President Donald Trump was asked about his aggressiveness in going after Harvard University’s funding while phoning in to a NewsNation town hall Wednesday night.
The president, in his answer to co-moderator Stephen A. Smith, attempted to tie his support in the Black community to his stance on Harvard.
“Well, I say this: we had riots in Harlem, and frankly, if you look at what’s gone on — and people from Harlem went up, and they protested, Stephen, and they protested very strongly against Harvard. They happened to be on my side,” Trump said.
“You know, I got a very high Black vote. You know that. Very, very high Black vote. It was a very great compliment, Steve. I did criminal justice reform, I did opportunity zones for one of the greatest economic deals ever for the Black and Hispanic community. I got tremendous — they agree with what I’m doing with respect to Harvard.
“Harvard gets $4, $5 billion a year from the United States government in the form of grants,” Trump continued. “And they have $53 billion, and yet they don’t treat the people right. They take foreign students — nobody knows where they come from — and they viciously hate our country. And I’m saying if we’re going to give them grant money, we want people in that school that’s gonna love our country, not people that are gonna hate our country.
The Trump administration has frozen $2.2 billion in grants to Harvard, according to the Associated Press.
A federal judge on Monday scheduled arguments for July 21 over the university’s lawsuit against the government, after both sides met in court for the first time in a brief hearing.
Harvard sued April 21 after getting letters from the Trump administration calling for broad changes to government and leadership and to the university’s admissions policies.
The administration also demanded the university audit views of diversity on campus and stop recognizing some student clubs. It has argued universities allowed antisemitism to go unchecked at campus protests last year against Israel’s war in Gaza.
“They’re running a bad operation up there, and we got to get to the bottom of it,” the president went on to say at the town hall. “On top of that, they said they wanna teach their students remedial mathematics … and you say, ‘well, Harvard’s supposed to be so great, why do they have to have remedial — that’s basic, very simple mathematics.’ So, we’re looking into Harvard …”
Smith noted that he graduated from Winston-Salem State University, a historically Black college, and commended the president on his contributions to HBCUs.
But, Smith said, “there is a concern, however, that with all the things going on, in this day and time, that there will be a cut in federal contributions to HBCUs.
Trump said HBCUs should “not at all” be concerned that his administration would cut support to those institutions.
“I saved them, Stephen,” the president said. “They were going out of business. They came to me … and I took care of them. I took care of the Black colleges and historically Black — HBCUs — you know better than anybody.
“And, by the way, they love Trump,” the president said to laughter.
“You’re giving them money,” interjected co-moderator Chris Cuomo.
