CNN
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There are things almost all autocrats do.
They discredit democratic election systems; they seek to delegitimize the judiciary and politicize the military.
The current administration is often accused of doing all this and more. President Donald Trump falsely claimed voter fraud in 2020; Vice President JD Vance told the New York Times this week it was “profoundly wrong” to say the Supreme Court can strike down presidential acts; and Trump plans to hold a vast military parade on his own birthday.
Those who worry that Trump is taking the country down an anti-democratic path had more reason to worry on Thursday when he used two more staples of the strongman’s playbook.
Trump aimed his most stinging shot yet at higher education — a rival source of authority, free thought and facts that often clash with his version of reality. And he fueled fears he could enable the kind of corruption that rots democracies with an event that looked a lot like a move to profit from the presidency.
The escalation in Trump’s battle with Harvard University came as the administration barred its capacity to enroll foreign students. Such pressure echoes the actions of authoritarian leaders like MAGA hero Viktor Orbán of Hungary, who cracked down on the academy to enhance his own power.
Then, Trump appeared at his golf club in Virginia for dinner with investors from around the world who sunk millions of dollars into his cryptocurrency meme coin, drawing concerns that foreigners are enriching the US leader and buying access.
The pressure on America’s democratic institutions so far bears no comparisons with the deprivations of a true totalitarian society, where there’s a culture of fear, where neighbor fears neighbor and where an oppressive state imposes a deep psychological toll on citizens.
But these fresh administration moves both involved the flexing of presidential power toward ends that might appear legally or ethically questionable. And they also fit into the category of presidential acts that ordinary citizens lack the capacity to influence — mirroring how autocrats corrode checks and balances by fostering cynicism about government institutions and disempowering the public.
The administration’s new prohibitions on Harvard are the latest front in a multi-agency attack on the country’s oldest and most prestigious university — one of the few higher education institutions to resist administration pressure.
The Department of Homeland Security said the university could no longer enroll foreigners and that existing overseas students must transfer or lose their legal authorization to study in the United States. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accused Harvard of “perpetuating an unsafe campus environment that is hostile to Jewish students, promotes-pro-Hamas sympathies, and employs racist ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ practices.”
The administration justifies its crackdown by saying that Harvard failed to adequately act against antisemitism during protests following the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel and during the subsequent Israeli assault on Hamas in Gaza. It also regards diversity, equity and inclusion programs that were introduced to make amends for dark aspects of the nation’s history as racist in themselves.
More broadly, Republicans have long argued that elite universities have become engines of extreme progressive values that perpetuate liberal power and what they regard as un-American values that discriminate against conservatives.
Trump has made a series of swings at Harvard, freezing more than $2 billion in research funding, accusing it of failing to protect Jewish students and threatening to sever its tax-exempt status. Harvard admits that it fell short in addressing antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias, but also that it needed to do more to address anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian sentiment. But it has refused to bow to pressure to intrude on its rights to open inquiry, free speech and conducting research, and it launched legal action.
The new barriers on foreign student enrollment represent a clear attempt to harm Harvard’s financial health and therefore its capacity to operate. Foreign fees are often used to subsidize lower tuition bills for American students. And Noem left zero doubt that the administration’s pressure on Harvard was an attempt to intimidate other educational institutions and to force them to obey Trump’s orders.
“Let this serve as a warning to all universities and academic institutions across the country,” her statement said.
Harvard pledged to fight what it said was the administration’s “unlawful” behavior that undermines its academic and research mission, thereby guaranteeing yet another massive court fight over a key Trump second-term policy.
Ryan Enos, a Harvard University professor of government, told CNN’s Brianna Keilar that it was “outrageous” that the administration was preventing the university from accepting foreign students.
“It’s another pattern of the Trump administration taking authoritarian actions. In the United States, the president does not have the power to target people for punishment because he doesn’t like their politics,” Enos said. “He is targeting Harvard because he thinks he disagrees with them. It is a political vendetta.”
The administration’s pressure on elite universities follows a notorious period in which some of the Ivy League’s top leaders failed miserably to condemn antisemitism on campuses during anti-Israel protests. But the furor at universities was also often legitimate protest by many students and staff over Israel’s attacks in Gaza, which have killed tens of thousands of civilians and are still taking place.
The Trump administration, as part of its mass deportation program, has responded by rescinding visas of hundreds of foreign students it says are implicated in support for terrorism and Hamas in a way that is detrimental to US foreign policy interests. Multiple court challenges are underway, and in many cases, those targeted seem to have simply being exercising a right to speech or protest or were caught up in demonstrations by chance. The administration hasn’t produced material evidence of support for terrorism.
Trump’s assault on universities is natural fit for his political brand as an outsider and a populist who disdains elite opinion and progressive thought. He acts as an avatar for voters who despise establishments in areas of life that they often see as decrying traditional Christian, heartland values.
Universities are also sources of power, influence and academic rigor that often contradict Trump’s alternative facts and are among the institutions, along with the courts and the media, that can challenge the president’s power.
The crackdown on academic freedom and foreign students threatens, however, to erode America’s huge international advantage in research and may mean bright students vital to the pursuit of scientific breakthroughs will go elsewhere — possibly after the wooing of US foes like China. Curbs on foreign students also imperil the diversity of campus life and thought, which is critical to successful higher education institutions but runs counter to the political instincts of some of Trump’s top aides.
And in common with classic authoritarian-style leaders, the president’s move will hurt individuals swept up in the undertow of far greater political forces. In this case, foreign students currently at Harvard will now need to find a new school quickly or be kicked out of the US.
The president’s dinner for the top holders of his $Trump meme coin is typical of the way in which ethical standards that most of his modern predecessors voluntarily observed are an afterthought in his administration.
Those norms are critical in retaining public confidence in the integrity of governing institutions and to the idea that each citizen has the same fair shot. Without such assurances, democracies quickly founder.
Trump’s cavalier attitude toward such matters is highlighted by his refusal to accept that he may be regarded as facing conflicts of interest after Qatar offered to give the US a 747 jet to serve as a new Air Force One. The jet would be turned over to his presidential library once he leaves office.
More immediate concerns surround the gala Thursday night at the Trump National Golf Club alongside a scenic stretch of the Potomac River in Virginia. The event was billed as “The most exclusive invitation in the world” and was open to 220 of the top investors in the $Trump meme coin. Initially, the website promoting the event advertised a private White House tour — an invitation that was later removed.
The occasion is particularly discomforting because the Trump family business profits from transaction fees on his meme coin. And CNN’s Allison Morrow reported Thursday that most of the top investors in the coin appear to be based overseas. Foreigners are not allowed by law to donate to US election campaigns. But the meme coin apparently allows them to buy access to the president with the potential of boosting his personal finances, even if it is not clear that Trump is violating the law.
“This is government policy up for sale. We have never seen this in the United States of America,” Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon told CNN’s Erin Burnett from a protest outside the Trump golf course on Thursday evening.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt denied Trump was doing anything wrong and argued that the dinner was on his “personal time” and was not an official White House event. She also said it was “absurd” to claim he was profiting off the presidency. “This president was incredibly successful before giving it all up to serve our country publicly. Not only has he lost wealth, but he also almost lost his life,” Leavitt said.
The president did indeed mercifully survive two assassination attempts during the 2024 campaign. But the idea he paid a financial price for his political career is highly questionable. Forbes Magazine journalist Dan Alexander ran an analysis for CNN’s “Erin Burnett Out Front” that found that Trump doubled his net worth to $5.4 billion between March 2021 and today.
Several other Democratic senators tried to whip up a public furor over the gala dinner. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts blasted an “orgy of corruption,” while Connecticut’s Chris Murphy said the event suggested that this was “the most corrupt White House in the history of the country.”
“Just because the corruption is playing out in public where everybody can see it doesn’t mean that it isn’t rampant, rapacious corruption. And what is happening tonight,” Murphy said, “is maybe the most corrupt of all the corruption.”
Murphy challenged Secretary of State Marco Rubio about the optics and implications of the dinner during a Senate hearing this week. “I’m not the social secretary,” Rubio replied, adding that he didn’t know anything about the dinner and that it was “not fair” to say foreigners bought access to the president.
Yet wealthy, powerful people demonstrably have the capacity to secure access to the president that regular citizens, whose only power is a single vote, lack.
That’s the antithesis of a functioning democracy.
