Trump administration finds Harvard in ‘violent violation’ of Civil Rights Act, threatens funding loss
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(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration is threatening all of Harvard University‘s federal funding after it said it found the university to be in “violent violation” of the Civil Rights Act, according to a new letter sent to the university that was viewed by ABC News.
The letter, sent to Harvard’s President Alan Garber on Monday, detailed the findings of an investigation into antisemitism on the campus by the Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights. The letter said the investigation found that Harvard is in violation of Title VI, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin.
In response, Harvard once again condemned the Trump administration’s threats to strip it of federal funds and defended its work to combat alleged antisemitism.
“Harvard is far from indifferent on this issue and strongly disagrees with the government’s findings,” a Harvard spokesperson wrote in a statement to ABC News.
“Harvard has made significant strides to combat bigotry, hate and bias. We are not alone in confronting this challenge and recognize that this work is ongoing. We remain committed to ensuring members of our Jewish and Israeli community are embraced, respected, and can thrive at Harvard,” the statement added.
The federal government’s joint task force to combat antisemitism’s monthslong review into Harvard’s practices and policies has been focused on keeping Jewish students safe on campus, according to Education Secretary Linda McMahon.
According to the letter, the investigation found evidence that Jewish and Israeli students reported assaults and concealed their Jewish identities on campus, as well as found that demonstrations and encampments on the university’s campus were not properly punished.
The letter added that Harvard was found to be “in some cases deliberately indifferent” to and in other cases “a willful participant” in the harassment of Jewish students.
“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” the letter said. “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”
McMahon said in a statement Monday on X that she worries Harvard’s “persistent indifference” to combating antisemitism isn’t conducive to a safe environment for all students and applauded the administration’s efforts to root out alleged discrimination.
“The Trump Administration’s work to restore equal enforcement of civil rights on American campuses continues,” McMahon said in the post, which also shared the letter sent to Harvard.
This is the latest in a campaign of targeted moves from the Trump administration against the university. The Trump administration has already frozen more than $2 billion in grants to Harvard, threatened to rescind its tax-exempt status and gone after the university’s ability to enroll foreign students. Earlier this month, Trump said that it was “very possible” that a “deal” with Harvard University would be announced in the coming days, although no such deal seems to have happened.
McMahon has suggested frozen federal funding could be restored through ongoing negotiations between impacted schools and the administration.
“It would be my goal that if universities, colleges and universities, are abiding by the laws of the United States and doing what we are expecting of them that they can expect to have taxpayer-funded programs,” McMahon said during a Bloomberg Fireside Chat earlier this month.
ABC News’ Arthur Jones contributed to this report.
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(WASHINGTON) — More than 175 Democratic members of Congress are filing an amicus brief on Thursday opposing the Trump administration’s overhaul of the U.S. Department of Education.
“The law couldn’t be clearer: the president does not have the authority to unilaterally abolish the Department of Education,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrote in a statement first obtained by ABC News, adding, “Donald Trump is not a king, and he cannot single-handedly cut off access to education for students across this country.”
Warren and Reps. Jamie Raskin, Bobby Scott and Rosa DeLauro — the ranking members of the House’s Education and Judiciary committees — are leading the 15-page legal document. They’re joined by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, more than 20 Senate Democrats, and more than 150 other members of the House Democratic caucus.
The lawmakers’ brief attempting to block the administration from abolishing the Department of Education is in support of the NAACP’s suit against the government this past spring. In March, that case argued that downsizing the department through a workforce reduction that slashed nearly half the agency’s staff — among other measures like terminating statutory grant programs — violates the separation of powers and lacks constitutional authority.
The NAACP, the National Education Association (NEA), and a coalition of groups filed a preliminary injunction with the U.S. District Court in the District of Maryland this week, arguing the judge’s consideration of this case is needed after the administration’s recent decision to pause more than $6 billion in congressionally appropriated education programs ahead of the school year.
“The motion seeks a remedy for the serious harm that the Trump Administration has inflicted on students, educators, schools, and colleges and universities, and asks the Court to direct the Department to fulfill its statutory obligations to students nationwide,” according to a statement released by the NEA, which represents more than 3 million educators.
Raskin condemned the administration’s efforts to curb public education, contending President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon can’t abolish the agency without congressional approval.
“Congress created the Department of Education to ensure that every student in America could obtain a high-quality, free public school education,” Raskin wrote in a statement. “This is the right of every citizen and an essential democratic safeguard against political tyranny,” he said.
“No president has the authority to dismantle a federal agency created by law. We’re going to court to defend not only congressional power but the department’s national educational mission, itself a pillar of American democracy,” Raskin added.
The power to reorganize the executive branch belongs to Congress and is underscored by the fact that when presidents have reorganized the executive branch, they have done so “through legislation and subject to appropriate restraints,” according to the brief by the lawmakers.
Their brief argues that only Congress has the authority to create, restructure, and abolish federal agencies, it has to be done through legislation, and the Department of Education can’t be unilaterally abolished because it’s statutorily mandated.
Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colorado, told ABC News closing the department would strip “vital support” from tens of millions of students and teachers.
“I’m proud to stand with my colleagues in the House and Senate to uphold Congress’ responsibility to ensure every student has access to a quality education and to defend the essential work of the Department of Education,” Neguse said.
Efforts to dismantle the department have been blocked by lower courts this spring. The Supreme Court is expected to weigh in on a Massachusetts case that could decide whether the firing of nearly 2,000 employees at the agency stands. McMahon has stressed the critical functions of the department remain and that services like students with disabilities, for example, could ultimately be moved to other agencies.
The brief is part of Warren’s larger Save Our Schools campaign that she started after Trump signed an executive order to diminish the Department of Education.
“The federal government has invested in our public schools,” Warren told ABC News in April. “Taking that away from our kids so that a handful of billionaires can be even richer is just plain ugly, and I will fight it with everything I’ve got.”
The senator has previously requested the agency’s Office of Inspector General review the Department of Government Efficiency’s alleged “infiltration” of the agency’s internal federal student loan database. Prior to the Save Our Schools campaign, she investigated the firing of federal student aid employees and how a reduction in staff at the agency could have “dire consequences” for borrowers.
The brief also comes after Raskin and several other House Democrats met with McMahon about the future of the agency. That meeting appeared to leave many with unanswered questions, like Rep. Frederica Wilson, a senior member of the House Education and Workforce Committee, who also signed on to the amicus brief.
“For the Department of Education to be dismantled, it is going to bring a shock to this nation,” said Wilson, a former principal and lifelong educator. “Schools are the bedrock of this nation. When schools are working, our country is, too.”
(WASHINGTON) — Republican Sen. Thom Tillis’ decision not to seek reelection is jolting what was already expected to be a fierce battle in North Carolina to either challenge him or flip his seat, which will now be wide open in 2026.
Without Tillis on the ballot, Republicans have been floating their ideal candidate to hold onto their slim majority in the Senate, many of whom are less critical of President Donald Trump than Tillis, including allies Michael Whatley, chairman of the GOP, and the president’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump.
A Republican National Committee official waved ABC News off the notion that Whatley, who used to lead the North Carolina GOP, was leaving his post, saying that Whatley currently has no plans to look at another office for the time being.
“Chairman Whatley is focused on serving the president and working with his team to protect and expand our Republican majorities in the midterms,” the official, who was granted anonymity to discuss deliberations, said.
Lara Trump, who also faces mounting external pressure to run in her native North Carolina, told Fox News Radio on Monday that she would certainly consider the possibility.
“North Carolina is my home state. It’s where I was born and raised. It made me the person I am today…if it works out and the timing works, and it works out for my family, it is absolutely something that I would consider doing,” she explained.
President Trump told reporters on Tuesday that he’d be excited for his daughter-in-law to run: “Somebody that would really be great is Lara. She grew up there … Lara Trump, I mean, that would always be my first choice.”
But he added later that he hasn’t talked to her directly about the potential bid, and that other Republicans could be successful, too.
“I don’t know who the candidates are going to be. I think you can have one of the congressmen step up,” he said.
Lara Trump, who ruled out a Senate run in Florida earlier in the year, would likely be the frontrunner if she entered. Other potential contenders, like Rep. Pat Harrigan said Tuesday in a post on X that he would back Lara Trump if she chose to run.
“There’s lots of excitement around the 2026 Senate race, but let me be crystal clear about something: if @LaraLeaTrump enters this race, I’ll be the first to endorse her and the first to fight for her victory,” Harrigan wrote.
In addition to Trump, other North Carolina Republicans who could be considering Senate bids including Reps. Greg Murphy and Addison McDowell, sources familiar with the situation told ABC News. North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudson, who chairs the campaign arm of House Republicans, said on Tuesday he would not run.
Regardless of the candidate, the North Carolina GOP said in a statement it feels confident that another Republican will take Tillis’ place.
“Senator Tillis has announced his decision to not seek re-election to the U.S. Senate and we wish him well in his retirement from public service. As we move forward into the midterm elections, we will hold this seat for Republicans in 2026 and continue to deliver on President Trump’s America First priorities,” North Carolina GOP Chairman Jason Simmons said.
Democrats disagree and find Tillis’ retirement an opportunity to make up for ground the lost in 2024. Former U.S. Rep. Wiley Nickel has already announced a run, and wrote on X on Sunday, “Thom Tillis is out. No matter which MAGA loyalist Trump picks, I’m the only Democrat in this race and I’m ready to win.”
Yet the candidate atop North Carolina Democrats’ wish list is their former governor, Roy Cooper. A spokesperson for Cooper told ABC News he’s strongly considering a run and will announce his decision “in the coming weeks.
Anderson Clayton, the chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party, told ABC News in an interview Monday that as she has been “going around the state and going around all my different counties, what I’ve heard the most from folks is that they would love to see Governor Cooper get in this race.”
But Clayton, even as she praised Cooper’s strong approval ratings and the desire among many for him to run, pointed to a “bench” of others she said were strong candidates, including Nickel and Lt. Gov. Rachel Hunt. A spokesperson for Hunt’s lieutenant governor campaign told ABC News that Hunt believes Cooper will run but that “if the field shifts, she’ll give it thoughtful consideration.”
Clayton said she believes Democrats will handily flip the seat no matter who is on the ticket.
“I think that the Republican Party is running away from Thom Tillis, which is what we saw from the announcement [Sunday] … We immediately saw the president deciding that he was going to find a primary challenger for Tillis. And I think it shows that North Carolina Democrats are in a prime position to be able to take this seat, especially now that it’s an open seat,” she said.
She said the party had also seen an influx in donations and volunteers since Tillis announced his retirement.
Cooper would be “a real powerhouse” if he decided to enter the race, Davidson College political science professor Susan Roberts told ABC News. She contrasted Cooper with the progressive New York Assembly member Zohran Mamdani, the presumptive Democratic primary nominee for mayor of New York City.
“[Cooper] may not be the shiniest object [or] have the campaign that helped Mamdani in the New York mayor’s primary, he may not have that shiny social media presence, but I think he has the gravitas to be a good candidate, and I think he would know how to govern,” Roberts said.
Mac McCorkle, a professor at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy, said Lara Trump’s powerful name recognition could clear the Republican primary field.
“The other Republicans who were thinking about it are kind of no-names,” McCorkle said. “I think it’s Lara Trump’s to refuse.”
He said while less-known candidates might need to take positions heavily to the right to win over “the MAGA base” in the primary, Lara Trump’s connection to President Trump could help her gain support without having to do so, making her more appealing to moderate voters later on in the general election.
On the other hand, Jason Roberts, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, saw Lara Trump’s family connection to the president as a potential disadvantage.
“Midterm elections typically don’t go well for the president’s party, because the out-party is fired up. The in-party typically doesn’t have as high a turnout,” Roberts said. “What successful presidential party candidates do in a midterm is they try to distinguish themselves from that president. And if you’re running a candidate whose last name is Trump, that’s going to be really, really difficult to do.”
ABC News’ Hannah Demissie and Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump continues to face backlash from his MAGA supporters over his administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
The Justice Department and FBI said in a brief memo that a review found no Epstein “client list” and confirmed the disgraced financier died by suicide in prison while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
The president has tried to shift focus away from the case, urging Attorney General Pam Bondi to release “whatever she thinks is credible” before going on to claim without evidence the entire thing was what he calls a “Democratic hoax.”
Some Republicans have fueled the Epstein intrigue and conspiracies surrounding the case for years, with Trump himself weighing in several times.
Here’s what Trump has said about Epstein during his first term, on the campaign trail and now as pressure builds on him to release the Epstein files.
2019: Trump distances himself from Epstein: ‘Not a fan’
After Epstein was arrested and charged with sex trafficking of minors in July 2019, Trump was asked about his 2002 comments in which he called Epstein “terrific” in a New York Magazine story.
In response, Trump repeatedly said he wasn’t a “fan” of Epstein.
“Well, I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “I mean, people in Palm Beach knew him. He was a fixture in Palm Beach. I had a falling out with him a long time ago. I don’t think I’ve spoken to him for 15 years. I wasn’t a fan. I was not, yeah, a long time ago, I’d say maybe 15 years. I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you. I was not a fan of his.”
In August 2019, after Epstein’s death, Trump retweeted a post that alleged Bill Clinton was connected to Epstein’s death.
When asked about his retweet in an interview, Trump said “what we’re saying is we want an investigation. I want a full investigation, and that’s what I absolutely am demanding. That’s what our attorney general — our great attorney general — is doing.” The attorney general at the time was Bill Barr.
Pressed further on if he really believed the Clintons were involved, Trump didn’t shut it down.
“I have no idea,” he said, but encouraged further questions. “So you have to ask: Did Bill Clinton go to the island? That’s the question. If you find that out, you’re going to know a lot,” Trump said at the time.
Clinton has denied any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and has denied ever visiting Epstein’s private island.
2020: Trump suggested Epstein may have been killed
In August 2020, during the thick of his reelection campaign, Trump suggested Epstein may have been killed while in federal custody.
The comments went against the findings of then-Attorney General Barr and the New York City medical examiner who ruled the death a suicide.
During an interview with Axios reporter Jonathan Swan, Trump was asked about Ghislaine Maxwell, an associate of Epstein who at the time of the interview had just been arrested. She is currently serving a 20-year sentence for conspiring with and aiding Epstein in his sexual abuse of underage girls.
“Her boyfriend died in jail. And people are still trying to figure out how did it happen,” Trump said. “Was it suicide? Was he killed? And I do wish her well. I’m not looking for anything bad for her.”
In August 2023, in an interview with Tucker Carlson, Trump was pressed further on if he believed Epstein committed suicide or not.
“Do you think it’s possible that Epstein was killed?” Carlson asked.
“Oh, sure, it’s possible. I mean, I don’t really believe — I think he probably committed suicide,” Trump said.
2024: Trump asked about Epstein on the campaign trail
In June 2024, Trump was asked if he would release various files — including the John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. assassination files and the Epstein files — during an interview with Fox News.
“Would you declassify the Epstein files?” Fox News’ Rachel Campos-Duffy asked. Trump responded, “Yeah, yeah, I would.”
That clip was circulated widely online, including by the Trump War Room — the social media account of Trump’s campaign operation. The account posted it to X with the caption: “President Trump says he will DECLASSIFY the 9/11 Files, JFK Files, and Epstein Files.”
But Trump’s full answer to the question wasn’t shown until it played on Will Cain’s radio show.
Trump went on to say in the exchange with Campos-Duffy: “I don’t know about Epstein so much as I do the others. Certainly about the way he died. It’d be interesting to find out what happened there, because that was a weird situation and the cameras didn’t happen to be working, etc., etc. But yeah, I’d go a long way toward that one.”
In September 2024, Trump made a more firm pledge to release Epstein files during a podcast with Lex Fridman.
Fridman, in conversation with Trump, said “it’s just very strange for a lot of people that the list of clients that went to the island has not been made public.”
“It’s very interesting, isn’t it? It probably will be, by the way, probably,” Trump said.
“If you’re able to, you’ll be –” Fridman started before Trump jumped in.
“Yeah, I’d certainly take a look at it. Now, Kennedy’s interesting because it’s so many years ago,” Trump said. “They do that for danger too, because it endangers certain people, et cetera, et cetera, so Kennedy is very different from the Epstein thing but I’d be inclined to do the Epstein. I’d have no problem with it.”
2025: Trump tries to dismiss Epstein files after DOJ, FBI memo prompts GOP backlash
For the first several months of his administration, talk of the Epstein files was mostly left to Trump officials, including Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino. In April, Trump said he was unaware of when the files would be released.
Then, after the DOJ and FBI released their memo on July 7, Trump reacted to outrage from his MAGA base.
Trump tried to shut down a question about Epstein during a Cabinet meeting the next day, July 8, right after the deadly flash flooding of the Guadalupe River.
“Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?” Trump shot back to a reporter. “This guy’s been talked about for years. You’re asking. We have Texas, we have this. We have all of the things. And are people still talking about this guy, this creep? That is unbelievable.”
Trump then turned to defend Bondi in a lengthy social media post on July 12, in which he said his administration and his supporters should prioritize their focus elsewhere.
“We have a PERFECT Administration, THE TALK OF THE WORLD, and ‘selfish people’ are trying to hurt it, all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein,” Trump wrote in the post.
The story, though, didn’t die down and Trump only appeared to grow more angered by the pushback from his supporters.
On July 15, Trump appeared to put the onus on Bondi for what comes next, saying she should release “whatever she thinks is credible” on Epstein. Later that day, Trump said he didn’t understand the interest in Epstein.
“It’s pretty boring stuff. It’s sordid, but it’s boring, and I don’t understand why it keeps going,” Trump said. He added, “I think really only pretty bad people, including fake news, want to keep something like that going.”
The next day, on July 16, Trump took to social media baselessly blaming Democrats for the files and those who he called “past supporters” of his for the fixation on Epstein.
“Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this “b——,” hook, line, and sinker,” Trump wrote on his own conservative social media platform.
“Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore!” Trump added.
Trump doubled down on that claim in the Oval Office, calling it a Democratic “hoax.” When asked by ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce if the attorney general told him it was a hoax or what evidence he’d seen of that, Trump replied:
“The attorney general, no. I know it’s a hoax. It’s started by Democrats,” Trump insisted. He added “some stupid” and “foolish” Republicans had fallen for it.
ABC News’ Will Steakin contributed to this report.
