A few days ago, I had the occasion to debate Michael Klarman, the Charles Warren Professor of Legal History at Harvard Law School. Colgate asked us to address the following question: “Is There a Constitutional Crisis? How Would We Know?” Many asked me to post the video of the debate, which is available below. I was also asked to respond to factual assertions made by Professor Klarman, who invited such fact-checking during his remarks.
Professor Klarman stated at the outset that he would present a condensed version of a talk he had given at Harvard. As a result, he did not focus on the specific question presented beyond saying that what constitutes a “constitutional crisis” means different things to different people. Instead, he presented a list of grievances against Trump, the MAGA movement, the Supreme Court, Congress, and the media as evidence of the rise of fascism and authoritarianism in America.
The result was a bit of a disconnect between our remarks. I addressed the common claim of a constitutional crisis and why I do not believe that we are in a true crisis. I have rejected that claim for decades as hyperbolic and unfounded.
Given Colgate’s framing of the debate, I did not respond to many of the specific claims made by Professor Klarman. After the debate, some faculty members and students asked if I disagreed with some of those claims. I thought that I would respond now.
At the outset, I appreciate the invitation of Colgate to address this important question and the work of our moderator, Cornell Law Professor Stephen Garvey. I also want to thank Professor Klarman for his participation and his candor. Although the debate became sharp at points, I still believe that these events are important efforts to expose students to opposing views on the difficult issues facing them and our country.
I should also note, as a threshold matter, that I do not agree with much of Professor Klarman’s characterization of our current conflicts. This includes his repeated references to “fascists,” “ICE thugs,” and analogies to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. During the debate, he stated:
•”[The Republicans] are trying to steal the 2026 election.”
•”[The Administration] is indifferent to suicides committed by transgender youths. There is a word for that. It is fascism.”
•”[The Administration] is essentially telling the world go ahead and attack [transgender people] we don’t care.”
•”They are indifferent to higher death rates among African Americans.”
•”Many [republicans] are very uninformed…many do not read newspapers…”
•”There will be a pretext…I do not know how far it will go…What happens when …. [they[ shoot down immigrants in the streets… seize voting boxes…put troops in democratic cities to intimidate people from voting…that is terrifying.”
It is clear that Professor Klarman truly believes these things and, as he correctly noted, there is subjectivity in how we view the same events or controversies. I credit Professor Klarman for wanting to have an exchange on these issues.
Professor Klarman started his remarks by noting:
“I am going to be extremely factual. Everything I say I can cite check chapter and verse for. You are right to beware of misinformation today but you are not going to get any of it from me.”
He later added that he had spoken completely factually and challenged the audience with “what did I say that is not true?”
I did address a couple of factual assertions during the debate. For example, Professor Klarman claimed that
“[Trump pardoned] violent insurrectionists including several who were directly responsible for the death of police officers.”
As I pointed out, only one person died during the January 6 riot, a protester named Ashli Babbitt. The claims that police officers died that day are false, though often repeated by politicians and pundits. The New York Times helped spread the false claim that Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died as a result of being hit with a fire extinguisher. Sicknick suffered two strokes and died of natural causes the day after the riot. As a past correction states, “The medical examiner found Sicknick died of natural causes which means ‘a disease alone causes death. If death is hastened by an injury, the manner of death is not considered natural.’ Four other officers committed suicide days to months later.” Other officers died months later from such causes as suicide, but there is no direct causal link to the riot.
I would like to now address five additional claims.
- “[Undocumented persons are being] deported without due process. Kavanaugh has said go for it, not constitutional problem.”
I am not sure what Professor Klarman was referencing here. However, in cases like A.A.R.P. v. Trump, Justice Kavanaugh joined his colleagues in halting deportations to protect the due process rights of these undocumented persons. It was Justices Alito and Thomas who dissented to allow removal under the Alien Enemies Act. The majority stated that the Administration “erred in dismissing the detainees’ appeal for lack of jurisdiction.” Kavanaugh wrote a concurrence stating:
“The circumstances call for a prompt and final resolution, which likely can be provided only by this Court. At this juncture, I would prefer not to remand to the lower courts and further put off this Court’s final resolution of the critical legal issues. Rather, consistent with the Executive Branch’s request for expedition—and as the detainees themselves urge—I would grant certiorari, order prompt briefing, hold oral argument soon thereafter, and then resolve the legal issues.”
In 2025, he did vote with the majority in a 5-4 decision on Venezuelan immigrants. It allowed for deportations to continue in ruling that the challengers erred in not bringing their challenges as habeas corpus claims. However, it also ruled that the alleged gang members need to be given notice of deportation and the opportunity to contest the deportation. Kavanaugh voted in favor of that position. I may be missing what Professor Klarman is referencing but Kavanaugh has repeatedly voted in favor of due process rights, even if it may not be as robust as Professor Klarman might have wanted. There are cases under this and prior administrations allowing for immediate deportations near the border that occur within a certain period of time. I cannot see any decision where he has effectively “said go for it” and deny any due process.
2. “Washington Post fired a journalist who simply reposted words from Charlie Kirk’s mouth” and “[Bezos] just fired a journalist for basically saying something that is true.”
Professor Klarman made repeated claims about this controversy. It appears to be a reference to the termination of former Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah. However, it is not true that she was fired for “simply reposting words from Charlie Kirk’s mouth” but for making racially inflammatory comments in direct contravention of both Washington Post policies and prior warnings from her editors.
Soon after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Attiah went on to Bluesky to post an attack on him with reference to his race. In one, she declared: “Refusing to tear my clothes and smear ashes on my face in performative mourning for a white man that espoused violence is….not the same as violence.” In a second posting, she wrote, “Part of what keeps America so violent is the insistence that people perform care, empty goodness and absolution for white men who espouse hatred and violence.”
Those were the comments cited by the Washington Post for its actions. The Post stated “Your postings on Bluesky (which clearly identifies you as a Post Columnist) about white men in response to the killing of Charlie Kirk do not comply with our policy.” The Post prohibits postings that disparage people based on their race, gender, or other protected characteristics.
Sources told the media that Attiah had been confronted multiple times by the paper’s management over her inflammatory social media posts. This includes one in 2020 where she ended up apologizing on social media for erroneously saying that a new French law targeted Muslim children. It is simply not true that the Post fired her for quoting Kirk.
3. “ICE agents acting as thugs are kidnapping people off the streets…They are building concentration camps… they show up on streets without any identification.”
This is a common claim made by politicians and pundits. However, it has been debunked as untrue. ICE agents wear vests and badges that identify them as law enforcement. As with other law enforcement agencies, ICE agents in plain clothes are presumably used on occasion. However, in making an arrest, officers identify themselves as law enforcement. While widely claimed, there has been no evidence submitted (that I know of) of a systemic failure of officers to identify themselves when making an arrest or taking someone into custody.
ICE is not kidnapping people. Once arrested, these individuals are input into an electronic system. Kidnapping is a legal term that does not apply to a case of a person placed into custody by federal law enforcement. Even when an arrest is deemed legally invalid or improper, it is not treated as a kidnapping. That is why there is no case that I know of finding that ICE has engaged in the kidnappings referenced by Professor Klarman.
The reference to “concentration camps” was made in a debate with other references to the Holocaust and the Nazi regime. Large holding areas have been used for decades in immigration operations under both Democratic and Republican presidents. They are not “concentration camps” as the term is commonly understood or used.
4. “Trump says quote ‘slavery was not that bad.'”
This appears to be a claim that was circulating on the Internet and was debunked as untrue. There is no such quote that I could find. On August 19, 2025, Trump criticized Smithsonian museums for focusing on negative aspects of U.S. history to the exclusion of more positive elements. He noted that there was “too much” on slavery. Trump wrote the Smithsonian is “OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been.” He went on to add that there is “Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future.” One can certainly object to the comment about the relative importance of slavery and why it should be mentioned prominently in these displays. However, the quoted statement by Professor Klarman appears to be apocryphal.
5. “James Madison designed this whole thing without thinking about political parties… he was not thinking [of one party controlling the White House and Congress]”
As someone who frequently writes about Madison, I was surprised by this statement and wanted to present an opposing view. It is certainly true that some figures like George Washington opposed the establishment of political parties. However, Madison actually started one of the first such political parties in the early 1790s around the time that the Constitution was ratified. It was the Democratic-Republican Party created with Thomas Jefferson. The Federalist Party was formally established in 1789 by Alexander Hamilton and other prominent figures. When the Constitution was drafted and ratified, the country was deeply divided along partisan lines. Madison would have had to be naive or moronic to ignore the partisan alliances around him. He was neither naive nor moronic.
I think it was very clear that Madison “was thinking” about political parties when he laid the foundation for the Constitution. While Madison wrote about “factions” rather than “parties” in his famed Federalist Paper writings, he viewed such alliances as natural and inevitable. In a speech to the Constitutional Convention, Madison declared that “no free country has ever been without parties, which are a natural offspring of freedom.” By the time of the Constitutional Convention, the country was already divided along Federalist and Jeffersonian lines. Indeed, he said, in a latter letter to Henry Lee, that “The Constitution itself … must be an unfailing source of party distinctions.”
Clearly, Professor Klarman and I hold opposing views on a myriad of issues. The program at Colgate is an important effort to create greater dialogue and diversity on our campuses. (I will be participating in another debate at the Virginia Military Institute on the same question on Sept. 30).
In fairness to Professor Klarman, these remarks should be considered in their proper context. Below is a link to the debate.
The left has gone completely mad. For years they have hidden their madness and we have allowed them to do so. But the jig is up, we are exposing them and they have gone off the deep end rationalizing. Not sure the problem is fixable.
This Klarman fellow is actually a college professor? He teaches people?
Law Professors like Klarman are vile. Continuing to apply terms such as “Nazis and “holocaust” to the current administration while his leftist allies who run his University turned a blind eye to the assault of Jewish Students during the so-called peaceful protests over Gaza is so typical of his ilk. He is the type of progressive Jewish professor who gladly allies himself with anti-Semites because he hates conservatives more than he cares about America or his own people.
Michael Klarman did an extremely poor job of supporting his side of the argument that we are in a Constitutional crisis. Klarman underlying argument for everything was “but Trump is evil”, and his emotional state seemed to get worse and worse the longer he spoke. Klarman was an embarrassment to academia. Klarman used almost every moment of his time spouting one political grievance after another, parroting pure propaganda, and brazen fear mongering. I know Klarman was supposed to be representing the side that believed that there is a Constitutional crisis, but what he did was truly moronic.
Although I think Jonathan Turley could have been a bit more blunt when Klarman had clearly lost tough with reality and was just being a partisan anti-Trump attack-dog, I do commend Turley for keeping his cool when confronted with this level of Trump Derangement Syndrome and sticking to representing facts, logic and critical thinking.
OT : TPUSA
Americas youth is awakening. They are the ones most affected by this Godless push of gender dysphoria and Social brainwashing that has been imposed upon us by these leftist Communist Party Clowns. These kids are compassionate to the mental illness and critical of the failures of Corporatism behind all of this, however they see the sickness, corruption and unwarranted social decay it all brings. Whether one chooses to accept Christ, Allah, Buddha, Wakantanka or whatever one chooses to follow in the theme of goodness and morality, it is the cosmic glue of faith that holds a society together. Without it there is no law, there is no structure, there is only chaos and violence in a quest for power as we regress to survival mode.
Thank you Charlie for all of your work, you didn’t deserve to be executed, you deserved a thank you for turning on the switch for so many young people.
The frightening thing for me, regarding the future of this country, is not ICE or MAGA/Trump, or SCOTUS, or our founders’ words, –it is the fact that Michael Klarman is a professor of law at a leading law school, imbuing young students with his personal opinions–including somewhere between 20-25% foreign/non-US citizen students, who will take his views back to their own countries.
(Was Professor Klarman trying to preach to his choir of listening/viewing students? Here is a breakdown of the demographic percentages for Harvard Law School as of 2025:
“Demographic Breakdown of Harvard Law Students
Class of 2028 Overview
The demographic percentages for the incoming J.D. class at Harvard Law School are as follows:
Demographic Group Percentage
Students of Color 43%
First-Generation Students 11%
LGBTQ+ Students 22%
Female Students 53%
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/9/20/harvard-law-school-2027-admissions-data/
(“The Class of 2027 was the first class admitted after the Supreme Court struck down race-based affirmative action in university admissions.”) https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/12/17/hls-black-enrollment-drops-aba/
Trying to stick to the theme of Constitutional crisis (Are we having one right now?), I think the level of power the political parties have arrogated to themselves needs serious discussion.
While it’s true that partisan factionalization was setting in pretty seriously at the time of original Ratification, you might ask “Why aren’t political parties mentioned in the roadmap establishing our federal government?” They are mentioned in the Federalist Papers, which was a contemporaneous treatise on the form the new government should take. And in those chapters, there is legitimate concern expressed about factions becoming too divisive and powerful, leading to Constitutional crisis.
This leads to the following question. Given that the Founder’s theory of an orderly free society had at its organizing principle the distribution (decentralization) of decisionmaking power, materialized by having separate levels of government (local, county, state, federal), the bicameral Congress, and 3 separate and co-equal branches of government, what checks and balances were put on political parties to prevent their growing too powerful?
The only one that stands out is regularly scheduled elections — The People with their votes. Did the Founders consider that political parties, in clever contrivances to expand their power, would seek to gain control over the design and administration of elections (at the state level)?…..and in so doing, neutralize the only possible check on their power? Hasn’t gerrymandering by both major parties succeeded along these lines? What would the Founders think if told that only 30-40 of 435 House seats are competitive in the general election?
What about the key leadership Offices of the House and Senate? Does the Constitution authorize a political party to claim that Office as a power center serving the party? I think not. Rather, the Founders meant the Speaker and the Senate’s Presiding Officer to be the leader of the entire body, and to be accountable for its productive service to the nation. The idea was that this Leader would straddle over the competing factions and force constructive compromise in realtime. With the extra-Constitutional redefinition of the Speaker and Presiding Officer as leaders of their factions, it is simply impossible for that Officer be primarily accountable for the legislative body’s public service — s/he is bound to serve Party interests wherever they conflict with public service. This gives these Leaders an excuse for non-productivity (abdication of responsibility to legislate on the controversies of the times in decent response-time), though it never has to be voiced because the parties and media teach the citizenry that the political parties “own” these leadership offices. They expectation of factional takeover of the legislative body is baked into the conventional wisdom.
I’m not taking sides with either faction. Both are power-hungry animals willing to game the Constitution if they think they can get away with it. Lost in this crisis are the powers vested in We The People to stay in control of our culture, our laws, and our values. The major parties are not going to erect constraints on their faction’s power — they will fight at every step to continue acting as self-appointed benevolent autocrats, convinced that they alone represent the will of The People. They will justify to themselves powers never dreamt of by the Founders, and claim to themselves authorities never outlined in the Constitution.
That is the Constitutional crisis we face.
Good points binca. The democrats are using miniscule minority problems affecting fewer than 1% of the population in their attempt to create unrest.
The crisis is the continued infringement.
Inflammatory rhetoric has become the modus operandi of left-wing academics. If you took that away, they would have nothing to say.
Correct. Emotionalism.
*. Anyone recall the Chatty Kathy dolls? Pull the string and she talks. There were preset talking points such as , hi, I’m chatty Kathy. What we have here is Chatty Klarman. He must have a brain chip? It’s preset. As evidence he could not address the debate topic.
The debate is disconcerting and uncomfortable. This debate can be filed under bizarre.
Thanks for the repost, PT.
Of course we’re in constitutional crisis, to hold otherwise is naive, Turley. But Klarmen played right into your defense on a number of occasions during the debate.
Constitutional Crisis. Can you expounded on that please.
Constitutional questions fall into deep crisis when ruled on by an obviously corrupt SCOTUS.
But we’ve been in crisis since the Constitution was written and didn’t see fit to provide equal representation to the nation’s citizens. More recent decisions have sought to retrace ground back in that direction, or to just plain decide on issues and disregard precedent in secrecy on the shadow docket.
Turley’s opinion is that he doesn’t agree with the notion we’re in crisis. But that’s just his opinion. Some of his points in the debate are quite correct. Not all legal dysfunction can be blamed on the Constitution, or the system. But the way the system is administered by a corrupt SCOTUS is fully within crisis mode.
SCOTUS is not corrupt. It is conservative (for a change). You should learn the difference.
Your opinion. However one not supported by data.
What data… Post it
^^^ fascist that SCOTUS for being logical! Fascist off!
So a bunch of emotional nonsense because you do not like the policies of our government – apparently for all of the past 250 years does not make your dislike into a constitutional crisis.
The crisis centers on abdication of responsibility by Congress to settle the major controversies of the times as the representatives of The People. They duck all responsibility when it comes to hot-button issues. As a result, the Executive and Judiciary are left to fight over who will decide. At least the President is elected.
The Federal Judges and Justices are not.
But, the real evil are the Plaintiffs whose side lost the election, and who go to the Courts to obtain policies that the public majority rejects. The fact that the Federal bench even accepts lawsuits seeking to determine national policy is a gross overstepping of their Constitutional authority to resolve specific cases. The Courts were never authorized to act as a lawmaking body.
Congress has the power under the Constitution to countermand a Supreme Court “precedent” (e.g., giving Indians the opportunity to become US Citizens (1924) in defiance of numerous Supreme Court decisions in the 1800s). Unfortunately, Congress is 99% about partisan competition to win the next election, and they have no stomach today for solving controversial policy issues.
^^^ fascist. Personally I don’t give a fas#ist. The new F word means anything. What the fascist!
What constitutional crisis ?
Our system of govenrment is working exactly as it was designed.
Not the only one, but maybe the largest divide among Americans are voters that support religious freedom and those that believe government should impose a religious interpretation onto their citizens, especially indoctrinating their children (ie: theocracies like Iran).
That’s really the two Americas.
So in other words, a debate between a grown up and a toddler.
And MAGA are the ones who are supposedly uneducated. This stuff is getting really old.
Turley is over-generous to Klarman, who is clearly a partisan hack, one of many out of Harvard. Klarman played a video at a debate? Why? Perhaps because he is not literate enough to use his own words to defend his leftist opinions? What a clown.
Turley’s participation in these events depends upon his ridiculous “both side-isms”, or he wouldn’t be invited. And sadly, Turley is what passes for the conservative voice on these panels. I like Turley but he’s about as moderate as it gets. He often responds to loaded questions with something along the lines of, “While I often disagree with Trump’s rhetoric…” then he goes on to make a reasonable point.
It’s a shame he has to suffer through a moderated “debate” where one side can make the unchallenged assertion that people are routinely being rounded up and placed in concentration camps by masked thugs, as if that phrase isn’t being used as an obvious Nazi reference. Not that people are being arrested and detained under a deportation court order. Almost as if adherence to the rule of law only applies to conservatives.
Also love the rage you carry around, Turls. Agreed with some of your points. Disagree with your argument as a whole. We’re clearly in constitutional crisis.
How so.
So make an argument.
This debate boils down a simple issue and observation…, are we in constitutional crisis? Of course we are. We’ve been in crisis since it was written. But the absolutely glaring cause of it today lies within the workings of a corrupt SCOTUS.
We have the most constitutionally correct Supreme Court in decades.
So the proof is “I say so” ?
Our universities get a lot of money training future functionaries of third-world dictators. Gotta make those functionaries feel at home, right?
Harvard’s snob class enjoys cheap labor–courtesy of runaway immigration–and cheaper products, courtesy of runaway trade. The damage to our own factory base and working class is profound, but Harvard and its graduates still vote their interests. No surprise there.
Harvard is just like the oligarchy that ruled the antebellum, slaveholding South: aligned with foreign powers as a matter of self-interest, would rather buy abroad than build factories here, refuses to admit the evils of human trafficking, favored nullification whenever anybody challenged their interests or morality, and tacitly rationalizes the murder and arbitrary imprisonment of patriots.
I confess, I hate Harvard and all it has come to represent.
Correction: to my knowledge, the antebellum South–unlike Harvard–never invented phony allegations, rules, and crimes to falsely imprison patriots. My apologies to the slaveholders.
”[The Republicans] are trying to steal the 2026 election.”
Nope. The Democrats are losing voters over the DNC bad policies. ‘Charlie Kirk effect’ in full force as voters register Republican in large numbers
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/charlie-kirk-effect-full-force-voters-register-republican-large-numbers
•”[The Administration] is indifferent to suicides committed by transgender youths. There is a word for that. It is fascism.”
Cannot speak for the Trump admin, but us sane and normal people dont hack off healthy body parts of children, pump children full of life changing hormones, change their names, and keep all that from the child’s parents. A child thinks they are of the opposite sex, we tell the parents and help them get the child mental health.
•”[The Administration] is essentially telling the world go ahead and attack [transgender people] we don’t care.”
Nope. I would not attack a “transgender” person anymore than I would attack anyone else, outside of self-defense.
•”They are indifferent to higher death rates among African Americans.”
We, like many African Americans, all want safe communities, safe schools where no one has to worry about getting mugged, stabbed, shot, raped. We want that for everyone.
•”Many [republicans] are very uninformed…many do not read newspapers…”
“If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.”
–Mark Twain
Also, it appears these people do not read newspapers, How a conspiracy theory about Charlie Kirk’s killer being ‘MAGA’ spread online to Kimmel and beyond
https://justthenews.com/accountability/media/how-conspiracy-about-charlie-kirk-shooter-being-rightwing-spread-online-kimmel
•”There will be a pretext…I do not know how far it will go…What happens when …. [they[ shoot down immigrants in the streets… seize voting boxes…put troops in democratic cities to intimidate people from voting…that is terrifying.”
If he can predict all that, can he give me the winning Powerball numbers?
Thanks Upstate
Klarman’s “stating of facts” was more of an opinion and hearsay than of anything else.
Kudos to you Professor Turley on disclaiming each of his statements!
I have not viewed the video yet so my comments will be limited. Having done research in the old days when you had to search the index of books and articles and then spend days with the library card catalog looking up those citations and then having to go through more and more indexes and citations in an almost never ending quest, I thought having search engines, most literature on digital formats, and the vast resources of the internet basically at my fingertips, that research and accuracy should have reached a peak of performance unknown in human history. I was definitely wrong.
If you can’t find something that contradicts your point of view or “a wait a minute moment”, then you are not doing research.
You are simply finding a means to place your brain in cement for all time.
My thoughts and positions change from time to time because I find new events, new research, now points of view that can contradict me or at least modify my own points.
Professor Klarman appears to have walked into the room and made a diagnosis. Maybe he should question the patient, follow the evidence, test the evidence and then think about it and then re-approach the patient and find more evidence to resolve some initial contradictions and misconceptions. Then he might be closer to the truth or a diagnosis.
Prediagnosis without question and search is fraught with error.
I am not making a judgement on the debate because I still have to watch it and decide. His approach, described by Dr Turley, is questionable.
Old diseases and attitudes can present themselves in new ways. It pays to be wary. Look forward to reviewing the debate.
Well said and reasoned GEB.
I don’t know how to thank you for your professionalism, optimism, and astute scholarship.