0:00

is The Guardian. Today,

0:10

Harvard sues the Trump administration but

0:12

cannot win in the court

0:14

of public opinion. Donald

0:22

Trump styles himself as a

0:24

kind of American king, but

0:26

he has this quality that's

0:28

usually reserved for the court

0:30

jester of pointing out the

0:32

truths of his country that

0:34

are often buried in feel

0:36

-good American myths. Obviously,

0:39

the war in Iraq was a

0:41

big fat mistake. Putin's a

0:43

killer. A lot of killers get a

0:45

lot of killers while you think our country's

0:47

so innocent. I'm doing what I want to do

0:49

with respect to the tariffs. I'm telling you, these

0:51

countries are calling us up,

0:53

kissing my ass. Ed

0:57

Pilkington, Guardian US's chief reporter, has

0:59

been covering the Trump administration's battle

1:01

these past weeks with Harvard University.

1:03

And he sees in that fight

1:05

one of Trump's court jester moments.

1:08

I think back to when I

1:10

was a kid growing up in

1:12

London, at a time

1:14

when the cliche that everyone talked about

1:16

in terms of America was that

1:18

it was a classless society, very

1:21

much promoted by America itself. You

1:23

know, the whole talk about the American dream that

1:26

anyone can make it in America, a

1:28

complete meritocracy, whereas

1:30

Britain was seen as absolutely

1:32

infected by class. For

1:35

Ed, Trump is pointing to something

1:37

true about class in America. It

1:40

exists. The divisions are

1:42

getting deeper and people are pissed off

1:44

about it. What strikes me

1:46

is that Trump's entire campaign

1:48

here is class warfare. He's

1:51

pitching his attack on Harvard

1:53

to his MAGA base and

1:55

we know well that the foundation

1:58

of his vote in November

2:00

was non -college educated,

2:02

white, particularly male.

2:04

Americans. Those are the people

2:06

he's talking to with hostility towards

2:08

this elite ivory tower. And,

2:10

you know, I can't help but think

2:12

of the irony of all that. There

2:17

is so much going on,

2:20

and it's easy to overlook

2:22

Trump's battle with Harvard. But

2:24

Ed says, pay attention. There's

2:26

a lot riding on it.

2:28

And for the Unis being

2:30

targeted, some uncomfortable truths to

2:32

face up to. We're setting

2:34

up this incredible clash of

2:36

cultural narratives, historical narratives,

2:38

political narratives, and it's quite hard

2:40

at this point to know who's

2:42

going to prevail. From

2:45

The Guardian, I'm Michael Safi.

2:47

Today in Focus, why elite

2:49

universities are so vulnerable to

2:51

a Trump takeover? Ed

2:56

Pilkington, your chief reporter

2:58

at Guardian US, On

3:00

the campaign trail, Donald Trump ran

3:02

against lots of enemies. The Biden

3:04

family. And the Biden family is

3:06

a criminal enterprise. The so -called deep

3:08

state. Here's my plan to dismantle

3:10

the deep state and reclaim our

3:12

democracy from Washington corruption. Paper straws

3:14

were a big problem for him.

3:16

Has anybody ever tried those paper

3:18

straws and not work into it?

3:20

One of those enemies was the

3:22

American university system. What did he

3:25

say was his issue with American

3:27

colleges? There were two main lines

3:29

of attack. The first was

3:31

the attack on wokeness, as he

3:33

calls it. The time has come to

3:35

reclaim our once great educational institutions

3:37

from the radical left, and we will

3:39

do that. And the other big

3:41

one, which is probably the most important

3:43

in terms of the current fight

3:46

with Harvard, was anti -Semitism. They're

3:48

obviously anti -Semitic. the

3:50

eruption of campers protests

3:52

on many, many universities,

3:54

including Harvard, after the

3:56

start of the Israel Gaza

3:58

War, were cast by

4:00

the Trump movement as anti

4:02

-Semitic. And that has been...

4:04

the enduring and the main

4:07

thrust of their attack. He

4:09

also wants to see Harvard

4:11

apologize and Harvard should apologize

4:13

for the egregious anti -Semitism that

4:15

took place on their college

4:17

campus against Jewish American students.

4:20

Okay, so in office, Trump

4:22

has chosen as one

4:24

of his university targets America's

4:26

best known college, its

4:28

wealthiest, oldest and most prestigious

4:30

Harvard University. What did

4:32

he ask for from Harvard? This

4:34

has been building for some time.

4:37

Mr. Good, you're recognized for five

4:39

minutes. Thank you, Madam Chairman. We

4:41

saw a little over a year

4:43

ago these very hostile Republican grillings

4:45

in Congress. Why should Congress continue

4:47

to invest money in Harvard when Harvard

4:49

clearly violates Title VI and helps foster a

4:51

hostile environment for Jewish students? It led

4:53

to the resignation of the first black. President

4:56

in Harvard's history, Claudine Gay.

4:58

In her resignation letter sent just

5:00

moments ago, she announced her

5:02

resignation with, quote, a heavy heart

5:04

and said she did not

5:06

come to the decision easily. But

5:09

the real trigger for

5:11

the start of the actual

5:13

confrontation came a little

5:15

over a week ago when

5:17

Trump administration figures sent

5:19

this extraordinary letter, which made

5:21

demands that you know,

5:23

many, many people think were

5:26

impossible for Harvard to accept.

5:28

That includes removing all DEI

5:30

programs, including in hiring and

5:32

admissions, and auditing viewpoints of

5:34

its student body. The big

5:36

stuff was that they had

5:38

to accept federal oversight, which

5:41

is essentially control, government control,

5:43

over the hiring of faculty. and

5:46

over the curriculum and teaching,

5:48

particularly in the most sensitive

5:50

areas such as Middle East

5:52

studies. And this

5:54

was done in the name of

5:57

ensuring what they call, quote

5:59

unquote, viewpoint diversity. In

6:01

other words, the government would

6:03

control what is being taught and

6:05

who is being hired. So

6:07

that was Trump's demand of Harvard.

6:10

What was the threat here? If they

6:12

had said yes, I think Harvard

6:14

would essentially have been finished. I

6:16

mean, they would have no credibility

6:18

left whatsoever among anybody. If

6:20

they said no, there are

6:22

several tools or weapons in Trump's

6:24

armory that he could and indeed

6:26

has started to wield. First off,

6:28

cash. Like many

6:30

universities and colleges in America,

6:33

Harvard receives large sums of federal

6:35

money. often in the

6:37

form of research grants from

6:39

places like the National Institute of

6:41

Health and other areas. And

6:44

in fact, Harvard receives

6:46

about $9 billion of federal

6:48

money every year. Trump

6:50

was threatening, and in fact, reporting

6:52

suggests privately, he was threatening to pull

6:54

the entire $9 billion. And,

6:56

you know, could yet do that, could

6:58

yet do that. This isn't an institution with

7:01

one of the largest endowments in the

7:03

world. In fact, I think it is the

7:05

largest endowment in the world, $53 billion. And

7:08

yet much of that money is

7:10

tied up with various obligations. And so

7:12

there's not a lot of free

7:14

flowing cash. And were they to pull

7:16

$9 billion, that would be a

7:18

very, very hefty punishment. A huge sum

7:20

of money, even for a very,

7:22

very wealthy university. What else could

7:24

Trump throw at them? They could

7:26

rescind potentially the charitable status of

7:28

the institution, which would again cost

7:30

them a huge amount of money.

7:33

One of the big debates is

7:35

accreditation. Even private universities have to

7:37

be quote -unquote accredited by the federal

7:40

government. If they're not

7:42

accredited, if that accreditation is pulled, they

7:44

could find it hard for their

7:46

students to receive federal student loans, which

7:48

is how many, many students in

7:50

America pay for their tuition and for

7:52

their living costs while they're at

7:54

college. I mean, that would be pretty

7:56

astonishing for the federal government to

7:59

pull accreditation for Harvard University, Harvard, one

8:01

of the most famous universities in

8:03

the world. Columbia, another Ivy

8:05

League school in New York,

8:07

was under similar pressure, similar demands,

8:09

and they basically caved. They

8:11

agreed to what the Trump administration

8:14

was asking of them. Columbia

8:16

University gave in to a

8:18

set of partial demands from the

8:21

Trump administration on Friday. The

8:23

school will implement new rules

8:25

regarding how it supervises and

8:27

oversees certain programs in order

8:29

to restore. capitulation

8:31

to the Trump demands was

8:34

pretty in total. They

8:36

agreed to federal oversight of

8:38

many of their courses, including

8:40

the most sensitive courses on

8:42

Israel Palestine. They agreed

8:44

to changing the way their hard

8:47

faculty. I mean, they made

8:49

a lot of really significant concessions.

8:51

And in the wake of that, Columbia

8:54

got nothing back. The

8:56

Trump administration pulling $400 million

8:58

in research grants among other

9:00

funding from Columbia earlier than...

9:02

How did Harvard respond? This

9:04

was at a time when Harvard itself

9:06

looked like it could wobble. They had

9:08

made some concessions. They'd fired

9:10

a couple of people who led

9:13

the Center for Middle East Studies. on

9:15

the campus, which was one of

9:17

the most important bodies for the

9:19

teaching of Israeli and Palestinian history.

9:22

They had introduced a controversial

9:24

definition of anti -Semitism, which

9:26

some people criticized for

9:28

blurring the lines between criticism

9:30

of Israel and anti -Semitism,

9:33

anti -Jewish hate. So they were

9:35

looking like they might wobble. But

9:37

then we saw Harvard stand up.

9:40

Harvard says it is not going

9:42

to do it. Posting on X,

9:44

the university will not surrender its

9:46

independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.

9:48

Neither Harvard nor any other private

9:50

university can allow itself to be

9:52

taken over by the federal government.

9:54

I mean, that's brave. That is

9:56

principled. How did it stand up

9:58

against Donald Trump? What did he

10:00

do next? Right. Well, immediately the

10:02

threat started becoming facts. He

10:05

slapped on 2 .2 billion dollars

10:07

of cuts. Tonight, it's an

10:09

all -out battle between Harvard University

10:11

and the Trump administration. The

10:14

Department of Education freezing more

10:16

than $2 billion in federal money.

10:18

Earlier this week, it became

10:20

clear that they're seriously considering a

10:22

further $1 billion of cuts.

10:24

Trump is now threatening to pull

10:26

another billion dollars in funding. And

10:28

they have made it clear

10:31

that they do intend to try

10:33

and remove tax exempt status

10:35

from Harvard. which would

10:37

be a move that most people

10:39

think would be entirely illegal

10:41

because the executive, the president, cannot

10:43

tell the IRS, the tax

10:45

agency what to do, but they

10:47

are talking about that. And

10:49

as we're seeing with Trump, who

10:51

right across the piece with

10:53

other walks of life as well,

10:55

he's shooting first, answering questions

10:57

later. Can

11:06

Trump just do this? Can he

11:08

cut billions of dollars of federal funding

11:10

just on a whim like that?

11:12

What can Harvard do in response? The

11:15

straight answer to that is yes, because

11:17

he has. He's actually done it. They

11:19

have cut this money. What

11:21

can Harvard do? Well, it can

11:23

do a couple of things. First

11:26

off, it can challenge it legally.

11:28

And we saw that this week.

11:30

Harvard University is now suing the

11:32

Trump administration. over those multi -billion

11:34

dollar cuts to research funding for

11:36

the school. Harvard is calling it

11:38

in the suit unconstitutional and illegal.

11:41

So Harvard has become the first

11:43

university in America to lodge a

11:45

lawsuit challenging these massive cuts, billions

11:47

of dollars of cuts, on grounds

11:49

that it's a breach of First

11:51

Amendment free speech rights because he's

11:54

using federal funds to try and

11:56

tell Harvard what to think and

11:58

say, essentially. And

12:00

also arguing that they've gone beyond

12:02

federal regulations. They've gone beyond their

12:04

powers. They can't do this to

12:06

a private university. We're

12:08

going to see how that plays

12:10

out. They've got a very powerful

12:12

and strong legal argument. The

12:14

other important area is about talking

12:17

to the public and trying to win

12:19

over American hearts and minds. And

12:21

that's been the other huge area where

12:23

Harvard is really taking the lead

12:25

now. I want to talk about

12:27

that fight for hearts and minds, but Ed

12:30

so much has happened over

12:32

the past three months. The Trump

12:34

administration moves at a blistering

12:36

pace. It's hard to know where

12:38

to just keep your focus

12:40

on. But how big do you

12:42

think the stakes are around

12:44

this fight between Trump and America's

12:46

most prestigious university? Of everything

12:48

we've seen yet, this is the

12:50

seminal battle of our day. Why

12:53

is that? Well, I think

12:55

Harvard has a unique status, prestige.

12:59

wealth global household familiarity

13:02

Trump has taken

13:04

on something that is

13:06

Kind of as

13:08

iconic as he is

13:10

right there matched

13:12

in terms of sheer

13:14

heft of cultural

13:16

significance and popular awareness

13:18

But the other

13:20

thing is you know

13:22

a place of

13:24

intellectual debate of free

13:26

speech and of

13:28

discovery in terms of

13:30

what he's trying to do,

13:32

which increasingly people are

13:34

seeing as an undiluted

13:36

attempt to turn American democracy

13:39

into an authoritarian dictatorship

13:41

almost run by him

13:43

personally. You know, there

13:45

is no other battlefield as seminal

13:47

as that. Ed,

13:55

why do you think that universities

13:57

like Harvard, the whole Ivy League

14:00

is such an appealing target to

14:02

Trump and the MAGA movement? Trump

14:04

has had Harvard and the other

14:06

elite universities in his sights for

14:08

many, many months. People

14:10

on the far right who

14:12

have kind of rallied

14:15

around Trump see the liberal

14:17

thinking and the liberal

14:19

debate that happens on elite

14:21

universities and right across

14:23

colleges in America. as

14:25

a breeding ground of politics

14:27

that they think stand in

14:30

the way of what they

14:32

want. How do we care

14:34

for the needy in society? How do

14:36

we try and overcome hunger? How

14:38

do we ensure equality and justice?

14:40

How do we support the rule of

14:42

law in America? These things

14:45

are all seen as kind of barriers

14:47

to what the MAGA movement in shorthand

14:49

wants to achieve. And I think

14:51

that's what they're really going after here. They're not

14:53

going after protecting Jewish students

14:56

on campus, though they're

14:58

using that as an argument,

15:00

they want to destroy

15:02

the entire edifice of liberal

15:04

education, of which higher

15:06

education is a pinnacle. And

15:08

when the Trump administration uses

15:10

these allegations of antisemitism as

15:12

part of their way of

15:14

trying to bring these institutions

15:16

to heel, I mean,

15:18

is there anything to that that

15:20

antisemitism has been allowed to

15:22

flourish? I mean, that itself is

15:24

a very vexed and difficult

15:26

question. And I think it's interesting

15:28

that in his most recent

15:31

message this week describing why they

15:33

issued the lawsuit, President

15:35

Garber did so consciously as a

15:37

Jew. He said, as a Jew

15:39

and as an American, I

15:41

know there are very valid concerns

15:43

about rising anti -Semitism in this country.

15:45

So he addressed it head on. And

15:48

he said that Harvard would continue to

15:50

wrestle with this issue and to find

15:52

ways to make sure that Jewish students

15:55

were safe on campus and that antisemitism

15:57

had no place on campus. So

15:59

yes, I think there have been issues in

16:01

Harvard and elsewhere, but

16:03

I think it's been

16:05

definitely, undeniably,

16:08

used as a ruse

16:10

by the Trump administration and the MAGA

16:12

movement, and it's been vastly overblown

16:14

as a political weapon. So

16:17

it's a very vexed and difficult area.

16:19

I think in short, there have

16:21

been issues of anti -Semitism sort of

16:23

woven in with the protests. One

16:25

should not confuse that with

16:28

the legitimacy of those

16:30

protests themselves, which were about

16:32

protesting Israeli military overreach and

16:34

the humanitarian disaster that

16:36

continues to unfold in Gaza.

16:39

How much is the way

16:41

that Trump frames these places

16:43

as out of touch, breeding

16:45

grounds for extremism, for wokeness,

16:47

that kind of thing. How

16:49

much is that perception shared

16:51

by the public? What

16:53

we've been seeing, I mean, historically, universities

16:55

have been fantastically popular

16:58

institutions in America. And,

17:00

you know, in a way, they're part of the American

17:02

dream. People have aspired to go to college, become the

17:04

first person in their family to go to college, and

17:06

that has been one of

17:08

the stepping stones that have

17:10

been seen as a way to

17:13

advance in this so -called classless

17:15

meritocratic society. So

17:17

they've traditionally enjoyed huge

17:19

popular support, but it's

17:21

significant that we've seen that

17:23

waning quite dramatically in the last

17:25

10, 15 years. Gallup

17:28

has been holding opinion polls

17:30

on this and it shows

17:32

sort of confidence levels plummeting

17:34

from well over half having high

17:36

confidence in universities to something

17:38

like 36 per cent, so

17:40

about almost a third. And

17:43

it's a very worrying facet

17:45

of what's happening to universities. But

17:47

what is it about universities that

17:49

is turning people off compared to

17:51

15, 20 years ago? I think

17:53

there are many factors, but I'll just point

17:55

to two. One is

17:58

paradoxically that this growth

18:00

in inequality in America which universities

18:02

as we've been discussing have actually

18:04

been kind of pushing back against

18:07

through intellectual thought about how do

18:09

you create a more equitable society,

18:11

all the liberal debate that you're

18:13

having on campuses. And

18:15

yet we've seen this huge growth

18:17

in inequality and people are kind

18:19

of fed up. They think, who's

18:21

looking after them? And they see

18:23

these elite institutions and they think,

18:25

well, they're not helping me. And

18:28

it's very much tied to the

18:30

second thing, which is that the

18:32

costs of university education

18:34

have skyrocketed. I mean,

18:36

unbelievably, in the last

18:38

10, 15 years, to

18:41

unimaginable heights. You

18:43

know, it should be said that many

18:45

students at Harvard and other places like

18:47

it are on full rides. In other

18:49

words, they're paying nothing, certainly in tuition,

18:52

and they may be getting help with

18:54

their living costs too. And

18:56

then if you're super wealthy,

18:58

you can afford Harvard anyway.

19:00

But in that middle bracket,

19:02

They're struggling because let's look

19:04

at next year's academic year

19:06

at Harvard. Tuition plus living

19:08

costs which is housing and

19:10

food basically is reaching for

19:12

the annual fee almost $90

19:14

,000. But hold on, that's

19:16

one year and these are four year

19:18

courses. So you do the math. And

19:20

in other places like Yale, for instance, they

19:23

are getting a whisker close to

19:25

a sort of gruesome landmark which

19:27

is $100 ,000 a year. That's

19:29

400 grand for a degree. For

19:32

an undergraduate degree, that's right. It's

19:34

like an unsustainable part of American

19:36

life, which, you know, I've lived

19:38

here almost 20 years and I've

19:40

watched it every year go up

19:42

five grand a year and you

19:44

just think this is non -sustainable. It's

19:47

a crisis. Everyone knows it. Everyone's known

19:49

it's been coming for 20 years and yet

19:51

no one seems to have the imagination

19:54

or the will to try and

19:56

deal with it. And this is

19:58

in places that are factories of

20:00

imagination, right? University campuses. So it's

20:02

bizarre and it's very disturbing and

20:04

I think it's a big trouble,

20:06

particularly at this moment, where they're

20:09

in this existential fight to save

20:11

themselves, really. I mean, it's

20:13

one of the many cases we

20:15

see where Trump points to a

20:17

liberal failing. In this case, the

20:19

fact that universities have gotten more

20:21

expensive, more out of reach for

20:23

middle -class Americans, except he's exploiting

20:25

it not to fix the problem,

20:27

but for his own political purposes. Right,

20:30

and we see that with

20:32

Trump right across the board.

20:34

He adopts the sensibility of

20:36

the person he's targeting, claims

20:38

it for himself and uses

20:41

it to... at them. So,

20:43

critically, his main

20:45

pillar in terms of attacking

20:47

Harvard is in the name

20:49

of free speech. And

20:51

by making that argument, he's making

20:53

the biggest threat to free

20:55

speech that America's seen, I

20:58

don't know, maybe ever. Coming

21:05

up, they filed a lawsuit, but

21:07

how else is Harvard gearing up for

21:09

the fight of its life? If

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audio. So

22:27

Ed, you have characterized this as

22:29

a battle in part for the hearts

22:31

and minds of the American public.

22:33

So what is Harvard bringing to that

22:35

fight? How are they trying to

22:37

change their public perception? Well, the

22:39

first thing that many of us

22:41

saw a little over a week ago

22:44

when Harvard finally stood up and

22:46

said, no, was we clicked on

22:48

their website to find out what's going

22:50

on. And it completely transformed. Harvard's

22:53

website, the front page, like any

22:55

other university in the country, was all

22:57

about admissions. So it's like, go

23:00

here if you want to apply for the School of

23:02

Arts. Go here if you want to apply for the

23:04

medical school. Suddenly, the front

23:06

page of Harvard's website was

23:08

talking about how we serve

23:10

you, the people. And

23:13

it began, I think,

23:15

significantly with medical, particularly medical,

23:17

but scientific innovation. They

23:20

talked about the fight against

23:22

cancer. They talked to fight against

23:24

infectious diseases. And they said

23:26

that these are the things that Trump is

23:28

now threatening. And I wanted

23:30

to read to you, after they

23:32

lodged the lawsuit earlier this week, the

23:35

president of Harvard, Garber, he

23:37

put out a second message

23:39

circulating to everybody. And

23:42

these are his words from Garber. Research

23:45

that the government has put

23:47

in jeopardy includes, quote, efforts

23:49

to improve the prospects of

23:51

children who survive cancer, to

23:54

predict the spread of infectious

23:56

disease outbreaks, and to ease

23:58

the pain of soldiers wounded on

24:00

the battlefield. And then he went

24:02

on, and

24:06

for me, this is personal.

24:08

i look to this new website

24:10

and it said we're fighting

24:13

cancer i clicked on that and

24:15

under that it had all

24:17

these different ways of fighting cancer

24:19

and then it said researching

24:21

recurrence of glioblastoma which is the

24:24

most deadly brain tumor and

24:26

it said this is the researchers

24:28

under threat and it was

24:30

researching how this deadly brain tumor

24:32

recurs and how it comes

24:35

back it sits there and then

24:37

it starts to grow again

24:39

and that's when you know you're

24:41

in real trouble. And

24:44

that's personal to me because my

24:46

wife, Jessica, she died of

24:48

glioblastoma four years ago. I

24:50

know what recurrence is. I've been

24:52

through it with her. And I know

24:54

the terror and the agony it

24:56

causes to you and your family. And

24:59

so that spoke to me. If

25:01

they do cut that research

25:03

project, I will feel that like

25:06

a knife to me because

25:08

it's real. Ed, thank you

25:10

for sharing that. It really

25:12

illustrates the human cost of these

25:14

kinds of cuts that we're

25:16

seeing. It sounds like

25:18

this whole campaign by Trump

25:20

is forcing Harvard to do

25:22

something that it hasn't had

25:24

to do for decades, maybe

25:27

for its whole history, which

25:29

is, I guess, sell itself

25:31

to the public, explain why

25:33

Harvard and its independence matters.

25:36

I think that's right. And I think, you know,

25:38

if and when the dust settles, it

25:41

could well be one of the big

25:43

questioners is like, why did they leave

25:45

it so late? Why did this happen

25:47

so late? Why weren't they doing this

25:49

anyway? When I say

25:51

they, Harvard is just the spearhead

25:53

of this whole thing. It's

25:55

a society -wide issue. Why

25:57

didn't the cost of education get

25:59

dealt with? Why weren't Americans helped to

26:02

understand why this is so critical?

26:04

Why did people who didn't go to

26:06

college Why weren't they helped in

26:08

other ways, like in terms

26:10

of their daily lives more? And

26:12

why was this huge inequality allowed

26:14

to build up? So these are the

26:16

big structural questions that we're now

26:18

confronted with. Yeah. I mean, these are

26:20

the questions that, as you say,

26:22

Trump is forcing us to ask of

26:24

so many institutions. How did you

26:26

let these problems get so bad that

26:28

someone like Trump could come to

26:30

power twice? Do you

26:32

think that this kind of campaign, this

26:34

appeal to the public that Harvard is

26:36

mounting, this is why we matter? Do

26:39

you think it's going to work? Wow.

26:41

Well, that's the billion dollar question. I

26:43

mean, actually, literally, in this case, it's

26:45

a billion dollar question, right? About 2

26:47

.2 billion dollar question. Well, I mean,

26:50

probably going up quite rapidly soon. I

26:52

think it's a billion dollar question for

26:54

this reason. The strategy is powerful. They've

26:56

got a strong argument here and they've got.

26:59

important and strong values behind

27:02

them. Against that, you've

27:04

got Trump, who is Mr.

27:06

Strongman, that's who he wants to

27:08

be, and he has

27:10

himself incredibly powerful narratives,

27:13

and clearly his base, which

27:16

may be a third of the voting public,

27:18

more or less, but also

27:20

the many, many more he voted for him

27:22

last time, 77 million in total. Who,

27:24

you know, they probably don't like him

27:26

that much. They don't like everything he's doing,

27:29

but they like his energy. They like

27:31

his, him tearing stuff up. They think at

27:33

last something's being done for them. So,

27:40

Eddie, you've talked about, on the one

27:42

hand, the battle happening in the courts,

27:44

on the other, the battle of public

27:47

opinion. Ultimately, what will victory

27:49

come down to? Which of those

27:51

two arenas matters more? I kind

27:53

of think in the short term,

27:56

it's the courts that will

27:58

determine the parameters of how

28:00

far he goes in the

28:02

short term. You know, Trump

28:04

has bypassed Congress, he's

28:06

going ahead and doing stuff

28:08

even though it's patently unlawful and

28:10

unconstitutional, and only the courts

28:12

can stop him do that. In

28:15

the longer term, I think we

28:17

have no idea how far Trump will

28:19

go and how far he'll be

28:21

allowed to go. in his bid to

28:23

destroy fundamental aspects of American democracy

28:25

and reshape the country in his mould.

28:27

And we don't know how far

28:29

he will go because that depends on

28:31

how far the American people allow

28:33

him to go. And

28:35

I think this struggle between

28:37

Harvard and Trump over free speech

28:39

on campuses is one absolutely

28:42

critical test of that. Lyd,

28:45

thank you for coming and telling us

28:47

about it. Thank you. And

28:51

that was Ed Pilkington, Guardian

28:54

US's chief reporter. His work

28:56

on this story is at

28:58

TheGuardian.com. For more news

29:00

from the US, listen to Politics

29:02

Weekly America with Jonathan Friedland.

29:04

This week, Johnny is talking to

29:06

Liz Oyer, the former pardon

29:08

attorney fired by the Trump administration

29:10

after refusing to restore gun

29:13

rights to Mel Gibson, the actor

29:15

Mel Gibson. The episode asks,

29:17

are the courts starting to turn

29:19

against Trump? And if he

29:21

continues to ignore them, is America

29:23

heading for a constitutional crisis?

29:25

That's Politics Weekly America, wherever you

29:27

listen to today. focus. And

29:32

that's it for today. This

29:34

episode was produced by George McDonough,

29:36

Matthew Pierce and Eleanor Biggs. Sound

29:38

design was by Joel Cox. The

29:40

executive producer was Courtney Youssef, and

29:42

we're back with you tomorrow. Here

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