I discussed in the book, was the tendency of democracies to become mapocracies 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 saw.

“And that's what Lafayette played out in France.”

And Lafayette and pain worked really that much of acquaintances during the revolution. They got to know each other in Paris. And in fact, they met with Jerome Dal 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 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 Robes, Pierre, and Marat. And they outmaneuvered the Zhendal and started to execute them in droves.

And so the constitution never really had a shot.

But with each of these Lafayette, as he was intensely loyal. And even though he was constantly threatened with a rest, 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, when 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 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 a chilling moment, because like pain, 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. Beautiful.

These are two great characters.

And again, the first half of the book is going to tell you

great, great characters, great plot developments, and great meaning for understanding the founding of the country.

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 my country and for my son in trying to bring the alarm bell about the AI revolution. And just how massive it is, 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. 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 cause 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's never seen. And the problem is that you'll have a large population of not just unemployed, but potentially unemployable citizens. You know, I am 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 and 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 republic is just as a function way it's designed.

And we can't have an arts and crafts citizenry where we all just allow the government to teach us, you know, pottery and glass blowing. That also will not work. Now with us, maybe it work with other countries,

but now 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 Kriv Kor, 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 Kriv Kor wrote this wonderful piece. In the middle of the book, he asks, what then is this America?

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 were 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. 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. 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?

in the others, how does that inform how we grapple now with the revolution of robotics and AI? Well, Mark, that's a great question. Indeed, that's the heart of the book.

“Because as we answer a correct course question,”

what then is this American? 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 Payne. 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 Payne. 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 jackabuns. There are many people today that are saying that the Constitution is a failure that we should scrap it, including law professors and law adeans,

Euroman Schumerinsky, a very brilliant legal mind, wrote a book saying no Constitution, no Constitution last 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. I recently 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 I 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 EU will collapse”

is that they've destroyed all of those elements.

I talked about in the first half of the book.

Yeah, beautifully said, the line from Hamilton that I think about that it defines the difference between the US and Europe and defines those 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 defines the United States today. It defines why we're a head in AI and robotics over the others and the Europeans.

If they don't listen to JD Vance and Marco Rubio and figure out how to get younger, scrappy, and hungry, 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 reading. It's brilliantly woven both the story of our past and the story, not just of our present, but of our future.

And Jonathan Terley will to sell the book again in the next plot. But we'll take a quick break when we come back and take the opportunity to talk to Jonathan, that's some current legal issues.

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to get your free report again. That's bankonyourself.com/mark. Get your free report right now at bankonyourself.com/mark. (upbeat music) 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 Trump Justice Department. You know, many career prosecutors have over time

and we're in now transition from the first Trump

attorney general to an acting attorney general and maybe someone else. Well, it's the state of the institutional justice department is 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 its transition from the Biden Justice Department to Trump Justice Department in some crisis or peril from a personnel point of view?

“- 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 design, 98% of what the Justice Department does. It doesn't change a whole lot.

No, 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 constants.

But the department has been put through the ringer for the last eight years. And it has had a failure of leadership.

I was highly critical when Trump entered off

as 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 considered to be a grossly inappropriate, if not an ethical memo,

telling the department to stand down and not to assist Trump in his immigration policies. And I disagreed with those initial memos. 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 the Department not to assist the sitting president.

And ultimately, they were a rewrote aspects of it. But 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, by 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 think”

that some of these cases targeting opponents have been very weak. They've been rejected by grandjuries 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 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 point, though, ultimately, is that the Justice Department is going to-- the Justice Department's going to continue to function and do its work. The changes that you see on the surface will continue to draw a lot of attention of Congress.

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. His work against the EI and difference forms

of discrimination. That's no different than when Obama and Biden did the inverse of those. His efforts to tighten immigration enforcement is no different than 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.”

As there have been damage done to our judicial system

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 is there's been damage done, do you think?

“I think there's been damage done from various sources.”

I've been very critical of many district court judges

who have initially national injunctions or trying to enjoy in whole areas of policy. We just had a judge who's done this repeatedly, Judge Murphy and Boston, who just enjoyed 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 it's a great of an inclination to try to enjoy this administrations.

They don't agree with the policies or perhaps the rhetoric coming out of the White House. So I think the amateurs have been down there, but I just had to debate with the Harvard professor not long ago, who insists that we're in a constitutional crisis.

And we're not in a constitutional crisis.

You know, as Rachel and 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.

I've had the systems not designed for it. This is the times that the Constitution was written not just for, but in. And what people like my friend from Harvard called the 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. And we can make no reforms to get nothing through. It 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'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. My earlier book, I talked about what I call the age of rage.

This is our first age of rage.

And historically, the rage burns off. And we have this awakening, where we realize, frankly, that we have 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 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. 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 abusing them. And it was the face of rage. It was the face of that addiction.

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. - We traditionally think that grangeries

will indict anybody, the famous expression to Grangery will indict a ham sandwich. And yet we've seen very high profile, somewhat numerous instances in which Grangeries have declined. Is that a product of a vast overreach

“by these prosecutors trying to do the bidding of the president?”

Is it a sign of the times that Grangerers are just going to be more independent because of social media and kind of being liberated by access to information? What do you think is driving that?

And is it going to grow or is it just a one-off? You know, Mark, I think that it is a sign of our times. Grangeries were supposed to be a check on the government. And when the country is divided, Grangeries 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 trial. I thought New York was outrageous. I thought it was an abuse of the system.

And it's very hard to face a New York or DC jury in a highly political case, if you are on the Republican side.

that the Grangeries 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 Grangerie was supposed to be about.

“That's why it's such a powerful institution.”

- 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 I don't know statistically whether these cases are part of a larger trend or just a nation.

The numbers we know about make them significant. But I think it's prosecutors have so much authority. And if they can just go in and get anybody and die did they want to without a check on them. Now, then the check comes at trial.

But the Grangerie 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. Within Supreme Court now, we've had some big rolling weeks, there's some other big cases on the document.

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 descents 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 our national culture now?”

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 leaders. What's also interesting is that they are pursuing that, even though the narrative is falling apart. You know, I've covered the Supreme Court for newspapers

and networks for 30 years. And every year, 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. I mode the majority of opinions end up unanimous or maybe short one vote.

“Also, the six three decisions are not often the six three you think.”

I go or sit, Kagan, I have been known particularly to switch sides, I bear it, has switched sides. So it's 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.

Then end up in a more traditional ideological divide. Their have been, as you noted, marked 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 iron, 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 basically accused Jackson of discarding the long-standing distinction between conduct and speech. Suggesting that what Jackson would do is effectively got the first amendment. If they did what she was asking.

And she was the lone dissenter in the conversion therapy case of child's. So that's a little bit different. We've seen those sharp exchanges with Jackson also from Gorsuch and Barrett, even so to my ear, has had a moment or two.

That is interesting because 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.

John, I could ask you a million more questions,

but we're done. grateful for sharing all that. And really, my congratulations on the book. Thank you. Everybody should buy it.

It's a great read and you've got to read about and think about this 250th anniversary and how we can learn from the past and region or public the unfinished story of the American Revolution is a great way to do it.

Because you'll enjoy the stories. They'll be compelling to you. They're cinematic and resident and both of human and emotional and intellectual

Jonathan, thank you. Thank you, Mark. Thank you so much.

“All right, that's it for today's program.”

We'll be back next week on Tuesday, brand new episode.

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