The first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second term in the White House have been dominated by talks of Executive Orders, tariffs, foreign relations and economic stability in light of the trade war sparked by the tariffs, comments about annexing Canada, the possibility of seeking a third term, and much more. Such topics were discussed in Trump’s April 22 interview in TIME, and it was of little surprise that the subject matters came up again when Trump sat down for an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida. Here are some of the key topics Trump spoke out about in his televised interview, conducted by Kristen Welker, which aired in full on Sunday, May 4: A desire to annex Canada and make it the "51st state" In recent months, Trump has made a number of comments highlighting his desire to annex Canada and make it the 51st state. In a post shared on Truth Social on March 11, when addressing the concerns Canada raised regarding tariffs, Trump said: “The only thing that makes sense is for Canada to become our cherished Fifty First State. This would make all tariffs, and everything else, totally disappear.” Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney, whose Liberal Party won the Canadian election on April 28, has—much like his predecessor Justin Trudeau—made it clear that Canada has no intention of taking Trump up on his offer. “It will never happen,” he said. In this latest interview, Trump said he had congratulated Carney on his election win, but doubled down on his desire to make Canada the 51st state, saying he will “always talk about that.” Trump repeated his previous sentiments, referring once more to Canada’s former Prime Minister as “Governor Trudeau.” He emphasized what he believes are unfair trade practices with the country, claiming that Canada needs the United States. “If Canada was a state it wouldn't cost us. It would be great. It would be such a great—it would be a cherished state. And, if you look at our map, if you look at the geography, I'm a real estate guy at heart. When I look down at that without that artificial line that was drawn with a ruler many years ago… You don't even realize. What a beautiful country it would be,” he said. “Again, remember this, we don't need their cars, we don't need their lumber, we don't need their energy. We don't need anything. We do very little business with Canada. They do all of their business practically with us. They need us. We don't need them.” Trump added that it would be “highly unlikely” for him to use military force on Canada, as much as he would like to see the country implemented as a state. Is the U.S. heading into a recession? Trump echoed his previous comments regarding whether or not the fallout of his so-called “reciprocal tariffs,” which led to market volatility after their announcement in early April, will help lead the U.S. into a recession. When asked if it's "okay to have a recession in the short-term," Trump said: "Yeah, it's... everything's okay. I said, this is a transition period. I think we're going to do fantastically." The President was asked if he's worried about concerns raised by Wall Street, that the possibility of a recession is increasing. At the end of April, the Commerce Department reported that the U.S. economy shrank in early 2025. Trump once again focused on the long-term positive effects he is hoping for, rather than any concerns regarding the current economy. “Anything can happen,” he said. “But I think we're going to have the greatest economy in the history of our country. I think we're going to have the greatest economic boom in history.” He also insisted that many economic issues were left over from President Joe Biden's era. “I think the good parts are the Trump economy and the bad parts are the Biden economy, because he’s done a terrible job,” he said. Does a President need to uphold the Constitution? Trump was questioned about his recent back-and-forth with the Supreme Court, after it ordered the federal government to “facilitate” Kilmar Ábrego García's return to the United States. The Maryland man was deported to El Salvador by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in March, in what was initially called an administrative error. Although Ábrego García entered the U.S. illegally years ago, in 2019 a judge granted him "withholding of removal" status, after determining that his fears of persecution if he were returned to El Salvador were credible. Despite the Supreme Court's instruction, the Trump Administration has so far declined to "facilitate" Ábrego García's return. “I have the power to ask for him to come back if I'm instructed by the Attorney General that it's legal to do so,” Trump said. “But the decision as to whether or not he should come back will be the head of El Salvador. He's a very capable man.” When asked if he believes that every person in the U.S. deserves due process—regardless of their legal status—Trump said “I don’t know. I'm not a lawyer.” After Welker pointed to the Fifth Amendment, which states that “no person” shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” Trump responded once more. “I don’t know. It seems—it might say that, but if you’re talking about that, then we’d have to have a million or two million or three million trials,” the President said. “We have thousands of people that are—some murderers and some drug dealers and some of the worst people on Earth.” When asked if he needs to uphold the Constitution as the U.S. President, Trump said: "I don't know. I have to respond by saying, again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said. What you said is not what I heard the Supreme Court said. They have a different interpretation."

Since taking office, President Donald Trump has been implementing a slew of actions and executive orders that stand to have wide-reaching impacts on climate policies. During Trump’s first term, the administration put climate on the back burner—rolling back more than 125 environmental rules and policies. When former-President Joe Biden took office, he led the U.S. forward on climate action, signing the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest federal climate change investment in American history. Now, the Trump administration stands to dismantle much of the momentum it has inherited—curbing progress to reduce fossil fuel emissions, the largest contributor to climate change, just as the world surpassed 1.5°C of warming in 2024—the hottest year on record. Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law’s “Climate Backtracker,” has logged nearly 100 efforts to scale back or eliminate federal climate mitigation and adaptation measures since the administration took office at the end of January—ranging from boosting fossil-fuel production to withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accords. Fast-Tracking Deep-Sea Mining On April 24, the Trump Administration moved forward with an executive order aimed at boosting the highly controversial practice of deep-sea mining. The order side-steps ongoing international efforts to regulate the practice, and would allow companies to approve licenses in the high seas, an area typically overseen by an intergovernmental agency, the International Seabed Agency (ISA). The U.S. never signed a U.N. treaty, overseen by the ISA, that governs the seabed, though has in the past respected it. There are currently no approved commercial-scale deep-sea mining projects anywhere in the world, and many countries have called for a moratorium until the environmental impact is better understood. Blocking State Climate Laws In addition to rolling back federal climate action, the Trump Administration has taken action to block the enforcement of state level climate measures. In an April 8 Executive Order, the White House directed the Attorney General to identify all state and local laws on addressing climate change, ESG initiatives (short for environmental, social, and governance), environmental justice, and carbon emissions—and make moves to block them. Many state leaders have reaffirmed their commitment to addressing climate change in the wake of the Trump Administration’s regressions. New York governor Kathy Hochul and New Mexico governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, who co-chair the U.S. Climate Alliance, have said they will not be deterred. "We will keep advancing solutions to the climate crisis that safeguard Americans' fundamental right to clean air and water, create good-paying jobs, grow the clean energy economy, and make our future healthier and safer,” they said in a joint statement. Ramping up Oil and Gas Production On Feb. 14, Trump signed an executive order to create a new “National Energy Dominance Council,” aimed at increasing the country’s oil and gas production. Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” approach is meant to lower energy prices and increase supply of fossil fuels. The country’s oil and gas production, however, already reached record highs under the Biden administration, according to the Center for American Progress. And some experts have warned the moves may actually harm some refineries and raise gas prices. In response to Trump’s declaration of a national energy emergency, the Department of Interior said on April 23 that it would implement emergency permitting processes to accelerate approval times for energy and mining projects on federal lands. EPA Deregulation On March 12, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin announced 31 actions aimed at rolling back a number of significant environmental regulations, in what the agency called "the most consequential day of deregulation in U.S. history." The list of targets includes reconsidering restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, rolling back vehicle emission standards meant to accelerate a transition to EVs, and pushing to challenge a 2009 finding that greenhouse gasses like carbon dioxide and methane are a threat to public health. In a video announcing the actions, Zeldin refashioned the goals of the EPA, saying the agency’s actions would help lower costs and make purchasing cars or heating homes more affordable to Americans. “Today the green new scam ends as the EPA does its part to usher in the golden age of American success,” he said. More Logging in National Forests On March 1, the President signed an executive order to increase timber production across 280 acres of national forests and federal land. In the executive order, Trump said that “heavy-handed Federal policies” have “prevented full utilization” of the country’s timber resources. The move appeared to be an attempt to boost domestic production ahead of imposing tariffs on foreign countries. (In 2023, the U.S. was the largest importer of wood products in the world, importing $24.8 billion worth from Canada, China, Brazil, and others.) Logging drastically impacts a region’s biodiversity—causing wildlife to lose their habitat and food sources and produces harmful greenhouse gas emissions. The order also directed federal agencies to look for ways to bypass endangered species protections and other environmental regulations, putting the fate of many of the nation’s long protected ecosystems at risk. NOAA Staff Cuts More than 600 workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, were laid off on Feb. 27 as part of the Trump Administration’s efforts to cull the federal workforce. The move stands to have profound impacts on the country’s ability to protect public safety during extreme weather events that are only increasing in frequency as the planet warms. NOAA is a vital data resource on everything from hurricanes to drought, which weather forecasters, local authorities, farmers, and others around the country rely on. The agency’s weather alerts are also an essential warning system allowing communities to protect themselves from extreme weather. Last year, NOAA recorded 27 weather and climate disasters with at least $1 billion in damages, the second highest number since the agency began tracking the numbers in 1980. Withdrawing From Paris Accords One of the administration’s first moves on the first day of Trump’s presidency, was to begin the process of withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement. The pact, which was signed by nearly 200 countries in 2015, aimed to curb long-term global warming to 2.7°F (2°C) above pre-industrial levels or keep temperatures below 3.6°F (1.5°C) above pre-industrial levels. The move did not come as a surprise—during his first administration, Trump also withdrew the U.S. from the agreement, though Biden rejoined upon taking office. “In recent years, the United States has purported to join international agreements and initiatives that do not reflect our country’s values or our contributions to the pursuit of economic and environmental objectives,” President Trump said in an executive order. “Moreover, these agreements steer American taxpayer dollars to countries that do not require, or merit, financial assistance in the interests of the American people.” The move weakens the U.S. position and reliability when it comes to international climate negotiations. In a November interview with the Guardian, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres likened a potential U.S. withdrawal to losing a limb or organ. “The Paris Agreement can survive, but people sometimes can lose important organs or lose the legs and survive. But we don’t want a crippled Paris Agreement. We want a real Paris Agreement,” he said. In early March, the U.S. also withdrew from the International Partners Group, an agreement which had rich countries allocate money to the green energy transition in South Africa, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Senegal, as well as the board of the Loss and Damage Fund, which is dedicated to helping developing countries weather climate disasters. Evaluating FEMA The president signed an executive order on Jan. 24 calling for an assessment of the effectiveness of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the nation’s main arm for disaster recovery. While visiting Hurricane Helene victims in North Carolina on Jan. 24, he proposed “getting rid” of FEMA, a move that could impact the country’s ability to recover from extreme weather events that are becoming more intense and frequent due to climate change. The appointed council, which will include the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Secretary of Defense, will have one year to evaluate “the existing ability of FEMA to capably and impartially address disasters occurring within the United States.” EPA Cuts The Trump Administration and its newly created Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE) proposed sweeping cuts to many federal agencies, including the EPA. At the beginning of February, the agency told more than 1,000 “probationary” employees, those who had been working for the agency for less than a year, that they could be fired immediately, according to NBC News. The agency has since “terminated” nearly 400 employees, according to The Hill. Banning Paper Straws Trump signed an executive order on Feb. 10 ending the use of paper straws by the federal government, calling them “nonfunctional” and urging the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and “relevant agencies” to “issue a national strategy to end the use of paper straws” within 45 days. The move, while considered largely symbolic, undoes part of a Biden Administration initiative aimed at phasing out the use of single-use plastics, such as plastic straws and water bottles, from all federal operations by 2035. Pausing Electric Vehicle Adoption In 2021, the Biden Administration set a goal to have EVs make up half of all new cars sold by 2030, a move which President Trump revoked upon returning to power. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) also released a memo on Feb. 6 saying that the Department of Transportation was reviewing the implementation of the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program. The move froze roughly $3 billion dollars in funding that was allocated to expand the network of electric vehicle charging stations across the country, according to Atlas Public Policy. According to the most recent EPA data, in 2022 transportation was the largest source (28%) of emissions in the U.S. Decarbonizing this sector would go a long way to reducing the country’s carbon footprint.

Just days before the papal conclave is set to begin—and a new leader of the Catholic Church will be chosen—President Donald Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself as the Pope. Trump took to his social media platform, Truth Social, late on Friday, May 2, to share an image of himself in the traditional papal clothing. The official White House social media account later reposted the image on X. The image garnered a mixed response, with one critic saying it was "rather offensive for Catholics." Michael Steele, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, was among those to critique the posting of the image, referring to Trump as "unserious and incapable." Since the death of Pope Francis on Easter Monday, the Catholic community—along with the rest of the world—has been eagerly waiting to see who will succeed him. That decision will be made during the papal conclave, which is set to begin on May 7. Trump’s post of himself as the Pontiff comes just days after he teased he would choose himself to succeed Pope Francis. “I’d like to be Pope,” Trump told reporters outside the White House on April 30, when he was asked about the next Pontiff. “That would be my number one choice.” The quip was then bolstered by others—including Sen. Lindsay Graham, who joked on X that he was “excited” that the President is “open to the idea of being the next Pope.” Trump went on to more seriously suggest New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, as a contender to be the next Pope. Dolan has been seen as Trump’s preferred cardinal and delivered traditional prayers at both of his inaugurations. “I must say, we have a cardinal that happens to be out of a place called New York who’s very good,” Trump said. On May 1, Trump signed an Executive Order establishing the “Religious Liberty Commission,” and named Cardinal Dolan as one of the individuals who will serve as a member. The President attended Pope Francis’ funeral on Saturday, April 26, but the two notably had a complicated relationship, as the Catholic Church leader sharply disagreed with Trump’s mass deportation efforts, saying that the practice “damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families.” Pope Francis also notably referred to Trump’s first term efforts to build a wall on the Southern border between the U.S. and Mexico as “not Christian.”

At the start of April a deadly torrent of rains caused flooding across the Midwest, as days of severe storms ravaged much of the central part of the United States. A month later, the Mississippi River in New Orleans was finally cresting this week, as much of the water from those storms is ending its long journey south. The river has been gradually rising for weeks and reached 16.7 feet on Thursday. This is just below the flood stage of 17 feet, and far from a record, but it’s the highest water level in New Orleans since 2020, and comes amid a four-year drought in the Mississippi River Basin. “It looks noticeably different than it was just a year ago,” said Robert Florence, a co-owner of NOLA Historic Tours, who led a tour by the river a week ago. “When the water is higher, it accentuates the sinkholes, cross currents, whirlpools and eddies. It feels more alive and powerful.” The Mississippi watershed is the third largest in the world. The Mississippi River is complex and huge. Its main stem flows 2,350 miles from the headwaters at Lake Itasca in Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico, touching 10 states and spreading out into many more with its tributaries. The water that comes down the river and arrives in New Orleans is a result of rain and snowmelt that has occurred in states as far away as Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Montana, Colorado and Tennessee. In the case of the water pushing into New Orleans right now, it started out as falling rain four weeks ago, mainly over the upper Mississippi River and Ohio River Valleys. Between April 2 and 6, it turned roads into rivers and flooded communities across Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee. Some locations recorded over 15 inches of rainfall. The rain was part of a sprawling cross-country storm system that also generated thunderstorms and tornadoes, although most of the damage came from the relentless rainfall, fueled by moisture from the Gulf. Small rivers in the upper watershed rose quickly, some cresting at historic levels, and have already come back down. The flood cycle is longer on the channeled and leveed Mississippi, which is fed by numerous tributaries. The rain in early April turned into runoff and flowed for days, into the upper portion of the lower Mississippi River Basin and its tributaries, including the Arkansas, White and Red Rivers, and especially the Ohio. It can take weeks for the discharge from the Mississippi tributaries to peak, and for that water to eventually travel down the river. “This is the situation we’re seeing now, where heavy rains fell in Kentucky in early April and it will be roughly four weeks before that peak discharge reaches New Orleans,” said Kory Konsoer, associate director of the Center for River Studies at Louisiana State University. As all of that water traveled south, the river swelled along with it, causing additional flooding in some areas, and overtaking roads and farmland that was recently planted. About 250 miles north of New Orleans, Vicksburg, Miss., saw the river rise to near major flood stage earlier this week, then hold there for several days. The river has been closely watched for weeks. It was well-known that the river would peak in New Orleans this week. The National Weather Service provides forecasts, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers monitors these closely as it manages the river’s plumbing system of levees, floodways and reservoirs built to prevent major flood disasters. Occasionally, the Army Corps will open spillways and floodways that are designed to divert floodwaters during extreme weather events. It hasn’t opened any since the storms in April, but it did come close. This week, the agency ran tests on the Bonnet Carre Spillway, 30 miles northwest of New Orleans, to ensure it was ready, if needed, to prevent flooding. The spillway is opened when the river is flowing into the Gulf at a rate of 1.25 million cubic feet per second. But Matt Roe, a spokesman for the Corps in the New Orleans district, said the flow was expected to be just shy of that level. “This whole event, it has been very close,” Mr. Roe said. “In the earlier forecast, we were predicted to go beyond that trigger point, but the conditions appear to be coming out a little lower.” The spillway was built in 1931 to remove pressure on the levees protecting New Orleans by diverting up to 250,000 cubic feet of fresh water per second into Lake Pontchartrain’s brackish waters. Since then, it has been used 15 times, five of them between 2016 and 2020. “It’s not the most water that has moved through in the last decade, but it’s still a lot of water,” Mr. Roe said.

For the last year, the energy and climate narrative has been intimately intertwined with questions about AI’s impact on energy demand. As tech companies race to construct new data centers, they’ve turned the U.S. emissions reduction story on its head. In this environment, Brazil senses an opportunity. Up to this point, the AI demand story has been a U.S. one, but Brazilian officials want to convince tech companies to set up shop in their country. They cite the nation’s strategic location as a central hub in South America and supportive policy environment, but the biggest selling point by far is the country’s electricity system: nearly 90% comes from renewable energy and Brazil already has good transmission infrastructure that moves electricity across the country. As I talked to officials on the ground in Brazil this week, the topic seemed to be on the tip of everyone’s tongue. “Our message to the world, on the basis of our plan, is that AI [power demand] is satiable with usage of renewable energy sources,” Luis Manuel Rebelo Fernandes, Brazil’s deputy minister of science, technology, and innovation, told me on a panel at the Web Summit in Rio de Janeiro. There are signs the bet is paying off: dozens of data centers are in development across Brazil as big tech companies like Amazon and Microsoft pour billions into the sector there. It’s an important story for Brazil and the Latin American market, of course, but I share it also to illustrate the competitive dividend that can come from clean energy. As electricity in some emerging market countries increasingly comes from solar power, they may stand to gain foreign investment—not just from AI but also from any foreign investor who wants their products made cleanly. Brazil’s clean energy story begins long before climate change became a global concern. Beginning in the late 19th century, the country built dams to power its industry, harnessing some of Brazil’s 37,000 miles of waterways for fuel development. By the 1960s, the country was building mega dams that on their own provide much of the country’s power. Because dams aren’t necessarily near cities, Brazil built an extensive transmission system creating an integrated network. (Unlike the U.S., which is set up in a complex maze with three main regions with regulatory authority divided between states and the federal government.) In short, Brazil didn’t create a clean grid to be able to tout an environmental message. But, as big companies continue to work toward their climate goals (even if more quietly than before), the grid gives it a critical advantage. “Brazil is well positioned,” Luciana Aparecida da Costa, director of infrastructure, energy transition, and climate change at BNDES, the Brazilian development bank, told me in São Paulo. “But we know that we have to compete with other countries to attract this.” Advertisement Nonetheless, as much as the country’s electric grid is a selling point, Brazil still has questions to answer. Climate change has affected water levels, sparking concerns about the reliability of hydropower. And a rapid rise in electricity demand could stress the grid just as is happening in the U.S. To address those concerns, the Brazilian government has prioritized supporting new renewable energy generation to go along with new data centers. Funding to ensure that happens is a key plank in the county’s $4 billion AI plan launched last year. “Every expansion of high performance computing is associated in the plan to the development of dedicated sources of renewable energy,” said Fernandes. And private companies are looking to do the same. In April, for example, Reuters reported that TikTok parent company ByteDance was considering a massive data center investment in Brazil as the company grows its AI footprint—with new wind power attached. Advertisement To be clear, there’s no question that the AI race, as it stands today, is between the U.S. and China. That’s where the models that AI runs on are being developed, and where the most capital is being deployed. But Brazil’s pitch—and its early success—is a reminder of the competitive appeal of clean energy in the global market.

Severe storms hit the Pittsburgh area earlier this week—killing three and causing widespread power outages in the region. It’s the latest in a string of deadly storms in the U.S.—at least 24 people were killed after storms hit the south and midwest in early April, and at least 32 people were killed when storms swept through much of the country in mid-March. Following both storms, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), stepped in to provide assistance to individuals and counties. While Pittsburgh might not need FEMA aid, if the Trump Administration has it their way, many communities across the country could be left in the lurch on disaster recovery aid, as the administration looks to dismantle the agency and shift disaster response onto states. And climate change is only making it more complicated. The reality of leaving disaster response to states would be "devastating," says Allison Reilly, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Maryland. “FEMA exists because there are times when the state can simply not respond.” Trump first posed the idea of overhauling FEMA while visiting North Carolina in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in January. “I’d like to see the states take care of disasters, let the state take care of the tornadoes and the hurricanes and all of the other things that happen. And I think you’re going to find it a lot less expensive. You’ll do it for less than half and you’re going to get a lot quicker response," he said. One of his first executive orders was establishing a council to assess the effectiveness of the disaster response agency. Just days before the Pittsburgh storm, Trump appointed 13 people—including Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem—to review FEMA. The group is expected to submit a report to the president within 180 days, according to the executive order. Trump’s move to dismantle the agency comes as extreme weather events are only becoming more common—and more costly. In 2024, the U.S. saw 27 weather and climate disasters with at least $1 billion in damages each—second only to 2023, which had 28 billion-dollar events. And researchers predict an above-average hurricane season is on the horizon. “There's a tremendous opportunity for national emergency management capability to invest in… the impacts of climate change, and how can we better prepare,” says Jeff Schlegelmilch, associate professor of professional practice and director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at the Columbia Climate School. Advertisement FEMA wasn’t designed to meet our changing climate. “FEMA and the structure of disaster response and its inception was really designed to handle maybe one or two major disaster recoveries at a time. And currently there's over 100,” says Schlegelmilch. “The mechanisms of disaster response recovery have vastly outgrown [FEMA's capabilities].” Traditionally, FEMA has worked alongside state officials— not independent of them. The agency does more than just give out money: FEMA deploys experts in disaster response and recovery and maintains stockpiles of emergency equipment. Outsourcing this to states would prove to be more expensive, according to research from the Atlantic Council—and could lead to states bidding for emergency supplies and expertise in the event of a natural disaster. In the absence of FEMA, states would have to hire their own disaster response experts to be on standby. “It means that every state has to have such a large body of people who could respond to a disaster, but for exceedingly rare events,” says Reilly. “You're going to need a lot of people on staff with nothing to do for a long period of time until disaster happens. Or you're going to have states who are just completely ill prepared, which is probably more likely to happen.” Advertisement Larger states—like California or Texas—might have the funding to pick up the slack, but smaller states simply would not have the capacity to respond to natural disasters. Experts say that FEMA has very real issues that need to be addressed—the agency’s staff is stretched thin across an increasing number of disasters, and the agency often leaves behind low-income survivors in disaster response. “The need for emergency management reform is something that's actually been called on by people of all walks of life. If we can rebrand and create something for 21st century challenges, we should,” says Schlegelmilch. But getting rid of the system without a meaningful replacement will only cause harm, says Schlegelmilch. “That shock [for] municipalities from that sudden change of one system to suddenly nothing being there [would] be very measurable in terms of lost lives and livelihoods.”

He urged the audience of college students not to think they were too young to accomplish great things, before waxing on about tariffs. “Don’t try to be someone else,” he implored them, after attacking due process for unauthorized immigrants. And he told them not to think of themselves as victims, before diverting into how the 2020 election was “rigged” against him. On Thursday night, President Trump addressed the 2025 graduates of the University of Alabama, vacillating between campaign rally material and a commencement speech as he used his past political grievances to encourage students to fight for their futures. Addressing the students at Coleman Coliseum in Tuscaloosa, flanked by signs that read “The American Dream Is Back,” Mr. Trump told students they were “the first graduating class of the golden age of America,” and used his comeback story to encourage the students to trust their instincts and be ambitious as they navigate the world. “In recent years, too many of our young people have really been taught to think of themselves as victims, and blame people, and be angry,” he said. “But in America, we reject that idea that anyone is born a victim. Our heroes are the ones who take charge of their own destiny, make their own luck and determine their own fate, despite the odds.” Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT At points in the address, the president rattled off familiar advice for college graduates. But Mr. Trump — who acknowledged that he did not use his teleprompter for much of the speech — veered off into various rants that echoed the blitz of political appearances he has put in this week to celebrate his 100th day in office. The largely receptive crowd often cheered at the scattershot injection of issues from the price of eggs to transgender rights, a microcosm of an era when even the pablum of a graduation speech cannot escape the politics of the moment. Some of Mr. Trump’s stories focused on how he himself had been victimized throughout his political career, from being counted out by other politicians who never thought he could become president to potentially facing down another impeachment. He also reveled in his victories, recounting his election results, including his commanding victory in Alabama, which he said felt like “home” when he was starting out as a candidate in 2015. A big rally he held in the state was among the first signs that Mr. Trump might have something beyond coastal appeal.“So never let anyone tell you that something is impossible,” he said. “Ever, ever, ever. In America, the impossible is what we all do best. There’s nothing you cannot do if you’re willing to fight for it.” Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “Fight, fight, fight,” he added, invoking a slogan spurred by a failed assassination attempt on him on the campaign trail last year. Mr. Trump told the graduates that they had to “break the system a little bit and follow your own instincts,” seemingly describing his breakneck, flood-the zone strategy that has plunged the federal government into chaos and the country to the brink of a constitutional crisis. “Change is never easy, and the closer you get to success, the more ferociously those who have a vested interest in the past will resist you,” he said. Mr. Trump also gloated about how he faced far less resistance in his second term, citing “internet people” and others who now bow down to him. “They all hated me in my first term,” he said, adding with an expletive that they were now kissing up to him. Even in a college town, Mr. Trump was in relatively friendly territory in the heavily Republican state, which he carried easily in all three of his presidential bids. But there were protests, and a petition from the University of Alabama Democrats and the local chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. against Mr. Trump’s appearance drew more than 26,000 signatures. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “Americans are once again waking up to the fact that this wannabe monarch wants to rule over us like a king,” Braden Vick, the president of the University of Alabama Democrats, said in a statement announcing the protest. About two miles from Coleman Coliseum, the university’s Democrats held a protest joined by former Representative Beto O’Rourke of Texas and former Senator Doug Jones of Alabama. “We’ve got to show up to where the fight is, and that includes places like Alabama, which has just been written off by the Democratic Party for far too long,” Mr. O’Rourke said in an interview after the protest. “And the message was: The people have the power. And when folks show up, as they did at the protest today or the marches or these no-show town halls, it really begins to move the rest of the country.”“He is the president of all people, and yet he has failed every citizen miserably with his divisive, destructive policies, while inflicting horror on our Hispanic, Latino and other communities,” he said in a statement opposing his visit. “Wallace’s infamous words can still be heard today, ‘Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.’” But Mr. Trump was enthusiastically received by the thousands of attendees at Coleman Coliseum. Mr. Trump’s address was part of a “special ceremony” before 6,000 students begin attending formal graduation ceremonies on Friday. The pre-commencement ceremony was optional for students, and tickets were opened to guests. Despite Mr. Trump’s falling approval ratings, the commencement offered a window into the resilience of much of his support outside Washington, and a gauge on the culture shift in the country that got him elected. There were at least as many red “Make America Great Again” hats in the crowd as there were special red graduation hats signifying a graduate’s 4.0 grade point average. The crowd broke into chants of “U.S.A.,” reveled in Mr. Trump’s extensive praise of its sports teams and roared when he talked about the “clean shores of the Gulf of America.” They cheered when he talked about keeping transgender women from playing on women’s sports teams, and some laughed when Mr. Trump spent several minutes mocking matchups that involve transgender players. Mr. Trump’s warm reception came as he is waging an assault on the higher education system. While the administration so far has taken aim largely at the nation’s most elite colleges, the University of Alabama has not been spared. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Last month, a doctoral student at the University of Alabama was detained by federal immigration authorities, amid the administration’s campaign to deport noncitizen college students for engaging in forms of protest. Alireza Doroudi, an Iranian citizen, was legally in the United States and detained in Louisiana. Mr. Trump used the address to take shots at Harvard, which has stood up to him in the administration’s effort to overhaul institutions it sees as too liberal and powerful. Mr. Trump bragged that his administration is withholding billions from Harvard, and pitted the two universities against each other — as if forecasting a battle. “It is clear to see the next chapter of the American story will not be written by the Harvard Crimson,” he said. “It will be written by you, the Crimson Tide.”

Dr. Alan Garber, president of Harvard, disagrees with President Trump about many things. He is fighting Mr. Trump as the federal government tries to strip Harvard of billions of dollars in research funding and its nonprofit tax status. But Dr. Garber agrees with Mr. Trump on one point. In one of the rare interviews he has given since Harvard began its battle with the federal government, Dr. Garber said this week that Harvard has a campus culture problem that needs urgent fixing. Harvard has often shut out voices that many liberals disagree with, he said, and it has allowed antisemitism to go unchecked. “The issue for me was not principally whether we had problems that we needed to address,” Dr. Garber said in a lengthy interview in Washington. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The problem is the Trump administration’s methods, which are growing more aggressive by the day. Last month, Trump officials said they would cut more than $2 billion in federal funds intended for the university, to force it to comply with a series of demands Harvard says violate the First Amendment. On Friday, Mr. Trump escalated the attack, saying the Internal Revenue Service would take away Harvard’s tax-exempt status, threatening many millions more. To Dr. Garber, defending and reforming Harvard is not a provincial matter. Americans are questioning a higher education system that many see as disconnected from their values. He believes deep funding cuts would impair the kind of innovative work that has made American research universities the global engine for scientific discovery since World War II. “This is genuinely unprecedented,” Dr. Garber said in the interview. “We have so many challenges ahead and we also have so many opportunities,” he said, adding, “this is a time when we should be doubling down on our investments in research, particularly in science.” An Unlikely Resistance Leader Dr. Garber earned three degrees from Harvard before moving to California to study to become a medical doctor at Stanford University. He was there for a quarter-century, studying health policy, raising four children and serving as a physician at the nearby Palo Alto Veterans Affairs Medical Center.He never planned to be a college administrator, or to leave California. Now Dr. Garber is Harvard’s president during an unprecedented crisis. And some Democrats, frustrated and forlorn at a lack of leadership in their own ranks, have embraced him as a hero. They celebrated when Dr. Garber penned an aggressive rebuttal to an intrusive list of Trump administration demands last month and then sued the administration.In a recent message to the Harvard community, Dr. Garber vowed to keep fighting federal intrusion. But all along, Dr. Garber has been clear — subtly but insistently — that he shares some of the same concerns about Harvard the Trump administration has. “We still have much work to do,” he has written. The White House has said Harvard should not receive federal money if Jewish students are targeted and harassed on its campus. “The gravy train of federal assistance to institutions like Harvard, which enrich their grossly overpaid bureaucrats with tax dollars from struggling American families, is coming to an end,” a White House spokesman, Harrison Fields, said last month. In the eyes of Mr. Trump and many Republicans, Harvard and other elite American universities have become echo chambers — places where students develop intolerance for political perspectives different from their own and shield themselves from ideas they find objectionable. University leaders often say that criticism exaggerates the issue, claiming that critics want to perpetuate “woke” caricatures of university culture in order to win elections. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT But at the same time, many university leaders also worry that Americans have lost trust in academia and no longer see as much value in a college education as they once did. About a third of Americans have little or no confidence in higher education, according to a Gallup poll published last year, up from 10 percent a decade earlier. Some of Dr. Garber’s most notable decisions during the 16 months he has led the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university have focused on shifting that culture. Under his leadership, Harvard changed how it handles student discipline, manages protests, hires faculty members, challenges antisemitism and weighs in on public controversies. Dr. Garber has called antisemitism a “serious problem” at Harvard. “It is present on our campus,” he said in March and added that, as a Jew, he had experienced it himself.In recent days, he also rolled back policies related to diversity and race, for example, ending university support of graduation celebrations for various student groups, including Black, Latino and L.G.B.T.Q. students. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “The last few years have been a wake-up call,” said Steven Pinker, a Harvard psychology professor who has warned that his university and other elite institutions have devalued intellectual and ideological diversity at considerable cost to their reputations. He praised Dr. Garber for recognizing what many other academic leaders have not — at least in public: The Trump administration had not made “an unreasonable request” when it said Harvard must consistently enforce its rules against disruptive demonstrations and swiftly punish antisemitic harassment. “He’s got principles and courage, to say something about an issue that had not been adequately confronted before,” Dr. Pinker said. As he has moved to make more changes, he has also faced pushback. Harvard students, writing in an essay in the campus newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, suggested the changes to diversity programs “might be politically expedient for now.” “But it will not solve Harvard’s public relations crisis,” they went on, adding, “The way to win against authoritarian attacks isn’t by prioritizing optics — it’s by standing up for our values.” Fixing Broken Systems As a health care economist, Dr. Garber focused on some of the American health care system’s most stubborn problems, publishing 129 papers in 25 years. His questions were probing. And he was unbothered by delivering answers people might not like. Why does the federal government allow companies to charge what they want for drugs discovered and developed with research paid for by the federal government? Why can’t we know what our medical bill will be before it arrives? It’s like going to a restaurant and getting a menu without prices, he said. A fast runner, Dr. Garber trained for and raced in marathons. Once, he spent hours recovering from an injury by running in a pool, listening to “War and Peace” for entertainment. Four months later, he ran a marathon with a time of 3 hours 36 minutes.In 2011, Harvard’s president, Drew Gilpin Faust, wanted Dr. Garber to be her new provost, the university’s chief academic officer. She had seen him interact on a medical school committee and was impressed by his ability to retain a quiet equanimity and bring about consensus. It was a trait that would serve him well, colleagues said, as the person responsible for interacting with Harvard deans, department heads and professors on a daily basis. “He had a calm, ethical voice,” Dr. Faust said in an interview. Repeatedly, she asked him to be provost. Repeatedly, he said no. He relented after he inquired about the job and heard something that appealed to him: It would focus on helping others succeed. “It’s like this lightbulb went off, and I thought, you know, I’m at a stage in my career where I get much more pleasure out of seeing the people I mentor succeed than me getting another honor or paper accepted,” he said. He discovered he really liked the job. “You’re deeply embedded in the academic life of the university, ” Dr. Garber said. “And I love that.” Twelve and a half years passed by, periods of political and social upheaval that transformed higher education, including a Black Lives Matter movement that brought new attention to diversity on campus and a fight over affirmative action that took Harvard to the Supreme Court.Even before the protests over the war in Gaza, people who have worked with Dr. Garber at Harvard said that he had expressed disappointment with a political climate on campus that could be intolerant of dissent. “I think that troubled him a lot, actually,” said Robert E. Rubin, a former Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton and a former long-serving member of the Harvard Corporation, the university’s powerful governing body. “Because he felt that universities should be a place for exchanging all views, as opposed to a place where people exclude certain views. And I happen to agree with that.” Mr. Rubin recalled one conversation in which Dr. Garber stressed the importance of ideological diversity in higher education. “He said he believed that one of the problems we faced was a conformity of views, and the tendency on the part of some people to suppress contrary views,” Mr. Rubin said. The Presidency in a Time of War After over a dozen years as provost, Dr. Garber had decided it was time to return to teaching. A new president, Claudine Gay, took over in 2023. Dr. Garber hoped to leave administrative work by the end of the year. But within months, Dr. Gay was forced out over her handling of accusations of antisemitism on Harvard’s campus. Dr. Garber had to change his plans. “The provost is basically a partner to the president, and I probably knew about as much about the job as a person could know without being president,” he said in the interview. He thought he would stay only until Harvard found a permanent president and would then take a sabbatical. But the list of problems confronting him was long, and growing.He wanted to clarify rules around protests, and when the university should make public statements, for example. Harvard did not often speak out on issues beyond the campus, “but the policy had not been consistently followed,” he explained. Yet, he added, “we were getting demands from groups in every direction to make statements.” Prominent faculty members and alumni were also concerned that Harvard had become a “national joke,” as Dr. Pinker, the psychology professor, put it. The number of early admissions applicants to Harvard had plummeted. Donors were skittish and angry, and vocal about their frustration with the university. And one influential free speech advocacy organization ranked Harvard last in its annual survey of 200 institutions. That spring, Harvard began unraveling policies that Dr. Garber and others believed had fueled some of its political problems. It adopted a policy stating that the university would not issue official statements about issues that did not affect its core functions. Its largest academic division said it would no longer require job applicants to attest in writing their commitment to diversity. Summer came, and students went home. The tent city that pro-Palestinian students had erected in the Harvard Yard came down after Dr. Garber helped bring about a peaceful end to weeks of student demonstrations. But many in academia worried that protests would strike up again in the fall. And the list of changes that Dr. Garber wanted to see through was still quite long. “At some point, all of us in leadership and the corporation decided that this was a lot for an interim president to do,” Dr. Garber said. On Aug. 2, 2024, the Harvard corporation made Dr. Garber the president through the 2026-27 academic year. Trump Strikes During Mr. Trump’s first term as president, education had often seemed like an afterthought. Soon after he returned to office in January, it became clear his second term would be focused on bringing academia to heel. Initially, Dr. Garber tried not to antagonize the new president. After the Trump administration said in March that it was reviewing $9 billion in grants and contracts because Harvard had not done enough to stop antisemitism on campus, Dr. Garber’s response was hardly a manifesto of Trump resistance. He noted in a message to the Harvard community the steps the university was taking to address the administration’s concerns. He also vowed to cooperate with the federal task force on antisemitism. On campus, many were pushing him to be more aggressive, and not to negotiate. He was doing no such thing, he said in the interview. He had simply offered to explain all that Harvard had been doing already, and what else it had planned. But the administration’s next sally shocked him. It came in the form of an email that arrived late on April 11. It had a list of demands, including allowing the federal government to review hiring decisions, examine admissions decisions and audit the student body, the faculty and the staff to be sure they represented a variety of viewpoints. Three days later, Harvard published a scathing letter written by Dr. Garber. “No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” he wrote. With that Friday night letter, Dr. Garber added, “they had gone too far.” “We don’t question appropriate regulation,” he said in the interview. But this appeared to violate the Constitution. Saving the University Since that moment, Dr. Garber has been hailed as a defender of academic independence. He has led Harvard in a lawsuit that claims the Trump administration has no legal authority to demand such sweeping changes to the way the university operates. Not everyone sees his resistance as heroic. “What this celebration has missed,” two Harvard Ph.D. students wrote in an article for The Nation, “is that Harvard has been quietly complying with Trump’s agenda for weeks.” In recent days, Dr. Garber released a report outlining problems with both antisemitism and Islamophobia on campus, apologized for both issues and promised more changes. He has also gone beyond the focus on antisemitism, taking on the hotly contested issue of race and diversity. Three years ago, Harvard fought all the way to the Supreme Court to maintain an admissions system that considered students’ racial backgrounds, arguing that admitting students of different backgrounds and experiences was essential to providing a well-rounded education. Last month, Dr. Garber wrote in a public message that Harvard was “adopting important adjustments to the ways we build community,” suggesting that the university “focus on individuals and their unique characteristics rather than their race.” In a speech, Caleb Thompson, one of Harvard’s two undergraduate student body presidents, criticized the university’s decision to eliminate graduation celebrations for affinity groups. “To the Garber administration for the decision that was made to shut down affinity graduations and attack affinity spaces here on campus, my message is this: ‘This was not what you promised when you said you would stand up against the Trump administration,’” Mr. Thompson said. Dr. Garber’s defenders say he is making moves to preserve the integrity of the university. “He really is doing this as the servant leader,” Dr. Faust said. “This is not about Alan’s greater glory.” Jeffrey Flier, the former dean of Harvard Medical School, said that he believed Dr. Garber understood the high stakes involved — not just for Harvard but for all of American higher education. “I believe he is aware of the moment in time,” he said. “He is aware of what needs to be done. He is aware of his important role in getting those things done. He has a huge fraction of the community behind him.” Dr. Garber’s approach — trying to reform the university while protecting it from attack — is not without risk. But as the Trump administration turns up the pressure on Harvard, many on campus seem to have looked past their differences, more united than they have been in years as they face the threat outside their gates. Asked about the end game, Dr. Garber said his goal was not specific to Harvard. It is, he said, “to ensure that universities in the U.S. can contribute to the nation in the ways we’ve always intended to.”

The Trump administration is seeking to exert extraordinary influence over American universities by withholding the kind of federal financial support that has flowed to campuses for decades. President Trump and his allies contend that some schools, especially a handful of elite universities, have become bastions of antisemitism and ideological indoctrination. Though the higher education industry has acknowledged shortcomings and failures, especially since the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023, it has warned that reducing schools’ federal funding could backfire on American society as a whole. University leaders fear that by threatening to withhold funding, or suspending it with little or no warning, the government is trying to stamp out academic freedom, a cornerstone of the American education system. The Trump administration has given broad reasons for the cuts, often involving claims that the schools tolerate antisemitism. But the choice of schools it has targeted and even some of its demands have sometimes confused educators and experts. Northwestern University, for example, recently released a lists of steps it had taken to combat antisemitism that closely tracked with a list of demands the Trump administration had given to Columbia University. Northwestern was targeted several days later, nonetheless. The issue is revealing the dollars-and-cents consequences of the tensions between campus leaders and the Trump administration. But the outcome of the underlying debate — over the very purpose of higher education — could shape the country for years to come. Which schools have been targeted? So far, seven universities have been singled out for punitive funding cuts or have been explicitly notified that their funding is in serious jeopardy. They are: Harvard University, which has approximately $9 billion at stake. The government has already canceled more than $2.2 billion in retaliation after Harvard publicly rebuffed the Trump administration’s demands. Harvard quickly sued the administration, and the case is pending. The president has also threatened Harvard’s tax-exempt status. Brown University, which the Trump administration said stood to lose $510 million. Columbia, which is hoping to regain about $400 million in canceled grants and contracts after it bowed to a list of demands from the federal government. Cornell University, the target of a cut of at least $1 billion. Northwestern, which Trump administration officials said would be stripped of $790 million. The University of Pennsylvania, which saw $175 million in federal funding suspended in response to its approach to a transgender athlete’s sports participation in 2022. Princeton University, which said “dozens” of grants had been suspended. The White House indicated that $210 million was at risk. Officials at some of the universities have been puzzled by the cuts, which they have sometimes learned about through social media, and insisted that they had taken action to combat antisemitism. Dozens of other schools are under also scrutiny, largely by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, and are aware that some of their federal funding is imperiled. But much of the focus is on 10 schools that have been identified for particular attention by a Trump administration task force that says it is devoted to rooting out antisemitism: Columbia; George Washington University; Harvard; Johns Hopkins University; New York University; Northwestern; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of Minnesota; and the University of Southern California. Critics of the administration have not hesitated to point out that all of these schools are in states, or, in George Washington’s case, a federal district, that voted for the Democratic ticket in 2024. Why are the schools being criticized? The administration has frequently claimed that the targeted schools harbor antisemitism. When a protest movement against Israel’s war in Gaza swept college campuses around the country in 2024, for example, some of the most volatile scenes unfolded at Columbia. Editors’ Picks What a New American Citizen Learned on Route 66 Simple Sandals Are Always a Good Investment Is ‘Reef Safe’ Sunscreen Really Better? But the administration’s hostility toward major colleges and universities has deeper roots than the turmoil tied to that war alone. Conservatives have looked askance at the elite echelons of higher education for decades, disturbed by affirmative action admissions programs, high tuition costs, the views of liberal professors and the proliferation of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives on campuses. Many conservatives say their views have been marginalized in lecture halls, and regard top schools as incubators of so-called wokeness. They have said they want universities to emphasize academic programs that will lead students to the kind of jobs that are essential to the economy. A list of Trump administration demands made at Harvard appeared to touch on a variety of conservative complaints with academia, including a lack of diverse political viewpoints among faculty members and a disdain for diversity, equity and inclusion programs. How much money is at stake? So far, the government has pulled, or threatened to pull, more than $12 billion. Most of that money is tied to Harvard and its affiliates, like its hospitals. Universities have said little about which specific programs were in jeopardy. But Penn, for example, said that researchers in at least seven of its schools were affected. “These contracts include research on preventing hospital-acquired infections, drug screening against deadly viruses, quantum computing, protections against chemical warfare, and student loan programs,” J. Larry Jameson, Penn’s president, said in an open letter. How have schools responded? Beyond statements of frustration and concern, they have generally not done much publicly. But there are two enormous exceptions. In March, Columbia agreed to comply with demands from the administration so it could enter negotiations over the future of the $400 million the government had struck. Some of the most important concessions included agreeing to place the university’s Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies Department under new oversight; strengthening its campus security force; and toughening its disciplinary and protest policies. Columbia’s capitulation alarmed higher education leaders across the country. On April 14, Harvard tried a different strategy. It rejected proposals from the federal government, including one for the use of an outsider “to audit those programs and departments that most fuel antisemitic harassment or reflect ideological capture.” The government also wanted Harvard to curb the power of its faculty and report international students who committed conduct violations. Harvard refused, and its president, Alan M. Garber, said that the university “will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.” The university filed a lawsuit a week later. To many veterans of academia, Harvard’s choice to fight the Trump administration marked a potential turning point. Lee C. Bollinger, a former Columbia president, said Harvard’s resistance was “precisely what has been needed.” The university’s pushback, he said, amounted to “a major institution willing to defend the fundamental values at stake, not only with universities but also with other institutions and organizations vital to American democracy.” These schools are rich. Why is the government funding them in the first place? Since around the time of World War II, the U.S. government has leaned on academic institutions to conduct research projects whose findings will trickle into the public and private sectors. Federally funded research has almost always had bipartisan support, though there have been occasional complaints (and sometimes outright mockery) surrounding particular projects. In their scramble to counter the Trump administration’s recent moves, universities have tried to tell elected officials and the public that they make important contributions to the country’s health and prosperity. They have also sought to frame university-based research as imperative to the nation’s future, especially amid China’s rise. Can’t schools just tap their endowments? Many big schools do indeed have substantial endowments. Every endowment is different, though, and university leaders note that many donors put restrictions on how their money may be used. Republicans, including Vice President JD Vance, have openly discussed raising the excise tax on the largest endowments. Harvard has an endowment worth about $53 billion, far more than any other American university. Even so, a few days after the Trump administration announced a review of Harvard’s federal funding, the university announced a plan to issue $750 million in bonds. Proceeds would give the school, which has been engaged in contingency planning, some financial breathing room.

More than a month after Harvard University filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump for freezing its federal funding, the President has come back with another financial swing against the university. “We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status,” Trump posted on Truth Social early Friday. “It’s what they deserve!” The immediate effect of Trump’s declaration is not immediately clear. Per U.S. law, it is illegal for the President and other senior officials to ask the IRS to “conduct or terminate an audit or other investigation of any particular taxpayer with respect to the tax liability of such taxpayer.” Lily Batchelder, a New York University School of Law professor on tax policy, called the announcement a “lawless action by the President.” “If the President can announce that he is revoking the tax-exempt status of a charity, we have crossed a rubicon that has no clear end. What will stop him or any President from weaponizing the IRS to intimidate any political opponents or groups he dislikes into silence?” she says. Harvard University was one of the first higher education institutions in recent weeks to stand firmly against the Trump Administration—which ordered the university to take on anti-DEI policies, among other measures. The school’s pushback has placed $2.2 billion in multi-year federal funding at risk, and the Administration has threatened to pull another $1 billion in grants. Federal funding exceeds the $2.4 billion distributed by Harvard’s endowment for the fiscal year ending in June 2024, which made up nearly 40% of the institution’s total operating revenue.. Much of the university’s staff has cheered the university’s decision, with dozens of professors vowing to take pay cuts in order to help the university battle Trump in court. Private universities and colleges are tax-exempt if they qualify for 501(c)(3), or nonprofit, status, which requires that they operate “exclusively for…educational purposes,” according to the Association of American Universities (AAU). Higher education schools must show they are complying through tax filings, audits, and reports. An institution can lose its tax-exempt status if it fails to abide by rules regarding the “valuation, disclosure, and use of charitable gifts,” the AAU says. Batchelder lists examples, such as exceeding limits on lobbying and board members or executive directors using the charity for their personal gains. “The tax exemption means that more of every dollar can go toward scholarships for students, lifesaving and life-enhancing medical research, and technological advancements that drive economic growth. There is no legal basis to rescind Harvard’s tax-exempt status,” a Harvard University spokesperson told TIME in an emailed statement. The IRS directed TIME to the Treasury Department for comment, which did not immediately respond to a request. “Such an unprecedented action would endanger our ability to carry out our educational mission,” the Harvard spokesperson added. “It would result in diminished financial aid for students, abandonment of critical medical research programs, and lost opportunities for innovation. The unlawful use of this instrument more broadly would have grave consequences for the future of higher education in America.” For fiscal year 2024, Harvard distributed more than $749 million in financial aid and scholarships. About 55% of Harvard undergraduates received need-based scholarships. Harvard University is also under investigation by the Trump Administration over pro-Palestinian campus protests and allegations of anti-semitism on campus. In April, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it would cancel $2.7 million in grants to Harvard because of the participation of some international students in pro-Palestinain protests. “Harvard bending the knee to antisemitism—driven by its spineless leadership—fuels a cesspool of extremist riots and threatens our national security,” said DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. Noem asked for Harvard’s records pertaining to foreign student visa holders, saying it would lose its Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification if it did not comply. The program allows international students to study in the U.S.