As chaos grows in America, will the Supreme Court soon put “security” over free speech? Famed attorney Alan Dershowitz joins Glenn Beck to explain why he’s concerned and debate the solution. Plus, as a Harvard Law School professor emeritus, Dershowitz explains why he approves of President Trump’s crackdown on Harvard’s government funding.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Welcome, Alan Dershowitz. How are you, sir?

ALAN: I'm doing great. How are you?

GLENN: I'm good. So did I get this right?

You're talking about now, that the Supreme Court might start leaning towards security over free speech in the coming years.

ALAN: Yeah. Look, never -- it does. I pride myself on never making predictions based on what I want to happen.

That's what -- that's what others on the left do. And that's why they're always wrong. I make predictions based on my analysis of trends.

This is not a trend I approve of. But it's a trend I see coming.

GLENN: Right.

ALAN: I see it coming in the area of defamation. I see it coming in the area of incitement.

I think the Brandenburg decision was written.

During a time of relative calm. And we weren't seeing the incitements of violence that we saw, that probably led to the burning of Jews. In Boulder Colorado. And the shooting of these two innocent people in Washington, DC.

And the kinds of things.

Look, I -- I have a lot of --

GLENN: Hang on just a second.

Yeah. You just said, and I find this amazing.

You said -- you just said, it happened in a time of relative calm. It was 1969 that this case came down in the Supreme Court, if I'm not mistaken.

Which is not really a calm year.

But can you explain what the Brandenburg case is, or was?

ALAN: Sure.

Brandenburg was a Nazi, who was making horrible, horrible speeches. But he wasn't inciting anybody directly. And the Nazis in those days had no influence, and no power. They weren't getting people to do things.

GLENN: I know.

ALAN: The people that were creating problems that were during the Vietnam War.

The people on the left.

I represented a lot of them. And I represented people who disrupted the Democratic convention in 1968.

The Chicago -- other people like that. And I saw with my own eyes. That some of these people who started as disrupters, and violent confrontationists. And people pushing and shoving.

And, you know, breaking property and stuff like that. Ultimately, became murderers, like Captain Houdini, who ended up being responsible for the killing of two policemen. Or the weatherman, who planted bombs, and killed people. And then their leaders became, you know, prominent spokesmen of the left. Professors at various places.

So I saw that, and what I was seeing now, is a different kind of quantity.

What we're seeing, with the globalize the intifada. And Palestine will be free from the river to the sea. Those are calls for violence.

The Brandenburg case, they're protecting speech. I think they should still be protected speech.

But my view, my prediction is that when the next case comes to the Supreme Court. This Supreme Court, I think they may take a more security-oriented point of view, and say, wait a minute.

The incitement does not have to be so direct, it could be a little bit more direct.

And let the jury decide that issue. So I'm concerned about that. In my book, the preventive state. I have a whole chapter on free speech. And how free speech can sometimes cause violence.

And, but that it's not proper to deny free speech, in order to prevent.

We have to pick better ways of preventing violence. And in the preventative state, we come up with better ways than constraining free speech.

GLENN: Because I -- I really, I'm really with you on this. This really disturbs me.

When I read this article from you yesterday. This story from you yesterday, I needed to talk to you. This is horrible. This goes beyond cancel culture.

This is now the government, being able to come in and say, nope!

Right, that's really bad.

ALAN: Yeah. Look, there are so many mechanisms we use that have an effect on free speech. Even deportation.

Deportation obviously denies the deported person, the right to speak freely in this country.

Now, of course, under the Constitution, a citizen has the most free speech rights. A green card holder, the second most -- visa holders, almost no free speech rights. They can be deported, if they say things that are contrary to the interests of the United States. They're just guests in our country.

And so, you know, I think we're going to see a lot -- lots of movement in this area, because we're going to see a lot more violence. Let me tell you what happened to me.

The take before the killings in the District of Columbia. One Christian boy and Jewish women who were killed, working for the embassy. The day after that, I was getting an honorary degree in college at Florida. The security people in college came up to me. We're terrified. It might be a copycat attempt to kill you.

Because you're a prominent spokesman for pro-Israel points of view. And so they created a whole security thing around me, where they created an escape plan.

They have policeman, with machine guns. And with bullet-proof glass. To protect me.

And I have redoubled my security. And I think we're going to see more copycat crimes. I think Hamas wants to see violence in the United States. That's their goal to get more people to kill Jews, Christians, and others in the United States.

And I think they're probably going to succeed unless there's some preventive steps they're taking. Now, the preventive steps should not include diminutions of free speech under the Constitution.


GLENN: I -- I tell you, I -- you know, I see what the government is doing, and how AI is -- and Silicon Valley is playing a big role with the Pentagon and CIA.

And everything else. And I am really, really concerned. If there is another big event like a 9/11.

I fear Americans are just going to run to that kind of stuff. And then we're in a trap. And I don't think we'll get out of.

JOSH: Yeah. That's what history shows.

I show, that there's a common phenomenon. We underreact, and we don't prevent.

We didn't prevent Pearl Harbor. We didn't prevent 9/11. Israel didn't prevent October 7th. Then what happened?

After we failed to prevent Pearl Harbor, we put 110,000 Japanese-Americans in camps, in order to prevent them from doing it again. They never would have done it again.

We overreacted. After 9/11, we created the Patriot Act, which gave the government too much power, to prevent a recurrence of that.

And, you know, the reason we disagree with Israel. But a lot of people think Israel, for failure. From October 7th.

Which they could have done. They had the intelligence. May have overreacted. In Gaza.

I'm not agreeing with that. I'm just telling you, historically, there's a phenomenon, it starts with underprediction.

And ends up with overreaction to the event.

That was not predicted and prevented.

That's one of the thesis of my book.

GLENN: So what -- what should we expect?

And how do we prepare ourselves, so we don't go down that road?

JOSH: Well, first of all, we do a lot more preparation and prevention. We try desperately to use what the resources are available. I'll give you an example.

The young man who burned those people in Boulder, Colorado.

He was here illegally. He had overstayed his visa. There's nothing wrong with using artificial intelligence and computer technology to keep track of people who stay here illegally.

And once he overstayed his visa. Action could have be taken.

And maybe this crime could have been prevented. So I think there are preventive steps that are consistent with the Constitution and free speech.

That can be taken, to avoid the cataclysmic events. Give you another horrible example, that we're working on right now.

Should the United States and Israel bomb Iran's nuclear facilities? We know they're playing to create an atomic bomb.

And we know in the 1930s, if France and England had prevented Germany from building up its army, it would have saved 50 million lives.

We must know it then.

Are these the crimes of preventive decisions, but there's no free lunch!

Every preventive decision entails some diminution of liberty. And, you know, Benjamin Franklin was correct, when he said those who would deny essential liberties to secure a little bit more security, deserve neither.

But the question is, can we deny a little bit of nonessential liberty, to prevent major cataclysmic events. Give you appear example. Before 9/11. We arrested ten people, and prevented 9/11. And the people arrested. And spent two months in jail.

That's probably a trend that was worth it.

GLENN: What are nonessential liberties?


ALAN: Well, there's a continuum. Obviously, free speech is the most essential liberty. Privacy is a matter of degree. And, you know, keeping track of people who are here illegally, does in some way, invade their right of privacy.

But in a small way.

Because they really don't have a right to be there at all.

Liberty is a continuum.

And we have to make sure that we don't go after fundamental liberties, as I think, look, what could be worse than putting 110,000 Japanese-Americans in camps, and denying them their right to earn a living?

We did that for three years.

And the Supreme Court. The liberal justices -- Earl Warren was the governor of California at the time. He was on the Supreme Court.
They all agreed with that, only a couple of justices.

Justice Jackson didn't agree with it.

But Americans were outraged at Pearl Harbor, as they were outraged at 9/11.

When you were outraged.

GLENN: I know.

ALAN: You don't think terribly.

GLENN: I know. I know. And that's a little terrifying. Just looking at what's coming around the world. And then seeing the growth of AI and what can be done.

It's a little frightening, that we will jump immediately to, yes.

We need a super, duper Patriot Act.

That it's --

ALAN: Yeah. That's right. We need a super, duper Patriot Act that denies free speech. That's the first thing. People hate free speech. The vast majority of Americans, even though they claim the First Amendment, believe in free speech for me, but not for thee. When I taught my class on the First Amendment, I would ask my students, how many people believe free speech for everybody?

Everybody would raise their hand, and then I would say, well, what about pornography? Some hands went down.

What about anti-Semitism?

Some hands would go down. What about bigotry against Catholics? Some hands would go down. By the end of the class, no hands were up. Everybody had an exception.

GLENN: Hmm. Alan, hold on for one minute. I want to talk to you a little bit about Harvard and what's going on there, and what do you think is coming for Harvard and out of all of this.

In 60 seconds, back with Alan Dershowitz in just a second.

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Ten-second station ID.
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So, I mean, you were the youngest full professor at Harvard, at the law school. You're an emeritus now at Harvard. What do you see happening to Harvard and this -- this war, this battle between the Trump administration and Harvard?

ALAN: Look, it started with the people in government administration.

Harvard started on its decline, probably more than a decade ago. By adopting DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Which lowered standards for emission. Lowered standards for faculty.

And turned us into a mediocre university. We are a mediocre university, Harvard.

The Latin term shouldn't be veritas. It should be mediocritas. We technically have lowered our standards.

This is not about Jews, or about Israel. This is about lowering the standards for DEI. We also adopted a content called intersectionality, which says that the world is divided into two groups. The oppressors. Those are Americans, white, Jews. And the oppressed. People of color. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

That's permeated the faculty.

Third, we've created these crazy departments of gender studies. Of Critical Race Theory. Of southeast Asian this. And these programs are nonacademic.

They are political.

They have agendas.

And they have destroyed the university.

And so I think we need to fundamentally root out, these hard left political, nonacademic courses.

And, of course, there's anti-Semitism as well.

And so I generally support Harvard a kick in their rear end.

I have a new book coming out in the summer, that's called Trump to Harvard. Go Fund Yourself.

And it lays out, how it's important to have targeted defunding. Schools like the Divinity School. The school that teaches Christianity has become the cesspool of anti-Semitism.

The public health department. A cesspool of anti-Semitism. Human rights has become a place of human wrong. So there's a lot of work to be done. It should be targeted. We shouldn't be denying visas to everybody. We should be denying them to those who would come in and cause terrible disruptions on the campus. So there's a lot of work to be done. And the president of Harvard is food. I assume he's trying his best.

But there are hard left people on the faculty. Who care more about promoting their progressive agendas. Then about teaching students.

You know, 60 years at Harvard. I never once expressed a personal vie in class. Never once. They didn't know what my views were on capital punishment, on Israel. You name it. None of it. I never expressed a personal view in class. My job was not to teach them what to think, but to teach them how to think. If they were conservative, I wanted them to go as a smart conservative. If they were liberal, I wanted them to be a better liberal.

So that's my job. But that's not what's going on at Harvard today. Today, it's becoming a place of indoctrination and propaganda.

GLENN: What do you say to -- there's this big thing going around now. You know, I was just a year away from curing, you know, tuberculosis, and the government pulled all of its funding out of my Harvard research.

ALAN: Terrible.

GLENN: And now these children are all going to do. How do you respond to that?

ALAN: Yeah. First, A, it's an overstatement. Harvard has $53 billion that can at that it can devote to curing cancer. But clearly, I mean, for example, one of the first reactions when they cut off the funds from Harvard research was one of the researchers made an announcement that said, oh, my God. The mice will now die.

We can't afford to feed a mice. You know how much it costs to feed a mice? Eleven cents a day to feed a mouse.

So a lot of overstatement, but I do think we have to have all the targeting. And we should not be cutting back on research at all.

GLENN: Alan Dershowitz. I would love to do a podcast with you, on about the preventive state. You're always right on top of it. Thank you so much, Alan Dershowitz. Again, the name of the book is The Preventive State. Harvard law school professor ameritas and host of the Dershow.