President Donald Trump raged against Harvard University and one of its lawyers in a venomous Truth Social post.
The president ramped up his attacks on Harvard, which is being pushed by some donors to renew talks with the White House on its demands for control over the university, and he singled out an attorney hired by the university to engage with the Trump administration.
“Harvard is an Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institution, as are numerous others, with students being accepted from all over the World that want to rip our Country apart,” Trump posted on his social media site. “The place is a Liberal mess, allowing a certain group of crazed lunatics to enter and exit the classroom and spew fake ANGER AND HATE. It is truly horrific!”
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The Harvard Corporation, which runs the school, refused to agree to any of the demands sent to by the White House, apparently by mistake, and the corporate board has seemingly been emboldened by public support for their resistance and has rebuffed at least three overtures from the administration seeking to negotiate and filed a lawsuit this week challenging threats to slash federal funding.
“Now, since our filings began, they act like they are all ‘American Apple Pie,'” Trump posted. “Harvard is a threat to Democracy, with a lawyer, who represents me, who should therefore be forced to resign, immediately, or be fired. He’s not that good, anyway, and I hope that my very big and beautiful company, now run by my sons, gets rid of him ASAP!”
Trump is apparently referring to William A. Burck, an attorney with conservative bona fides who serves as an outside ethics adviser to the Trump Organization who, according to a New York Times report, was hired by Harvard to engage with the administration.
The university rejected Burck’s advice on litigation, which he said could be risky, and filed the lawsuit anyway, but Harvard emeritus law professor Alan Dershowitz said his hiring sent different messages to different audiences.
“To the faculty, they’re saying, ‘We’re tough, we’re standing up to the government,’” Dershowitz told Business Standard. “But to the government, they’re saying ‘We’re hiring your guy.’”