CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings turned the tables Tuesday on panelists who argued that President Donald Trump’s funding halt for Harvard University is political.
The Trump administration is set to halt $2.2 billion in multi-year grants to the Ivy League university over its refusal to comply with its demands to combat antisemitism and improve screening of international students for “hostile” views. After CNN contributor Lulu Garcia-Navarro said Trump is using taxpayer money to treat people unfairly, Jennings argued on “The Arena With Kasie Hunt” that the president is taking necessary actions to defend Jewish students’ civil rights.
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“That’s assuming that somehow this federal money is the president’s and in fact, this federal money is the people’s and it is the people who pay taxes,” Garcia-Navarro said. “And the idea of the federal government is that you’re supposed to actually, you know, look at the people of the United States and try to deal with them fairly.”
“And who do the people elect to be stewards of their money?” Jennings interjected. “The President of the United States and he’s standing up for these Jewish students. Who gets to spend the money? Who has to cut the checks? Who has to faithfully execute the laws of this country? It’s the president, and the civil rights of these students have been violated.”
The administration’s move against Harvard followed a congressional investigation that found that the school failed to issue any punishments to students who participated in antisemitic protests following Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. The protests included a multi-day encampment, occupying the campus, disrupting classes and shouting blatantly antisemitic rhetoric.
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Harvard President Alan Garber said in a Monday statement that the university “will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights” to the demands of the administration.
Garcia-Navarro then argued that Trump is trying to “weaponize federal purse strings” for “political reasons.” As Jennings defended Jewish students against the fear and hatred they endured, Garcia-Navarro claimed that this issue stems beyond antisemitism.
“[Trump’s] standing up for people who have no advocates on these campuses,” Jennings continued. “Nobody on these campuses will stand up for them because it’s not in vogue to do so on the campus. President Trump is standing up for these kids and that’s why [Harvard] is upset about it. The only people who don’t make it clear are the Harvard people. The Ivies, they don’t make it clear. We’re here, they’re there.”
Jennings further said that politicians would “get their ass[es] kicked” if they told the American people that they must hand over $9 billion to an elite university, and stated that universities have posed a national security risk by admitting students who “fundamentally hate western civilization.”
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“I think, as a political matter, if you went out to the American people right now and said ‘well, we’re just not gonna make it as a country unless we give $9 billion to Harvard, it’s sitting on $53 billion.’ You’d get your ass kicked, I imagine, in a political campaign,” Jennings said. “Now, don’t misunderstand. I with Harvard would actually work something out here. I do agree that these universities are important. They do important work. But I don’t agree that we need to continue to fund people who don’t listen to us when we say ‘you have problems.’ I would argue that it’s a national security problem that these Ivy League colleges are turning out people who fundamentally hate western civilization. So there are points to be made here and they need to listen.”
Anti-Israel protests spread across college campuses across the U.S. in the spring of 2024 to demand that schools divest financial ties from Israel. The encampments, protests and illegal occupations prompted Jewish students to flee campus for their own protection and to escape harassment.
The Trump administration is currently in the process of deporting Mahmoud Khalil, a Syrian-born Palestinian activist who had been involved in a student encampment at Columbia University, arguing that his involvement was sympathetic to Hamas.
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First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
