Trump’s Angry New Attack on Harvard Is Already Blowing Up in His Face

THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

The New Republic

News, Politics

4.4 • 800 Ratings

🗓️ 23 May 2025

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

After raging at Harvard earlier this month, President Donald Trump is now revoking the university’s right to receive foreign students. The administration sent an unhinged letter to Harvard making the announcement while demanding extensive information about international students, a grotesque abuse of power. The White House statement justifying this seethed with angry, McCarthyite nonsense. We think this is already backfiring: Legal experts quickly dismissed the move as lawless, Harvard is already leaking word that it will take legal action, and the university will probably be able to stop the move. We talked to Jonathan Friedman of PEN America, who explains why Trump’s assault on Harvard is already getting universities to band together, how it’s leading to renewed public support for the university system, and why Harvard’s potential success beating this back will only stiffen institutional resistance to Trump. Listen to this episode here. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network.
0:16.5	I'm your host, Greg Sargent.
0:32.1	President Donald Trump has now gone full tin pot tyrant in his war on Harvard University.
0:39.0	In an extraordinary abuse of power, Trump has now ended Harvard's ability to enroll foreign students,
0:44.3	something that will almost certainly be met by a lawsuit in response. But buried in the announcement of this move was a stark warning. The Department of Homeland Security explicitly said
0:50.0	that it is designed as a shot across the bow of other universities, meaning that they should
0:55.8	think twice before angering the president going forward. This substantially ups the stakes.
1:02.2	Harvard absolutely has to fight this now, and other institutions and stakeholders absolutely must
1:08.0	rally to this cause, or the long-term consequences will be dire.
1:12.6	We're talking about all of this with one of our favorite commentators on free speech and
1:16.8	academic issues, Penn America's Jonathan Friedman.
1:20.2	Thanks for coming back on, Jonathan.
1:22.3	Thanks for having, Greg.
1:23.9	So DHS Secretary Christy Noem just sent a letter to Harvard revoking the school's student and exchange visitor program, which is a government program that monitors whether particular schools can receive foreign students.
1:38.6	The letter said Harvard had failed to comply with DHS's previous requests for information about foreign students. And those
1:45.7	requests were themselves abuses of power. Harvard wasn't really complying, so Trump took this step.
1:51.6	Jonathan, can you explain what the administration did here? Well, you know, it kind of follows on
1:58.4	the heels of a number of other threats and investigations
2:01.5	taken by the administration. But this time what they're doing is saying that starting in the
2:06.6	next academic year for 25, 26, Harvard won't be able to enroll any non-immigrant students
2:12.5	in the F or J visa categories. And the vast majority of international students and some scholars come to the United States
2:21.3	and Harvard under those visa categories.
	...

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