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President Donald Trump is in a standoff with some of America's top universities.

Two weeks ago, the administration froze $2.3 billion in federal grants to Harvard.

That's because the university refused to comply with demands to overhaul its admissions and DEI policies.

Then this week, U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon told the school it shouldn't bother applying for future government grants.

This is Swamp Notes, the weekly podcast from the FT News briefing, where we talk about all the things happening in U.S. politics.

I'm Mark Filipino, and this week we're asking,

why should we care about Trump's fight with elite universities? Here with me to discuss is Andrew Jack. He's the F.T.'s Global Education Editor. Hi, Andrew. Hi, that good to be here. And we've also got

Miles McCormick, the FD's acting Washington correspondent. He's here right next to me. Hey, Miles. Hey, Mark. Good to be back in the show.

So, Miles, Harvard's not the only university losing government funding. Columbia lost around

$400 million before it complied to the administration's demands. Cornell has lost some funding,

and there are others, too. But Harvard is by far the hardest hit.

Why is that? What happened there? Well, in a nutshell, because Harvard's hit back or hit back

the strongest, I mean, if we back up a bit, that there's been this all-out assault from

this administration on what it sees as kind of elite,

quote-unquote, woke universities.

...