Newsbusters

Have you ever wished you had an unfaltering confidence in your persona and lacked enough self-awareness to articulate the most obnoxious pseudo intellectual diarrhea like our esteemed progressive philosophers of today?

Well, you’re in luck! With this “how-to” guide for engaging in pretentious intellectual discourse like a self-righteous progressive, you’ll be talking like a real modern-day Ivy Leaguer (or a senator from New Jersey?) in no time! 

Related: PBS Gushes Over Booker’s ‘Inspiring’ and ‘Upbeat’ Speech

Learn how you, too, can produce a steaming pile of woke word salad on this episode of “Woke of the Weak!” 

The idea that the late night comedy shows are just MSNBC with jokes was on full display on Tuesday’s installment of CBS’s The Late Show. Host Stephen Colbert claimed that the Trump Administration’s recent demands on Harvard were “ridiculous,” “insane,” and “dictatorial,” but Colbert never provided any context for why those demands were given.

Colbert began, “In the face of this authoritarian power grab, one institution just stood up to Trump. Lil’ backstory: For some weeks now, the administration has been trying to MAGA-fy higher education by imposing demands on private universities. And yesterday, Harvard became the first university to refuse to comply with the administration’s requirements.”

 

 

More backstory: Harvard, like so many elite colleges in this country, has an anti-Semitism problem. Nevertheless, Colbert was happy with the news, “Boom! Hey, Trump administration, now you’re just like the rest of us, because you just got rejected by Harvard.”

Colbert claimed, “The demands the government made of Harvard were ridiculous and included things like immediately shutting down any programming related to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Which would mean big changes to Harvard’s curriculum. Any students registered for ‘Power to the people: Black power, radical feminism, and gay liberation’ will now find themselves enrolled in ‘Intro to Sudoku: Guess where the numbers go.’”

Meanwhile, at Columbia, the university’s own task force concluded the DEI offices ignored Jewish students’ concerns and contributed to the assumption that Jews fall on the wrong side of DEI’s oppressor-oppressed binary.

However, Colbert continued with the context-free lamentations, “The Trump administration also wanted Harvard to conduct plagiarism checks on all current and prospective faculty members and to report foreign students who commit conduct violations immediately to federal authorities.”

If you only got your news from The Late Show, then you probably have no idea who Claudine Gay is or why she is important for the plagiarism part because Colbert told zero jokes about her during her 2023 scandals. 

Foreign students who get suspended by their universities for misconduct can have their visas revoked and be deported, so Colbert is, whether he realizes it or not, arguing that foreign students should be able to get away with lawlessness.

Instead, Colbert simply imagined this was about dorm rules, “Oh, great. I mean, dorm RAs were already drunk on power. This would only make it worse. ‘Uh, you guys? You’re not allowed to microwave popcorn in the common areas. I could send you all to El Salvador, okay? Unless you guys wanna hang out? No? Okay.’” 

He then celebrated, “Harvard’s president clapped back to these insane dictatorial demands, ssaying,‘The university will not surrender its independence or its constitutional rights.’ Huzzah! Huzzah! I say. Egad.”

The demands only seem insane if you strip them of their context, which is precisely what Colbert did.

Here is a transcript for the April 15 show:

CBS The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

4/15/2025

11:43 PM ET

STEPHEN COLBERT: In the face of this authoritarian power grab, one institution just stood up to Trump. Lil’ backstory: For some weeks now, the administration has been trying to MAGA-fy higher education by imposing demands on private universities. And yesterday, Harvard became the first university to refuse to comply with the administration’s requirements. 

Boom! Hey, Trump administration, now you’re just like the rest of us, because you just got rejected by Harvard. The demands the government made of Harvard were ridiculous and included things like immediately shutting down any programming related to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Which would mean big changes to Harvard’s curriculum. Any students registered for “Power to the people: Black power, radical feminism, and gay liberation” will now find themselves enrolled in “Intro to Sudoku: Guess where the numbers go.”

The Trump administration also wanted Harvard to conduct plagiarism checks on all current and prospective faculty members and to report foreign students who commit conduct violations immediately to federal authorities. 

Oh, great. I mean, dorm RAs were already drunk on power. This would only make it worse. “Uh, you guys? You’re not allowed to microwave popcorn in the common areas. I could send you all to El Salvador, okay? Unless you guys wanna hang out? No? Okay.” 

Harvard’s president clapped back to these insane dictatorial demands, saying, “The university will not surrender its independence or its constitutional rights.” Huzzah! Huzzah! I say. Egad.

On Monday, CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King took off on Blue Origin’s Mission NS-31 for what was, from liftoff to touch down back on Earth, a 10-minute-and-14-second flight with a few minutes floating in what’s considered space.

But from its February 27 announcement through recaps on Tuesday, CBS Mornings spent roughly 215 minutes (or three hours and 35 minutes) trumpeting King and her all-female crew, nearly 21 times more than the actual duration aboard a rocket owned by Jeff Bezos’s aerospace company (with his fiancé onboard).

NewsBusters examined all 41 episodes of CBS Mornings and CBS Saturday Morning between the unveiling on February 27 through Tuesday, March 15 to examine all mentions alluding to or segments related to King’s adventure. Of those 41 days, 19 of them included references to King going where few humans have had the fortune of going (with some being mere seconds).

For this study, we excluded all episodes of CBS Sunday Morning given its function as a newsmagazine and CBS Mornings Plus as it only airs on five CBS owned-and-operated stations and the CBS streaming platform CBS News 24/7.

The most coverage came on launch day with a whopping 42 minutes and 48 seconds in the regular two-hours and then another 48 minute and 25 seconds in the special third hour that included liftoff and touchdown.

Featured co-host Vladimir Duthiers scoffed at the ethical questions and the simple critiques of this trip being made into an earth-shattering event instead of a PR stunt. Instead, he dismissed them as “negative online reaction” (click “expand”):

DUTHIERS: There’s been some negative online reaction surrounding this mission, and I just want to get your thoughts on this.

LAUREN SANCHEZ: There’s always positive and negative, always. And you know, Blue Origin’s mission is for the benefit of Earth, and you can go — you should go walk around and ask anyone who works here how they feel about this mission, and I think you’ll get choked up. And so, to me, I not it’s a little misunderstood, especially for all the people that give everything to make this flight possible, to make it safe.

KING: Many people think that if you’re — if you’re doing — if you’re devoting resources to space, you’re taking things away from Earth. It isn’t an either/or, it’s a both/and. And what happens in space benefits also benefits what is happening here on Earth. But if it was my dream, I wouldn’t have been able to see anybody that looked like me, either certainly a person of color or a female. That would not have been possible. So, now that we are the first female crew, I know we’re not going to be the last.

KATY PERRY: That’s right.

KING: And I just think it opens doors about innovation and imagination.

Second place was the Friday beforehand on April 11 with 21 minutes and 20 seconds as King and Duthiers co-hosted from the launch site in Texas. This included a brief mention to the rumored cost of space travel currently tapping out at around $500,000.

It also included plenty of overt shots at those pointing out the eye-rolling hullabaloo (click “expand”):

KING: I realize this is so much bigger than just a fun trip, what it represents to young women, to girls, what they’re trying to do on space, in terms of, you know, looking at the planet in another way and making it — you know, preparing for better things here on Earth. So, you know, I’m really opening myself up in a way that I never have before.

(….)

DUTHIERS: You’re going up on Blue Origin’s vehicle at a time that some say is complicated for Jeff Bezos, the owner. The founder of Amazon has faced some criticism for his company’s business practices.

KING: Yes.

DUTHIERS: He’s been under scrutiny and under fire for what people say is meddling in the newsroom of The Washington Post, which he bought a few years ago. Is there a risk? Or do you see a risk that this flight is seen by some as an ad for Blue Origin or an ad for Jeff Bezos? And how do you think about that?

KING: Listen, it is troubling to me too. There have been some questions and decisions that he’s made that I’ve actually gone, “huh?” But I think in this particular case, Vlad, this is so much bigger than one man and one company. I’ve chosen to separate the two. It’s not a zero-sum game. They don’t have to be — you can do this on one hand and you can do this on the other hand, and both things can be true.

DUTHIERS: How do you feel, like Black social media, people are like —

KING: Yes.

DUTHIERS: — don’t go, sis.

KING: Oh, yes, they’re giving —

DUTHIERS: We want to protect you.

KING: Yes. Why are you doing it? This is for White people, why are you doing it?

DUTHIERS: I didn’t say that.

KING: Yes, yes, someone said that to me directly. Why are you doing it? They’re going to leave you up there. Why are you doing it? You could get stranded. I mean, none of those things are going to happen. Number one, I certainly don’t think it’s for White people, that’s number one. Number two, you know, someone said, you know, Gayle, you just have to interpret it as a way that people care so much about you and so I am trying to process it like that.

Tuesday drew a whopping 36 minutes and 20 seconds recapping the Blue Origin flight. Despite the torrent of gush, CBS and King couldn’t seem to let go that not everyone was in awe of her alleged feat.

As part of this lament being a major focus of King’s interview with fellow passenger (and actual NASA scientist) Aisha Bowe, King suggested sexism was afoot in those not worshipping this stunt: “So what do you think when people say, oh, it’s frivolous. Number one, they call it a ride, which I find very irritating, because they never say, men went for a ride. What do you say to people who think that this was frivolous or just a ride? You know, I think the message that it sends is very, very powerful. And the people that say that, by the way, weren’t there.”

While the flight included actual scientists like Bowe and Amanda Ngyuyen and no one should be against women in science or dreaming of becoming astronauts, it’s a bait-and-switch to go from labeling these forays into space as merely “travel” with hefty price tags to historic feats.

Outside of the days prior to and after the launch, the largest single day came on March 27 with eight minutes and 27 seconds as Talk of the Table was dedicated to reminding viewers of launch day on April 14 and then a bizarre interview with actor and past Blue Origin passenger William Shatner.

How ridiculous did the build-up get? On April 9, CBS Mornings Deals hawked a telescope and binoculars in honor of King’s trip. And on April 1, King and the team solicited advice from — we kid you not — NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace because he spends his working days doing dangerous things at high rates of speed.

A CBS host going to space isn’t your run-of-the-mill study topic. But even more unusual is that we’re in agreement with divisive, hateful, liberal media janitor Oliver Darcy.

This was what he wrote on his newsletter site Status on February 27 (click “expand”):

A King-Sized Ethics Problem: Gayle King is catching a ride to space on Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin alongside Lauren Sánchez and Katy Perry—but no one will say who’s paying. Space tourism isn’t cheap. Some passengers have spent millions, and even joining the Blue Origin waitlist costs $150,000. CBS News has strict policies against accepting “gifts and freebies,” yet one of its top anchors is getting a coveted seat on a high-profile mission while the network showers Blue Origin with glowing coverage. Doesn’t that seem like a conflict of interest? If a CBS journalist took a free luxury vacation in exchange for publicity, it would be a clear ethics violation that would land them in hot water with management. A spaceflight is on a much bigger scale. Which begs the question: Who did King clear this with? And why did they say yes?

Beyond the rules against accepting gifts, King’s decision to take part in this PR spectacle is revealing. Bezos is steering The Washington Post in a direction more favorable to Trump, just as press scrutiny is more critical than ever. Instead of standing with journalists fighting to hold power to account, King is giving Bezos a high-profile endorsement. As one of the country’s most recognizable anchors, she should be setting an example, not acting as a billionaire’s brand ambassador. As one Postie told me Thursday, her behavior is “kind of gross.”

A former colleague of Darcy’s at CNN, the far more respectable Dylan Byers said this at Puck on February 28, also wondering about who was paying (click “expand”):

One giant leap: As you’ve no doubt heard by now, Gayle King has announced that she will be going to space on a Blue Origin flight with Lauren Sánchez, Katy Perry, and other members of an all-female crew. CBS Mornings spent more than half an hour teasing the big reveal this week, but the response from viewers—and, indeed, some of Gayle’s own colleagues—hasn’t exactly been enthusiastic. The litany of comments on this Instagram post from Gayle, CBS, and Blue Origin are indicative of the reservations about the anchor’s participation in the Bezos-owned company’s P.R. stunt. Of course, Gayle can do whatever she wants, or at least whatever CBS will allow, but last I checked, the news division’s journalists weren’t even allowed to let third parties pay for their flights out of JFK.

Liberals love to claim conservatives don’t have a firm grip on “reality,” but they also insist reality has a liberal bias – “facts” and “science” are always on their side.

In the last election, voters responded to advertisements pointing out that Kamala Harris was firmly committed to using taxpayer money to pay for gender-bending amputations, including for prisoners. MSNBC host Katie Phang calls this kind of advocacy a “war on transgender Americans.” By that logic, MSNBC is endlessly waging a “war on conservative Americans.”

On April 12, one of the final episodes of The Katie Phang Show championed the gender-bending left. Her guest was trans woman activist Charlotte Clymer. After they exclaimed their mutual admiration, Phang attacked Republicans: “They love to fearmonger. That’s their currency. It galvanizes people to vote based on fear, not on facts. I always like to say, don’t vote on feelings, vote on facts.”

Biological facts are not what the transgender activists are using. They mangle all the facts. But Clymer doubled down: “It’s very easy to fight back on trans issues. The science is on our side.”

This is a Pants On Fire lie, with a glaring exception. The transgender lobby has captured the medical groups, who have joined them in science-mangling advocacy. So Clymer bragged: “Every credible medical organization has come out and endorsed gender-affirming care and said that the trans military ban is ridiculous and unnecessary. They’ve said trans women should be housed in women’s prisons.”

These are more political positions than medical positions. But you can easily search and find the American Medical Association has filed a legal brief supporting the Kamala Harris position on “gender-affirming care” for prison inmates. They line right up with advocacy groups like Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality, and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).

 

Decrying “anti-trans” Republicans, MSNBC host Katie Phang lectures “I always like to say, don’t vote on feelings, vote on facts.” Charlotte Clymer adds “It’s very easy to fight back on trans issues. The science is on our side.” pic.twitter.com/mx8qUWt3qX
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) April 16, 2025
The opposing view is that taxpayer money shouldn’t be spent on gender-denying amputations for convicted criminals. That’s also a political position, and not a medical opinion.

Clymer piled praise on Democrat governors like J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, and especially Janet Mills of Maine, who’s fighting for the right of boys to dominate girls’ sports. MSNBC hosts won’t accuse them of “waging war on female athletes.”

But congressional Democrats are allegedly AWOL. “Only one party is really talking about trans issues. It’s the Republican Party,” Clymer said. “They’ve made trans issues one of their central topics in campaigning and the national discourse. The more the Democrats ignore this, the more it’s going to come back to haunt us in future elections. Republicans are not going to let up on this.”

This is what MSNBC does, pressure Democrats from the Left. The headline on MSNBC.com was “Let us live.” No one is taking the opposing position to that. These leftists aren’t “live and let live.” They insist you must celebrate their choices at all times, and use whatever names and pronouns they have designated for themselves. The actual opposing view is “please stop making your pronoun demands and taking our money and proclaiming you’re so oppressed.” 

It’s the Republicans who are taking the side of Facts and Science when it comes to the immutable reality of the gender binary. They are taking that side despite the intimidation of “educated” elites gaslighting the culture with their “allyship” for marginalized minorities. They are the ones who dare to proclaim that God made two genders, and the gender “assigned at birth” is never God’s mistake. 

News of the Trump administration’s demands of Harvard University as a condition of continued access to federal funding broke today, and the liberal institutions are up in arms. The evening network newscasts went in on the story, defending Harvard like it was an illegal alien gangbanger about to get deported to El Salvador.

The lunacy spanned the dial, but the most egregious take came from the end of related reporting on the CBS Evening News: if Harvard’s federal funding is cut, PEOPLE WILL DIEEEEEEE:

JOHN DICKERSON: Well, Nikki, who is in Cambridge, Harvard is obviously not apologizing, it is doing the opposite. It is the biggest institution to push back in this way, and so given that, what are they worried about losing when this money goes away?

NIKKI BATISTE: I spoke with a medical school professor who says his department has been hit with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cuts. That will impact research into Alzheimer’s, ALS, Parkinson’s, long covid, and a variety of cancers, and he said what that means for Americans — and I quote him — is that “people who could have been cured in the years to come will instead die.”

Immediately thereafter, Batiste clarifies that poor, underprivileged Harvard is simply unable to dip into their massive $53 billion endowment because the monies are earmarked for specific purposes. How convenient.

The whole of the report was as deranged as its closing. Co-anchor John Dickerson introduced the report by describing deranged DEI policies as “Socially conscious”:

JOHN DICKERSON: He’s cut off more than $2 billion in federal funding to Harvard because of the school’s socially conscious policies, which he disparages as woke.

Over at ABC, Chief National Correspondent Matt Gutman repeated the endowments line:

MATT GUTMAN: And David, of course, Harvard, with that over $50 billion endowment, and while scientific research is on the line, university officials say it’s not a piggy bank that can just be mined for anything.

Correspondent Stephanie Gosk delivered NBC’s equivalent:

STEPHANIE GOSK: Harvard has the largest endowment of them all: over $53 billion dollars, but there are restrictions over how that money can be spent. So pulling federal grants will still hurt. 

This is, indeed, a very interesting line of narrative attack: that the school’s wealth requires it to continue to receive federal funds because the aforementioned wealth is compartmentalized. Of course, all these reports ignore that the real reason why federal funding for universities is perceived to be under attack because they’ve been a bit too comfortable with pro-Hamas campus protesters chanting “from the River to the Sea” and terrorizing Jewish students who are simply trying to get to class.

Of course the media are going to stand with universities in their battle against accountability: if the K-12 system is the main liberal indoctrinating institution, then academia is the finishing school. Harvard, as part of the academic elite, is revered among the institutions. Therefore, it is only fitting that the media rush to defend Harvard. The rot runs deep.

Click “expand” to view the full transcripts of the aforementioned reports as aired on their respective newscasts on Tuesday, April 15th, 2025:

ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT

4/15/25

6:42 PM

DAVID MUIR: Next tonight, the battle escalating between President Trump and Harvard. Harvard rejecting the president’s demands, saying “no government, regardless of party, should dictate what private universities can teach and do.” Tonight, the president is now freezing more than $2 billion in federal funds and is now threatening Harvard’s tax exempt status. Our Chief National Correspondent Matt Gutman in Cambridge, Massachusetts, tonight.

MATT GUTMAN: Tonight, 24 hours after Harvard refused President Trump’s demands, President Trump escalating his threats against the university, now suggesting the university should lose its tax exempt status if it continues its defiance. The president posting today, “Perhaps Harvard should be taxed as a political entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting sickness.” But critics of the president say it’s Trump’s who’s playing politics with academic institutions. The White House freezing $2.2 billion in federal funding to Harvard, after the university refused to comply with a series of demands, including: reporting to federal authorities foreign students who commit conduct violations, submitting to an audit to ensure academic departments have diverse viewpoints, ending all DEI programs, sharing hiring data with the administration, and submitting to an audit of admissions data. The school’s president Alan Garber writing, “No government, regardless of which party is in power, should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.” And tonight with about $7 billion in federal funds still on the line, Harvard tonight doubling down, vowing it “will not surrender its Independence or relinquish its constitutional rights. Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government.” 

So with the university saying it’s not going to surrender, where does this go next?

NIKO BOWIE: One place it can go is court. What the Trump administration’s doing is illegal, and the university has a very strong legal position here that the First Amendment and the Civil Rights Act do not permit what the Trump administration is demanding.

GUTMAN: The administration targeting about 60 universities and claims what’s driving this is their effort against anti-semitism. Harvard says it has taken steps to combat anti-semitism, and critics of the president say this is about much more than that. And tonight the acting president of Columbia, also a target of The White House, addressing the university’s efforts to restore $400 million in canceled funding, saying they’re working with the administration, but “would reject any agreement that would require us to relinquish our Independence and autonomy as an educational institution.” 

And David, of course, Harvard, with that over $50 billion endowment, and while scientific research is on the line, university officials say it’s not a piggy bank that can just be mined for anything. And the university president making it clear that no government should dictate to a private university what it should teach and do. David.

MUIR: Matt Gutman in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Matt, thank you.

CBS EVENING NEWS

4/45/25

6:35 PM

MAURICE DuBOIS: The president is not targeting just the campus protesters but universities for not stopping them.

JOHN DICKERSON: He’s cut off more than $2 billion in federal funding to Harvard because of the school’s socially conscious policies, which he disparages as woke.

DuBOIS: And he’s threatening to take away Harvard’s tax exempt status. But Nikki Batiste reports the university is pushing back.

NIKKI BATISTE: We found the mood in Harvard Yard defiant.

STUDENT: I have never seen that much celebration, all towards one end.

BATISTE: In a letter to students and faculty, Harvard president Alan Garber wrote: “the university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.” The Trump administration responded by freezing $2.2 billion in grants. Andrew Manuel Crespo is a professor at the Harvard Law School. 

BATISTE: What is the significance of Harvard, specifically, pushing back?

ANDREW CRESPO: Harvard is the most well-known and wealthiest university in the world. If this attack succeeds at Harvard, it will be a significant blow for all of higher education in America.

BATISTE: The school is among 60 universities the Trump administration has threatened with federal funding cuts unless changes were made to campus policy The White House has described as allowing anti-semitism or promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

CRESPO: You can’t have a successful research university if it is only allowed to study certain questions that are asked by the government, and if it is only allowed to give certain answers that the president likes or doesn’t like because of the politics of the day.

BATISTE: We also visited Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, which has been notified by the Department of Education it could face cuts, too. The school is already facing a loss of $800 million in federal funding, some earmarked for clinical trials of cancer treatments.

ELIZABETH JAFFEE: This is a critical component of how we do clinical research.

BATISTE: Oncologist Elizabeth Jaffee is deputy director of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins.

JAFFEE: We’re very worried because what’s happening is that one day we hear our grants are cut, and the next, that we have to say to a patient “sorry, no more money is coming in, so we can’t treat you on this trial anymore.”

BATISTE: And could that patient die as a result?

JAFFEE: Absolutely, because these patients are on clinical trials because they have no other options.

BATISTE: Johns Hopkins University is still under investigation by the Trump administration so it hasn’t received any orders for policy changes yet. Today, The White House demanded an apology from Harvard.

DICKERSON: Well, Nikki, who is in Cambridge, Harvard is obviously not apologizing, it is doing the opposite. It is the biggest institution to push back in this way, and so given that, what are they worried about losing when this money goes away?

BATISTE: I spoke with a medical school professor who says his department has been hit with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cuts. That will impact research into Alzheimer’s, ALS, Parkinson’s, long covid, and a variety of cancers, and he said what that means for Americans — and I quote him — is that “people who could have been cured in the years to come will instead die.”

DuBOIS: And Nikki, people watching might wonder why doesn’t Harvard just dip into its endowment, the largest in the country. What is the answer to that?

BATISTE: A Harvard spokesperson tells me that endowment money, the majority of endowment money here is restricted. It cannot be used except for its intended use, and that is often decided at the time it’s donated. 

DuBOIS: Okay, Nikki Batiste for us tonight in Cambridge. Thank you.

NBC NIGHTLY NEWS

4/15/25

6:32 PM

TOM LLAMAS: Tonight the Trump administration is taking on one of the most powerful institutions in the world. Harvard. The president today further threatening the school’s financial foundations after the Department of Education put a freeze on more than two billion dollars’ worth of federal funding. All of it a reaction to the university’s refusal to comply with a list of wide-ranging demands on DEI, leadership, governance and more. The White House saying Harvard didn’t do enough to address antisemitism on campus. But the university tonight is pushing back, saying that the Trump administration is violating their First Amendment rights, and now former President Obama is getting involved. It’s the most high-profile school to stand up to the administration so far. Stephanie Gosk starts us off.

STEPHANIE GOSK: Tonight, it’s an all-out battle between Harvard and the Trump administration. The White House accusing the school of not addressing antisemitism on campus.

KAROLINE LEAVITT: We unfortunately saw that illegal discrimination take place on the campus of Harvard. There are countless examples to prove it.

GOSK: The Department of Education freezing more than $2 billion in federal money after Harvard refused to accept a long list of demands taking aim at its culture and curriculum. The school’s defiance being embraced by some on campus.

RYAN ENOS: I think it was so important, because this attack on Harvard wasn’t just an attack on Harvard- it’s an attack on higher education and in that sense is an attack on a pillar of American civil society.

GOSK: Today President Trump also threatening to revoke the university’s tax exempt status, accusing the school of “pushing political, and terrorist inspired sickness”. Harvard University’s president says the school has taken steps to address antisemitism on campus, and called the federal government’s tactics a violation of the school’s First Amendment rights. Former President Barack Obama weighing in today, applauding Harvard’s decision. “Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions, rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom.” Federal funding has been paused for schools around the country including Columbia, Penn, Princeton and Northwestern. The money being used as a cudgel to try to force cultural change. Harvard has the largest endowment of them all: over $53 billion dollars, but there are restrictions over how that money can be spent. So pulling federal grants will still hurt. And the whole country will feel it, according to the American Council on Education. 

TED MITCHELL: This freeze will hamper Harvard’s ability to produce new technologies, new biomedical discoveries, new outreach in public health. We will be in worse shape as a nation because of these freezes.

LLAMAS: All right, Stephanie joins us now in studio. And Stephanie, Harvard is lawyering up and they’re getting attorneys with conservative credentials?

GOSK: Yeah, they are. They haven’t filed a lawsuit yet but they’ve hired these two high-profile Republican attorneys. One, the former deputy counsel for president George W. Bush. The other, the former special counsel who investigated Joe Biden and his handling of classified documents. So it seems like they’re getting ready to go to court, Tom. All right, Stephanie Gosk leading us off tonight. Stephanie, we thank you for that.

 

On CNN This Morning, host Audie Cornish devoted a segment to the showdown between Harvard and the Trump administration. Harvard has rejected the administration’s call for it to abandon DEI, among other requirements. In return, the administration has frozen about $2 billion in federal funding to the university. 

Noting a statement by the Harvard president, and playing a clip from a Democrat politician, Cornish promoted the notion that this is a fight over Harvard’s “independence” and its right of “free expression.” It’s not. 

Harvard is free to rename itself Hamas U. Offer a major in “From The River To The Sea Studies.” Ditch “The Crimson,” and call its teams “The Fightin’ Kidnappers.” All Harvard would have to do is make like Hillsdale College, and reject any federal or state funding.

But Harvard wants to have it both ways: keep the federal funds flowing, while rejecting the obligations that go with it. It reminds me of when, as an 11-year-old, I demanded that my parents continue to pay my weekly allowance, despite rejecting their requirement that I make my bed and mow the lawn. Didn’t work out that well.

CNN chief domestic correspondent Phil Mattingly injected a note of realism, acknowledging the Trump administration’s authority to do what it’s doing:

“It turns out, because of government funding, because of government authority, that the president and the administration, the executive branch, can do an awful lot in an awful lot of spaces.”

But Cornish immediately turned that into a negative: “Right. Create a lot of choke points here.”
Choke points: yikes! Look for the Harvard president to take the hint from Audie and start complaining, “I can’t breathe!”

Cornish also  played a clip Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), made yesterday when he conveniently happened to be part of a Harvard Institute of Politics forum on “Moral Leadership In Polarized Times,” at which he said: “If Harvard had capitulated, I really fear for what next year would be.” 
Enthused Cornish: “He really lays out the stakes. And it feels like this is a moment where people are deciding, like, if you give an inch, they’ll take a mile.” Resist, Audie!
Note: When Kevin Fry, Spectrum’s DC correspondent, said that the Trump administration has floated the possibility of judicial oversight of Columbia’s compliance on diversity in coursework, Cornish interjected a silly non sequitur: “Which is ironic, since they’re kind of dismantling the Ed Department.” 

Here’s the transcript.

CNN This Morning
4/15/25
6:01 am EDT

AUDIE CORNISH: Since retaking the Oval Office, Donald Trump has been successful at bending U.S. institutions to his will. Whether that’s government agencies, tech companies, law firms, one way or another they’ve been forced to decide whether or not they want to comply with the president’s demands. 

Now the Trump administration is taking the fight to America’s oldest university. 

. . . 

HARVARD LAW PROFESSOR: It’s a transparent effort to change what is taught, what we say in our classrooms, what we teach our students. To make sure that the only things that are actually said on university campuses are things that the Trump administration wants to hear and wants to be said. 

CORNISH: On Monday, the Trump administration froze more than $2 billion of Harvard’s federal funding, that decision made after the university rejected a list of demands that the White House sent it last week. Among those demands, an end to so-called DEI practices. They also want an external audit looking for, quote, viewpoint diversity in everywhere from coursework to the student body itself, and new discipline policies, including retroactive punishments, including for protests that happened two years ago, and a comprehensive mask ban. 

The Trump administration even specified that people who wear masks should be punished with no less than suspension. 

So in a statement, Harvard’s president described Trump’s desired changes as a violation of the university’s constitutional rights. 

. . . 

KEVIN FREY: There’s now conversations about whether or not there should be some sort of judicial oversight of whether or not they [Columbia University] are in compliance. 

CORNISH: Right. I don’t want to just skip by some of the things you said. Oversight into actual curriculum. So we want to tell you, or at least be able to look at what you’re teaching. Which is ironic, since they’re kind of dismantling the Ed Department. But they want to do this in higher ed. 

Democrats and their allies coming to universities’ defense. Here’s a sense of what they’ve been saying. 

BERNIE SANDERS: He is putting pressure on universities as well. Good news is, Harvard University today said, go to hell! 

JAMES CLYBURN: That may break the fever. I really hope it does. I do know this. If Harvard had capitulated, I really fear for what next year would be. 

RO KHANNA: There are things that matter more than simply the size of one’s endowment. We need the presidents to be banding together and standing up for free expression. 

CORNISH: Gabby, I probably could have stopped with Clyburn, because he really lays out the stakes. And it feels like this is a moment where people are deciding, like, if you give an inch, they’ll take a mile. 

So if the concern is anti-Semitism, but you let that go into, also you need to wear a mask, also we want to go into curriculum, also, like, the list just gets longer. 

. . . 

PHIL MATTINGLY: The thing I would just emphasize here is, this wasn’t an ad hoc thing that they just decided to launch. 

Stephen Miller, who has a lot of stuff on his plate as a deputy chief of staff for policy. Russ Vought is controlling the budget operation. These guys have been working in groups under the same umbrella over the course of several years, planning all of this out.

And recognizing that it turns out, because of government funding, because of government authority, that the president and the administration, the executive branch, can do an awful lot in an awful lot of spaces if they just are willing to do it. And they are. 

CORNISH: Right. Create a lot of choke points here. 

The New York Times is grating its teeth over the prospect that a Christian-owned company is setting up shop in “liberal” Manhattan, as if having a business with religious morals would be a net negative for that God-forsaken city.

“Hobby Lobby Is Opening Its First Manhattan Store. Not Everyone Is Happy,” cried Times reporter Jane Margolies in an April 9 item that was slapped onto the front page of the business section of the April 15 print edition.

Margolies whined that the neighborhood of TriBeCa in Lower Manhattan, “known for its liberal politics and sky-high rents,” was bracing itself for the incoming of a new retailer “known for its conservative Christian convictions.” Oh how terrible. Rather than just reporting on the development, Margolies chose to elevate how “some residents” were supposedly “feeling affronted that Hobby Lobby is opening in their neighborhood.” Waah.

Naturally, Margolies threw a tantrum over Hobby Lobby’s record of not genuflecting to the typical figureheads of wokeism: “Local groups and forums that are protesting the company’s arrival in TriBeCa point to Hobby Lobby’s work with organizations that oppose gay and transgender rights.”

Then, she said the quiet part out loud: “They haven’t forgotten the private company’s lawsuit in 2014 to fight against having to provide insurance coverage for contraception for employees.” By “they” Margolies is more likely referencing how The Times still hasn’t gotten over the U.S. Supreme Court siding with Hobby Lobby in 2014 over its refusal to violate its Christian ethics by complying with the infamous Obamacare mandates.

As The Times beta-energy-afflicted editorial board wailed during that time, “The Supreme Court violated principles of religious liberty and women’s rights in last week’s ruling in the Hobby Lobby case, which allowed owners of closely held, for-profit corporations (most companies in America) to impose their religious beliefs on workers by refusing to provide contraception coverage for employees with no co-pay, as required by the Affordable Care Act.” How dare a company’s owners have public Christian convictions that are known to their employees before they decided to work for them, right (sarcasm)?

The owners of Hobby Lobby — the Green family — even “largely sponsored” the $500 million privately-funded Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C for goodness’ sake! In October 2022, Hobby Lobby CEO and founder David Green announced in a Fox News op-ed that he was giving up his company because he “chose God” over wealth.

Margolies’ latest slant suggests The Times is more enraged over the fact that the paper and Hobby Lobby are now going to be neighbors:

Over a decade later, it remains to be seen whether low prices and a staggering selection of products are enough to make residents in an area that has long been a liberal stronghold look past the company’s conservative bent.

The whiny brats over at The Times sure can’t seem to get over it. That’s for sure. 

When the “Big Three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC weren’t lamenting Tuesday morning the plight of their beloved “Maryland man” Kilmar Abrego Garcia, they each complaining about the Trump administration freezing $2 billion in taxpayer funding from far-left and private Harvard University, siding with the university’s insistence it spend taxpayer dollars as it sees fit.

ABC’s Good Morning America led both hours with Harvard, including a tease with co-host Robin Roberts decrying the “escalation in the Trump administration’s campaign against elite colleges.”

Later, in tossing to chief national correspondent Matt Gutman, Roberts dismissed the concerns of the Trump administration about anti-Semitism, ideological bias, and racial discrimination as merely “policy demands.”

 

 

Gutman declared Harvard President Alan Garber was “the first to openly defy the Trump administration, drawing that line in the sand, saying that no government should dictate to a private university what it can teach, who it can hire, and admit.”

“Harvard, America’s wealthiest university, not backing down in the face of pressure from President Trump, who is threatening to pull roughly $9 billion in federal aid…The administration ordering the school to report foreign students who commit conduct violations to federal authorities, submit to an audit to ensure academic departments have diverse viewpoints, and end all DEI program, share hiring data with the administration, and submit to an audit of admissions data,” he added.

Gutman also threw in the Trump administration’s concerns with Harvard as just one of many hotbeds of anti-Semitic filth: “The administration also calling for the correction of what it calls anti-Semitism on campus, an issue which Harvard said it has already taken steps to address.”

He went onto say Garber’s defense is on First Amendment grounds and that the leadership’s “defiance has been applauded here on campus by faculty and students, and the university vowing not to surrender to the Trump administration going forward.”

To his credit, Gutman was the only network journalist to mention this important tidbit: “And one of the big questions going forward is Harvard going to dip into that $50 billion plus endowment to make up for that federal shortfall?”

NBC’s Today had a single segment in the first hour. Co-host Savannah Guthrie teased: “And the White House’s battle with Harvard taking a dramatic new turn overnight. The administration yanking billions of dollars in funding. We’ll have the very latest.”

Fill-in co-host and NBC Sports anchorman Mike Tirico had the setup for senior Washington correspondent Hallie Jackson: “Also this morning, a legal battle intensifying between the Trump administration and one of the most prestigious universities in the country. Harvard is now being hit with a $2 billion funding freeze after rejecting a list of demands from the White House to make sweeping changes.”

 

 

Jackson called it “a major showdown” with Trump “basically punish[ing] Harvard for not complying with that list of demands from the government by freezing more than $2 billion in grants” and thus what the school argues would be “violating [their] own constitutional rights” (click “expand”):

JACKSON: This is a major showdown between the country’s oldest and richest school and the Trump administration. Overnight, you had the Trump administration to basically punish Harvard for not complying with that list of demands from the government by freezing more than $2 billion in grants. That’s because Harvard, earlier in the day, had told the administration they’re not interested in what they say amounts to a federal takeover or government control of the university. So, all of this makes Harvard now the highest profile school to go toe-to-toe with the White House, Savannah.

TIRICO: Hallie, I’m going to jump in here for a second because this is significant for universities around the country. What are the specific demands the White House is making of Harvard?

JACKSON: Yeah, Mike, there’s a bunch of them here. The administration wanted an immediate shutdown of DEI programs. They wanted Harvard to share hiring and admissions data and an audit on what they called viewpoint diversity. They wanted to Harvard to restrict the acceptance of international students who are, “hostile to American values and institutions,” plus an overhaul of departments and programs with anti-Semitic records, and plagiarism checks on current and prospective faculty. Now, the White House, Mike, frames this as part of its fight against anti-Semitism on college campuses. But Harvard says, wait a second. They say that’s not the intention of what the government wants to do here. They want to regulate us but they’re violating our own constitutional rights. And you saw that in a letter that the president of the school put out, writing that, “[n]o government – regardless of which party is in power – should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” Mike,

TIRICO: It’s the buzz of boards and administrations of universities around the country. Hallie Jackson, thanks this morning.

Given that they’re still surrendering large scores of airtime to co-host Gayle King’s trip to space, CBS Mornings only had 42 seconds at the tail end of a segment lamenting the plight of illegal immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

Chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes touted Harvard “reject[ing] demands that it institute changes in hiring and admissions” (click “expand”):

TONY DOKOUPIL: Nancy, you know the Trump administration has also taken new steps against Harvard University. What do you know about that?

NANCY CORDES: That’s right. Last night, the White House announced a freeze of $2.2 billion in grants and a $60 million contract for Harvard University. This comes, Tony, after Harvard rejected demands that it institute changes in hiring and admissions to ensure what the Trump administration has been calling viewpoint diversity. The White House says they’re just ensuring that taxpayer dollars do not go towards racial discrimination or racially motivated violence. But, in a statement, Harvard said that it will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.

To see the relevant transcripts from April 15, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).

Over the weekend, Pennsylvania Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro was the target of a possible politically motived arson attack at the Governor’s mansion by a man with a history of mental illness and animosity towards both parties. But minutes after the news broke on Monday, disgraced former CNN host Don Lemon took to his podcast to blame President Trump, MAGA, and Republicans in general for the attack and every bad act in America; proclaiming: “You are the purveyors of hate!”

Despite the news being very fresh, Lemon decried that “MAGA is silent this morning. The White House is silent this morning. Donald Trump is silent this morning.” Meanwhile, Trump did call the man responsible for the attack a “whack job.”

Lemon seemed to catch himself as he launched into a hyperbolic statement suggesting the arson attack was worse than the assassination attempts on Trump. “They don’t have a thing to say about one of the most horrific acts of political terrorism this country has seen in some time,” he said.

He never gave an explanation for what he meant by “some time” and “most horrific,” since the first attempt on Trump was less than a year old and saw the President shot in the head, a supporter killed, and several injured. Fortunately, no one at the Governor’s Mansion was injured and the attacker never found Shapiro or his family.

“Where are our priorities? Where are the priorities today? Is it in a rocket? Is it in stopping stuff like this?” Lemon huffed about the rest of the media coverage of the morning.

 

 

Lemon then blamed Trump for all the hate in the world and for the attack:

Because there’s a reason that there’s so much hate going around. There’s a reason that there’s so much anti-Semitism and so much racism going around, and there’s a lot of it. There’s a look – and it’s not just, you know, one political party and all that stuff, but you can place it at the feet of one person who didn’t start this but certainly exacerbates it and foments hate and bigotry.

Towards the end of the segment, several minutes later, Lemon admitted that Trump had only just heard about the attack and proceeded to bloviate about a purported double standard in outrage from the right:

So, I was just listening to the thing and Donald Trump said he had only just heard of the attack. And look, he will probably respond I’m sure, hopefully he will respond in depth, but I don’t see many people, many Republicans or anyone speaking out against this. And I just know if had it been the other way around, it would have been people in the MAGA folks would have been going crazy. ‘I can’t believe Kamala Harris, she’s condoning this. Why aren’t Democrats doing whatever.’

So, I think Republicans speak out, say something. Not just like a measly little statement. ‘Have my, uh, have, have uh have Barbara draw up a statement for me uh to this and whatever, and have him put it out on social media.’ No, let’s say something. Don’t just draw up the statement.

Lemon followed up by dropping all semblance of his earlier pretext that there was violence on both sides of the aisle and declared: “[I]t certainly does happen more on one side.”

“Hate. January 6. The racism. The bigotry. The anti-Semitism. The transphobia. The homophobia. It certainly does happen on one side more than the other,” he chided. “So, yeah, does it happen on the Democratic side? Yeah, but not to the extent that it happens on the Republican side, especially with MAGA.”

Of course, the liberal hack was omitting both assassination attempts on Trump, the assassination attempt of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and his family, the assassination attempt against Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin (NY), the attempt on Representative Steve Scalise (R-LA) and the rest of the Republican Congressional Baseball Team, the BLM riots of 2020, the acts of terrorism against Tesla, the anti-Semitism on college campuses, and all the other attacks on Republicans on the local and state levels.

“Let’s just be honest,” he crowed as he proceeded to lie about how “hatred and bigotry” were the “motor” and “axel” which “makes the MAGA wheel spin.”

Lemon wanted to hold Republicans responsible for every act of violence by demanding: “Say something Republicans about the hate every single time it happens. Every single time it happens.”

“And don’t try to spin it as to that Democrats always do it, only do it, and Republicans, somehow MAGA is not doing it when you are the purveyors of hate,” he wrapped out his hate-fueled screed.

The transcript is below. Click “expand” to read:

The Don Lemon Show
April 14, 2025

DON LEMON: So, MAGA is silent this morning. The White House is silent this morning. Donald Trump is silent this morning. They don’t have a thing to say about one of the most horrific acts of political terrorism this country has seen in some time.

This is awful. I don’t know if you paid attention to it. As I said, I just couldn’t watch after a while. I had to stop, especially after this happened. I’m like, oh my God, what is going on in the world? And why isn’t someone condemning this from the highest heights in the White House? Right? Why isn’t someone condemning this? One of the most horrific acts of political terrorism in this country has seen in some time.

Over the weekend, authorities say a man scaled an iron security fence in the middle of the night, everyone, eluded police and broke into the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion. Where he set a massive fire, and then he attempted to murder Josh Shapiro with a hammer.

Now, you guys remember when that happened to Nancy Pelosi’s husband, right? And then the right made fun of it. Remember that? And then they tried to pretend it was some sort of love affair, some hookup gone wrong. All kinds of conspiracy theories. And they did it not just on the fringe media, they did it in the mainstream media as well. The big right-wing news organizations were laughing and joking about it.

“The silence speaks volumes.” You’re right about that, Marlene Prosser, it does.

And so now you have this. Now imagine, if Kamala Harris was in office and something like this happened and there was no statement or nothing, and you didn’t hear anything, people weren’t condemning it. Imagine what would happen. What would folks be saying about this? What would they be saying about this, had this happened and then a Democrat didn’t say anything?

Mr. Shapiro, Governor Shapiro and his family fortunately escaped just in the nick of time. They’re okay. Cody Balmer, who was arrested later in the day, faces charges including attempted homicide, terrorism, aggravated arson, and aggravated assault. During a police interview, authorities said that Cody Balmer told them, after he was taken into custody, that he would have beaten Shapiro with a small sledgehammer if he would have found him. That’s what the documents say.

So this is what I’m saying to you guys. This is, this is what I mean about what is going on in the country. Where are our priorities? Where are the priorities today? Is it in a rocket? Is it in stopping stuff like this? Because there’s a reason that there’s so much hate going around. There’s a reason that there’s so much anti-Semitism and so much racism going around, and there’s a lot of it. There’s a look – and it’s not just, you know, one political party and all that stuff, but you can place it at the feet of one person who didn’t start this but certainly exacerbates it and foments hate and bigotry.

(…)

LEMON: So, I was just listening to the thing and Donald Trump said he had only just heard of the attack. And look, he will probably respond I’m sure, hopefully he will respond in depth, but I don’t see many people, many Republicans or anyone speaking out against this. And I just know if had it been the other way around, it would have been people in the MAGA folks would have been going crazy. ‘I can’t believe Kamala Harris, she’s condoning this. Why aren’t Democrats doing whatever.’

So, I think Republicans speak out, say something. Not just like a measly little statement. ‘Have my, uh, have, have uh have Barbara draw up a statement for me uh to this and whatever, and have him put it out on social media.’ No, let’s say something. Don’t just draw up the statement.

And the Governor is right, this is happening far too often. Now, I say it is not exclusive to one political party, but it certainly is – it certainly does happen more on one side. Hate. January 6. The racism. The bigotry. The anti-Semitism. The transphobia. The homophobia. It certainly does happen on one side more than the other. And they don’t speak out about it enough.

So, yeah, does it happen on the Democratic side? Yeah, but not to the extent that it happens on the Republican side, especially with MAGA. Let’s just be honest. It seems to be part of the, I mean, that’s the, not the cog, that’s a thing that makes the MAGA wheel spin. That’s the motor. That’s the axle. Is hatred and bigotry.

So, let’s hope someone responds. Governor, I’m with you, my Jewish brothers and sisters over this Passover, and over the weekend, I’m with you as well. I wanna see more people start speaking out more about it. Say something, Donald Trump, more than just I haven’t heard about it, and some wrote statement. Say something Republicans about the hate every single time it happens. Every single time it happens. And don’t try to spin it as to that Democrats always do it, only do it, and Republicans, somehow MAGA is not doing it when you are the purveyors of hate.

Liberals may view MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow as something of an intellectual, but her Monday show disproved that notion. If all you did was listen to Maddow, you would come to the conclusion that Trump is waging war on universities simply because he can and not because they have an anti-Semitism problem.

The latest development in Trump’s battle with higher education came after Harvard refused to comply with a list of administration demands, resulting in the cutting of over $2 billion. Maddow lauded Harvard for not caving, “I have just one more thing to show you, because this was Saturday in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is home, of course, to the most famous and prestigious university in the whole country, Harvard University. This was a Stand Up Harvard rally that happened in terrible rain and sleet and cold in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Saturday afternoon.”

 

 

She continued to wax poetic by claiming, “The theme was effectively courage, not capitulation. People are trying to shore up Harvard to tell them that they’ve got the gravitas and the weight and the wealth, that if they can’t lead, who can, that they should not capitulate to Trump’s threats, to Trump’s demands, to let him essentially take over and subjugate the universities.”

By “subjugate the universities,” Maddow meant that the administration was demanding that the departments most to blame for fanning the flames of anti-Semitism be reviewed and, if necessary, reformed. It also demanded Harvard actually enforce its rules and have a consistent disciplinary system, adopt a merit-based admission policy, and shutter its DEI apparatus (by the school’s own admission, Columbia University’s DEI bureaucracy was a hindrance to addressing anti-Semitism).

It is not as if Harvard is the victim. They are currently being sued for failing to stand up to anti-Semitism on campus. Alleged incidents include Harvard employees vandalizing hostage posters, demanding Jewish students debate them on whether or not Jews did 9/11, and posting threatening videos of themselves wielding machetes. Meanwhile, last year’s demonstrations effectively shut down certain areas of campus and were rewarded with meetings and capitulations.

Maddow, of course, mentioned none of this. Instead, she declared of Trump’s move:

It has thus far been war on international students, war on academic freedom, war on campus free speech. It’s been war on government research funding. It’s about to be war on university endowments. And so these people turned out on Saturday in the wind and the cold, one protest among a gazillion. But in this case, they were just telling Harvard, ‘Don’t do it, don’t capitulate. Stand up.’ This was Saturday, and tonight, here’s the banner headline in the Boston Globe, quote, ‘Harvard refuses to comply with Trump’s demands, says it won’t,’ quote, ‘allow itself to be taken over by the federal government.’

But it will allow itself to be taken over by the mob.

Here is a transcript for the April 14 show:

MSNBC The Rachel Maddow Show

4/14/2025

9:18 PM ET

RACHEL MADDOW: I have just one more thing to show you, because this was Saturday in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is home, of course, to the most famous and prestigious university in the whole country, Harvard University. This was a Stand Up Harvard rally that happened in terrible rain and sleet and cold in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Saturday afternoon.

The theme was effectively courage, not capitulation. People are trying to shore up Harvard to tell them that they’ve got the gravitas and the weight and the wealth, that if they can’t lead, who can, that they should not capitulate to Trump’s threats, to Trump’s demands, to let him essentially take over and subjugate the universities.

It has thus far been war on international students, war on academic freedom, war on campus free speech. It’s been war on government research funding. It’s about to be war on university endowments. And so these people turned out on Saturday in the wind and the cold, one protest among a gazillion. But in this case, they were just telling Harvard, “Don’t do it, don’t capitulate. Stand up.” This was Saturday, and tonight, here’s the banner headline in the Boston Globe, quote, ‘“Harvard refuses to comply with Trump’s demands, says it won’t,’ quote, ‘allow itself to be taken over by the federal government.’”