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Donald Trump also said on Tuesday that Harvard “should lose its tax-exempt status” as a nonprofit educational institution if it does not back down.
CNN and the Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was now making plans to do so after a request from Trump.
White House deputy press secretary Harrison Fields told Agence France-Presse (AFP) by email that “any forthcoming actions by the IRS will be conducted independently of the president.”
Demonstrating the broadening resonance of the row, Golden State Warriors basketball coach Steve Kerr spoke out in support of Harvard. Kerr, sporting a Harvard T-shirt, called the demands on the university the “dumbest thing I’ve ever heard” and cited his backing of “academic freedom”, reports AFP.
Trump calls Harvard a 'joke' and says it should be stripped of funds
US president Donald Trump called Harvard a “joke” on Wednesday and said it should lose its government research contracts after the prestigious university refused demands that it accept outside political supervision.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that Trump’s administration also threatened to ban Harvard from admitting foreign students unless it bows to the requirements, as US media reported that officials were considering revoking the university’s tax-exempt status.
Trump said on his Truth Social platform:
Harvard can no longer be considered even a decent place of learning, and should not be considered on any list of the World’s Great Universities or Colleges.
Harvard is a JOKE, teaches Hate and Stupidity, and should no longer receive Federal Funds.
Trump is furious at the storied institution for rejecting government supervision of its admissions, hiring practices and political slant and ordered the freezing of $2.2bn in federal funding to Harvard this week.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also canceled $2.7m worth of research grants to Harvard on Wednesday and threatened the university’s ability to enrol international students unless it turns over records on visa-holders’ “illegal and violent activities”.
“If Harvard cannot verify it is in full compliance with its reporting requirements, the university will lose the privilege of enrolling foreign students,” a DHS statement said, with secretary Kristi Noem accusing the university of “bending the knee to antisemitism”.
Harvard has flatly rejected the pressure, with its president, Alan Garber, saying that the university refuses to “negotiate over its independence or its constitutional rights”.
More on this story in a moment, but first, here are some other developments:
Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland traveled to El Salvador in an effort to get answers about the Trump administration’s illegal deportation of Kilmar Ábrego García. He said he hoped to meet Ábrego García in person and see his condition. He previously told the Guardian the case had tipped the US into a constitutional crisis. Hollen says he was told that the Trump administration was paying the Salvadorian government to hold Ábrego García, citing that as the reason he has not been released.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt fired back during a White House press briefing, saying that Democrats refuse to “accept the will of the American people,” and repeating administration claims that García was a member of the MS-13 gang. “Nothing will change the fact that Ábrego García will never be a Maryland father. He will never live in the United States of America again,” she said.
Numerous Democratic politicians and top universities across the country have rallied in support of Harvard, but the Trump administration has doubled down, threatening to strip Harvard of its tax-exempt status and insisting that the university apologize.
UK officials are tightening security when handling sensitive trade documents to prevent them from falling into US hands amid Trump’s tariff war, the Guardian can reveal. In an indication of the strains on the “special relationship”, British civil servants have changed document-handling guidance, adding higher classifications to some trade negotiation documents in order to better shield them from American eyes, sources said.
Donald Trump has proposed giving money to immigrants in the country illegally who choose to leave voluntarily, and that his “self-deportation program” would include the prospect of those who are “good” re-entering the country later legally.
The Department of Health and Human Services may be facing a severe $40bn budget cut – slashing roughly a third in discretionary spending according to an internal budget document.
Jerome Powell, the US Federal Reserve chair, warned that Trump’s tariffs were generating a “challenging scenario” for the central bank and were likely to worsen inflation. His comments on Wednesday came as US stock markets had already been rattled by a new trade restriction on the chip designer Nvidia.
The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, said in his first press conference that the significant and recent rise in autism diagnoses was evidence of an “epidemic” caused by an “environmental toxin”, which would be rooted out by September. However, autism advocates and health experts have repeatedly stated the rise in diagnoses is related to better recognition of the condition, changing diagnostic criteria and better access to screening.
