GILLIAN TURNER, FOX NEWS: Cracking down on student visas now, but going all in. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announcing quote, a new visa restriction policy that will apply to foreign officials and persons who are complicit in censoring Americans' free speech is essential to the American way of life, a birthright over which foreign governments have no authority. President Trump going after Harvard as well again today, targeting its federal funding and demanding more information about its foreign students.

Listen to the president.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It's been a disaster... They're taking $5 billion and I'd rather see that money go to trade schools... Harvard's got to behave themselves... Where did these people come from? Harvard has to understand the last thing I want to do is hurt them. They're hurting themselves. They're fighting.

TURNER: Well, let's bring in Jonathan Turley, constitutional law attorney and Fox News contributor. Jonathan, as much as some people would like to believe that the president's ability to revoke visas and cut funding based on anti-Semitism is sort of a moral imperative, it's really more about whether he has the legal authority to carry all this stuff out. It's going to get hashed out in the court system, right?

JONATHAN TURLEY, GWU LAW PROFESSOR, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: That's right. And it's going to get messy. Both sides are going to win some, lose some.

The president clearly has discretion, at least his administration has discretion in terms of the awarding of certain grants. It has less discretion on contracts that have been signed and things that are required by law. That will be hashed out.

But this is really a war of attrition, and Harvard's going to lose because this is much like what Grant said when he made it clear to that he was happy to fight along this line as long as it takes, because he knew that attrition alone would crush the Confederacy. Harvard's in a similar position. Trump is showing a certain sophistication about higher education, at least the knowledge of it.

This is the soft underbelly of higher education by targeting these foreign students. Over 27 percent of Harvard's class are foreign students, most of whom paid the full rate, full tuition. And that's the same with other universities.

When you attack both grants and foreign enrollments, it is a big blow to a school like Harvard.

TURNER: So Democrats, including Congressman Rhett Meeks, say that really all this is political retribution. Take a listen to him and we'll get your reaction.

REP. GREGORY MEEKS (D-NY): This is about retribution. This is a danger and a violation of the Constitution of the United States of America, which does give individuals the freedom of speech and the freedom of standing up and educating individuals in the manner that they see fit.

TURNER: What do you say to that line of argument?

TURLEY: Well, you know, the thing is, I have been a longtime critic of Harvard. I wrote, just wrote a book, The Indispensable Right that talks about Harvard as an example of what's wrong in higher education. Free speech has never been protected, not recently at least, at Harvard.

They come in dead last on free speech rankings. Only three percent of their faculty can identify as conservative or Republican, less than nine percent of the student body. It is an orthodox and tolerant university.

Now, having said that, I've opposed some of these moves. I don't agree with how far some of this has gone. Some of it does implicate free speech.

But there is authority here for the Trump administration. For example, by suspending new student visas, I can't imagine even the most favorable judge in a blue state would enjoin that. That falls pretty much in the wheelhouse of the president in determining who can come into the country, as long as that's a temporary order.

So I think that the Trump administration will prevail on some of this stuff. But at the end of the day, even with its large endowment, attrition is going to take its toll on Harvard when it's being forced on all of these fronts. And all of these schools.

TURNER: A lot of people are wondering now if the president is not able to make these decisions about federal funds going to the schools and who is allowed into the country in order to take advantage of them, who exactly is making decisions about these billions of dollars that are going to them each year? Jonathan, thanks for joining us with your perspective.