President Donald Trump assured that Harvard is “getting their a– kicked” as the school continues to fight the administration’s demands.
While addressing reporters in the Oval Office Wednesday following the swearing-in of former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro as interim U.S. Attorney for Washington, DC, the president chastised Harvard for its behavior.
“Harvard’s got to behave themselves,” he said. “Harvard is treating our country with great disrespect and all they’re doing is getting in deeper and deeper and deeper.”
The president clarified that “Harvard has to understand the last thing I want to do is hurt them.”
“They’re hurting themselves. They’re fighting,” he said.
Trump went on to compare the oldest university in the nation to Columbia University, which has caved in to the administration’s demands on every occasion.
“You know, Columbia has been really—they were very, very bad, what they’ve done. They’re very anti-Semitic and lots of other things,” he said. “But they’re working with us on finding a solution, and, you know, they’re taken off that hot seat.”
“But Harvard wants to fight. They want to show how smart they are, and they’re getting their a– kicked,” he declared.
Harvard’s president, Alan Garber, has urged other universities to not abandon their values in the face of the current administration, stating that “we need to be firm in our commitments to what we stand for.”
Trump promised that he had the institution’s best interest at heart, and that he was simply “looking out for the country and for Harvard.”
“I want Harvard to do well. I want Harvard to be great again, probably, because how could it be great?” he added skeptically.
Trump also blasted the university for its “remedial math” class, saying that the school is “bragging” about how they’re teaching students “basic mathematics.”
“How could it be great, when you have Harvard announce two weeks ago that they are going to teach remedial mathematics, remedial, meaning they’re going to teach low-grade mathematics, like two plus two is four,” he said.
The school’s new introductory math course is being offered to students who “have taken a break from mathematics,” and will use techniques taught in high school algebra classes.
“How did these people get into Harvard if they can’t do basic mathematics? How did they do it?” he asked.
“Where do these people come from?” he mused, saying that this is why “we have to look at the list,” referring to a list of every international student currently at Harvard, which he demanded the institution hand over.
Trump has also used this new math class to justify banning international students from the university, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announcing Thursday that it would be revoking the school’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification.
“This means Harvard can no longer enroll foreign students and existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status,” the DHS statement read.
The ban, which would have affected 6,800 international students enrolled at the university, was quickly blocked by a federal judge the next day, and the school was issued a temporary restraining order.
But this didn’t discourage the administration. Only four days later, the State Department ordered U.S. embassies to temporarily stop scheduling new student visa appointments as they expanded their screening process for applicants.
Most recently, Trump has threatened to withhold $3 billion more of federal grant money from the institution, in addition to the $2.2 billion in federal funding it has already frozen.
The administration is also moving to cancel its remaining federal contracts with Harvard, which are worth about $100 million in total.
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