On Saturday, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) spoke on CNN about President Trump blocking Harvard from enrolling international students.
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00:00And the White House also wanting to remove tax-exempt status for Harvard, also in retaliation.
00:06So, you know, if Harvard ultimately loses this battle involving this student and exchange visitor program certification
00:14and 7,000 international students can no longer attend the nation's oldest and wealthiest university,
00:21how will you calculate the near-term and long-term ramifications?
00:26Well, it's profound in terms of damage to scientific progress, to academic inquiry, to academic freedom,
00:40and then ultimately to the tradition of universities and colleges being able to govern themselves.
00:46I don't think Harvard can lose this case.
00:49It's so clear that Trump is motivated by animosity and hatred towards Harvard,
00:56which is strange because there are a lot of people in his family who went there, including Jared Kushner,
01:01who I think was admitted to Harvard after making a $500,000 gift.
01:06But in any event, there are people in his family who are graduates of Harvard, like he's a graduate of Penn.
01:11And there's something very whimsical and something very personally pointed about this attack on a private institution.
01:21And so if you can do it to Harvard, you can do it to any college or university.
01:25And look, what we learned from the law firms is the law firms who gave in are still struggling to keep up with Trump's demands.
01:33I mean, he's viewing them as a private law firm workforce that's given him something like around a billion dollars of free pro bono help.
01:42It's the law firms who've stood up to him who have been winning in court every time against his executive orders purporting to take over their operation.
01:52And, you know, he had said that there were law firms whose lawyers wouldn't be allowed to go into federal buildings, including federal courthouses,
02:00because Trump didn't like one lawyer who had who used to work there.
02:06And, you know, so like that's the kind of petty vindictive actions he's involved in right now.
02:13And we've got to defend the rule of law because otherwise we're really moving into a different kind of society.
02:18I mean, that's what authoritarianism is all about. The guy at the top gets to run everybody and everything.
02:24And is that ultimately, in your view, the goal of the White House?
02:28I mean, is there another, you know, mission here as to why this White House is targeting Harvard, other Ivy Leagues and potentially other institutions across this country?
02:42Well, you know, he went after what was reputed to be the most prestigious law firm in the country, Paul Weiss.
02:48He's in New York and they caved in. And so he's going after Harvard to see if they'll cave in.
02:54And he believes if he can get these, you know, luminary institutions in their various social domains to capitulate and to appease him, then everybody else will fall in line.
03:05So the ones who have hung tough are showing the way, like Wilmer Hale of the law firms and Perkins Coie.
03:14And, you know, there's other law firms around the country who are saying, no way, you're not going to control us and tell us what to do.
03:20And by standing up, Harvard is showing colleges and universities around the country that they really mean it when they talk about academic freedom.
03:29And they've emboldened and encouraged other institutions to do the same thing.
03:34But, you know, it's throughout society. They're doing the same thing to labor unions.
03:37Trump signed an executive order purporting to strip more than a million federal workers of union protection and the right to engage in collective bargaining,
03:46even modified collective bargaining, not for wages, but just for some of the, you know, the terms of employment.
03:54And those unions with the AFL-CIO and AFGE have gone to court and said, no way, we're not going to let the president of the United States destroy workers' organizing rights and take over our union.
04:06So it's happening across society.
04:09You know, Trump seems primarily motivated in making as much money as possible, but he doesn't want anybody getting in his way, whether it's judges and they've been attacking the judges and judicial independence or law firms or lawyers or 501c3 not-for-profit organizations.
04:25They have, in this most recent legislation, they're trying to power through Congress.
04:31They're trying to give themselves, try to give the president unilateral power to describe a not-for-profit 501c3 organization as a terrorist-supporting organization, then to cut them off.
04:43They could cut off the ACLU.
04:45They could pick any not-for-profit in America and without any real due process, just decree them a terrorist-supporting organization.