5-8-25 - 7am - Dear Harvard

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Michael, just wanted to summarize the minutes from the
emergency Goober meeting we just had about the potential for
airing the view live. Turns out none of us really
care about the content of your show. If we cared
about the content, we probably would have stopped listening a
long time ago.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
So you do you.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
If we really cared about the content, we would have
stopped listening a long time ago. You're listening to the content,
so you don't care about the content, so therefore.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
We can just do whatever we down. Well, please, right, Okay,
I just want to make sure I.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Understood the logic of the dumb ass freezing his ass off.
An Alaska lawyer had to say about listening to the content.
Jimney Christmas.

Speaker 4 (00:52):
He's listening so he doesn't have to listen.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
Right, And he's listening because he doesn't care, right, Yeah,
because he's soache that he just we we're so bad.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
We make him feel good. That's what we do.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
On Monday, the Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon send a
letter to Harvard University. Dear doctor Garber, the federal government
has a sacred responsibility to be a wise and important
steward of American taxpayer dollars. Harvard University, despite amassing a

(01:31):
largely tax free fifty three point two billion dollar endowment
larger than the GDP of more than one hundred countries,
receives billions of dollars of taxpayer largest every year. Receiving
such taxpayer funds is a privilege, not a right. Yet
instead of using these funds to advance the education of
its students, Harvard is engaging in a systemic pattern of

(01:54):
violating federal law. Where do many of these air quotes
here students come from? Who are they? How do they
get into Harvard or even into our country? And why
is there so much hate? In all caps the word hate.
These are questions that must be answered, among many more.
But the biggest question of all is why will Harvard

(02:15):
not give straightforward answers to the American public. Harvard University,
she writes, has made a mockery of this country's higher
education system. It has invited foreign students who engage in
violent behavior and show contempt for the United States of
America to its campus. In every way, Harvard has failed
to abide by its legal obligations, its ethical in fiduciary duties,

(02:37):
its transparency, responsibilities and any semblance of academic rigor. It
had scrapped standardized testing requirements and a normalized grading system.
This year, Harvard was forced to adopt an embarrassing remedial
math program for undergraduates. Why is it, we ask that
Harvard has to teach simple and basic mathematics when it

(02:58):
is supposedly so hard to get into this acclaimed university.
Who's getting you in under such low standard when others
with fabulous grades? Did Trump write this letter with fabulous
grades and a great understanding of the highest levels of
mathematics are being rejected? I don't I don't want to
say too much about the content letter yet, I would

(03:21):
just say this as a grammar punctuation kind of sentence structure, Nazi,
this is a.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Horribly written letter. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (03:32):
As I'm looking for the letter to post to Michael
saysco here dot com, I'm finding so many not spoof sites,
but so many people doing with that red pen and
English teacher.

Speaker 4 (03:42):
Which just like I'm doing in my head as I'm
reading exactly.

Speaker 5 (03:45):
Yeah, things are circled and then there's the you know,
misspellings and punctuation, and yeah, it's it's it's it's all
over the place.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
Yeah, and some of it just doesn't make any sense.
But nonetheless, the letter continues, Harvard has embroiled in humiliating
plagiarisms exposed clearly and plainly in the media with respect
to your then university president, who was an embarrassment to
our nation. Much of you know, because again, now that
I'm thinking about that, even more dragon, why is the

(04:13):
word nation capitalized? Much of Harvard's hateful discrimination was revealed
last year by the great work of Congresswoman Elise Stefani
and her committee. As if it were trying to embarrass
itself even further, Harvard hired failed mayor's Bill de Blasio
and Lloyd Lightfoot, perhaps the worst mayors everage to preside

(04:35):
over major cities in our country's history, to supposedly teach
leadership at their school of Public Health. This is like
hiring the captain of the Titanic to teach navigation to
future captains of the sea.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
This really does like it was dictated by Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 (04:54):
This incomprehensible and I'm going to get to a point
about this in the minute.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
I just want you to hear the letter.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
This incomprehensible failure becomes more understandable after reviewing Harvard's management.
The Harvard Corporation, which is supposedly to competently and professionally
manage Harvard's vast academic, financial, and physical resources, is run
by strongly left leaning political appointee Penny Pritzker. By the way,

(05:20):
I think a relative or maybe even the wife of
Governor Pritzker of Illinois, a Democrat operative who.

Speaker 6 (05:27):
Is CATASTROPHI I do mean catastrafi running the institution in
a totally chaotic way.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
Harvard alumnus and highly successful hedge fund manager Bill Ackman
noted that under her leadership, Harvard has become a political
advocacy organization for one party. Agman has called for the
resignation of Pritzker, concluding that the mismanagement here is Penny
Pritzker and noting that any serious corporation would have removed
her after a litany of recent failings and the fact that,

(06:00):
incredibly quote, Harvard is not in a good financial position.
According to Atman, one of the world's foremost financed experts,
Harvard's so called fifty three billion dollar endowment is massively
overstated as far as what it's really worth, and Harvard
has irresponsibly taken out eight billion dollars in debt. If

(06:21):
this is true, she writes, it is concerning evidence of
Harvard's disastrous mismanagement, indicating an urgent need for massive reform,
not continued taxpayer investment. If Harvard prefers not to change,
then Harvard should have no problem using its overflowing of
endowment to fund its blow to bureaucracy. At its best,
a university should fulfill the highest ideals of our.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
Nation and enlighten the thousands.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
Of hopeful students who walk through this magnificence gate magnificent gates.
But Harvard has betrayed this ideal. Bob, you know, I'm
getting bored with this letter. They continue, the administration have
previously been willing to maintain federal funding to Harvard so
long as Harvard committed to complying with long settled federal law,

(07:06):
including to protect and promote student welfare and the landmark
decision of the Supreme Court against racial preferencing.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
The proposed common Sense reforms.

Speaker 3 (07:14):
Which the Administration remains committed to, include a return to
merit based admissions and hiring, and into unlawful programs that
promote crude identity stereotypes, disciplinary reform, and consistent accountability, including
for student groups, cooperation with law enforcement and reporting, compliance
with the Department of Ed, the Department of Homeland Security,

(07:35):
and others. And it just kills on and on and on. Well,
if they want to cut off funding to Harvard, a
private institution, you can do that. Harvard's just say grantee,
they just receive. They make applications for grants, just like

(07:56):
CU Boulder makes applications for grants, or makes applications for grants,
or Podunk University in Podunk State makes applications for grants.
It's not an entitlement, it's not a requirement. And if
there's proof or there's evidence that they are not in

(08:17):
compliance with the grants, then you can rescind the grant,
or you can refuse to grant any more grants. The
whole letter thing, to me seems to be a whole
lot of grand standing. And there's something else that bugs
me now I watched. In fact, I think I may

(08:39):
have reposted. I did repost. This is in my Twitter
feed of a student at Columbia who's wearing a cafe
who is vandalizing. I don't know whether it's the library
or I'm sorry, the library, the library or the student union.
But they're actively engaged while being filmed. They're actively engaged

(09:01):
in vandalism. Now that's a crime. That student ought to
be expelled. If that is a foreign student on a
foreign visa, on a foreign student visa, then the State

(09:21):
Department has the unequivocal, unassailable right to revoke that visa
with about let me be very clear here, with or
without a hearing, in other words, without any due process.
We see you engaged in violence. Now, whether the state
or the FEDS or local police department decides to arrest

(09:44):
you and file charges.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
That's up to them.

Speaker 3 (09:46):
But that has nothing to do with the State Department
revoking the visa. They can just look at your actions
and of their own accord, because that visa does not
attach that visa does not attach any due process rights
to that student. Now, the same is true for Harvard.
If now, I want to be very clear here about

(10:09):
something very clear about something. You know that I'm pretty
much a Zionist. I fully support Israel. I've got a
lot of Jewish friends. I support the state of Israel.
I support Jews having their own state. But I also

(10:29):
support the right of people to go out and shout
anti Semitic tropes, to actually not to engage in physical
anti semitism. You can't go beat up Jews because they're
Jews anymore that you can go beat up white people
because they're white, anymore. That you can beat up dumb

(10:50):
people because they're dumb. That's assault and battery. That's a
criminal violation. But if I want to engage in anti
Semitic propaganda, anti Semitic statements, then the First Amendment allows
me to do that, even if I'm here on a

(11:11):
student visa. Now, the State Department may not approve of
the anti Semitic statements, and they could revoke my visa
because that visa, again is a privilege, not a right.
The reason I point that out is I'm confused by

(11:34):
the letter. Are you upset about Harvard because they're allowing
students to protest against Israel. Now, as long as they're
doing the protests lawfully, they can do that. Now if
they're engaged in violence, or they're vandalizing, or they're doing
something else that's a violation of the rules, then you

(11:56):
can do that. So there's a very fine distinction here
between protests, anti Semitism, and criminality. I think all of
this has been conflated, and I think Linda McMahon has
actually kind of made a fool of herself with this letter.

(12:17):
But having said all of that, if indeed they wanted
to revoke the tax exempt status of Harvard University, guess what,
I think they have the right to do. That tax
exempt status is not something that once given, remains forever

(12:40):
and you can't take it away. You actually can take
it away. And this idea that you can't do it,
or that it's wrong or I mean, however you want
to phrase it, I really don't get. But I also
don't get why we can't be a little more specific

(13:02):
about what's going on with Harvard. And if indeed you
want to revoke a five O one C three status
for violating the tax laws by perhaps engaging in, oh
I don't know, the prohibit activities like engaging in outright politics,

(13:26):
then do it. So in that regard, Trump is right.
I think Linda McMahon's letter m probably should have somebody
that had a I don't know, maybe a basic understanding
of the English language and punctuation and how they compose
a letter. Maybe review it before you send it to Harvard,
of all places.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
But Trump.

Speaker 5 (13:46):
You can see that letter at Michael says go here
dot com, and you can see those having a.

Speaker 4 (13:49):
Little bit of fun with that. Michael says, go here
dot com.

Speaker 3 (13:53):
So, Harvard University, whatever the amount is, Bill Agman, you
say it's mismanaged. I don't know, but the the generally
accepted figure is somewhere between an endowment of between fifty
and fifty three billion dollars.

Speaker 2 (14:08):
Now, they do have.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
An unaccountable corporate board because they don't have shareholders. It
functions Harvard does. It functions less like an institution of
higher learning. It actually functions more like a hedge fund,
with the school as its public relations are. Its continued
status as a five oh one C three public charity

(14:33):
does seem a little incongruous, and it does seem a
little indefensible. When any elite institution fails to uphold the
most basic principles of civil rights, embraces in systemic discrimination,
and then conceals all of those wrongdoings beneath the veil
of its its academic prestige, it really does forfeit the

(14:57):
privileges that come with taxpayer substance does they You're not
entitled to those subsidies.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
You're not in you're not entitled to those grants.

Speaker 3 (15:06):
The Internal Revenue Service has both the authority, and I
would argue the obligation to revoke a tax exempt status
if they are violating the the box within you getting
a fight. Anyone, anyone in this audience who's ever established
a true Fible one C three charity knows that when
you fill out your nine to ninety, when you go

(15:28):
through the application process, you you agree to adhere to
certain standards and certain restrictions, and that if you don't
do that, then that Fible one C three status can
be revoked. And in this case, if you want to
make your point with Harvard, just quit writing stupid, dumbass

(15:49):
letters and revoke their FIVELE one C three status. Now
that's not a partisan statement, it's actually legal precedent. In
nineteen eighty three, the United States Supreme Court upheld the
Internal Revenue Services revocation of the five O one C

(16:11):
three status the tax exempt status of Bob Jones University.
Why because if it's racially discriminatory policies, even though those
even though their policies were nominally based on sincerely held beliefs.
You can engage in those discriminatory policies, but you can't

(16:36):
at the same time have five ON one C three status.
In other words, if you want to be a religious
institution like Bob Jones University and you've got to meet
all these particular religious requirements, okay, then go do that,
but don't ask the taxpayers to subsidize you by giving
you a tax exempt status. And the Supreme Court said

(16:58):
exactly right, exactly what they said, the principle established was
very clear discrimination even when it's quote in a private
autonomous institution is incompatible with the public interests that would
justify or permit permit is the right verb tax exemption.

(17:21):
Harvard is not any more exempt from that standard than
was Bob Jones University, because Harvard is not above the
law and Harvard is not above any sort of accountability.
So let's think about the facts that might justify revoking
Harvard's FIBER one C three status. And then, as ask
ourselves this question, if you really are pissed off at Harvard,

(17:43):
and they really have violated the tenets of their five
O one C three status, then why not just revoke it?
Why are you writing stupid.

Speaker 7 (17:51):
Letters Michael, which Poe? Don't you talking about the one
in Sage Township or the one in Redland Township, both
of which are in Michigan and Ruttling.

Speaker 3 (18:03):
Yeah, dunk, bo dunk. So let's think about the facts
of what's going on at Harvard. So go all the
way back to the attacks by the Palestinians by Hamas
back in October of twenty twenty three. Jewish students at

(18:25):
Harvard are subjected to a a climate of hostility and intimidation.
Even according to Harvard's own task force, students started reporting
that they had to hide the religious identity. Some feared
retaliation for just expressing moderate mainstream political views. So in

(18:52):
the university, private or public doesn't mean the difference to me.
Where you're committed to free inquiry, that should be at
least a cause for alarm. That should that's going to
at least draw the attention of regulators, in this case
the Internal Revenue Service. But instead Harvard's response was very

(19:13):
procedural and cosmetic. Well, this form a task force, let's
have some listening sessions, let's just do something that's symbolic.
All of which was just trying to evade the real issue.
So Jewish students were left in that to navigate this
climate of exclusion because the faculty, in the stat will,
the administration, the Harvard administration, they were just preoccupied with

(19:39):
their dei orthodoxy. It's it is an irony that's lost
on nobody that the same institution that was found to
be discriminating against Asian American applicants in defiance of the
Constitution of the Supreme Court continues to elevate and use

(19:59):
race in it hiring decisions. That alone that I don't
have to go any further, That alone is enough to
revoke their five to one three status, which makes the question,
then why not? Then you had the investigation into the

(20:20):
Harvard Law Review selection practices that underscored that very contradiction.
They were actually discriminating against Asian Americans. Merit becomes subordinated ideology.
It's no longer a meritocracy. Excellence gets filtered through the

(20:41):
lens of racism.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
That's not inclusion.

Speaker 3 (20:46):
The color blind principles that underpin the Civil Rights Act
have been displaced by their bureaucratized concept of equity. And
I know people will want to talk about how Harvard
is trying to make reforms. The question is whether Harvard
at this moment qualifies for the extraordinary benefit of a

(21:09):
tax exemption, And I think the answer is that they
do not.

Speaker 2 (21:14):
The I R S is not in.

Speaker 3 (21:16):
The business of subsidizing civil rights violators hoping that maybe
in the future they're going to reform.

Speaker 2 (21:23):
Do you think if it was do you.

Speaker 3 (21:24):
Think that if this were a conservative five oh one
C three engage in whatever activity it might be, but
lawful activity was doing this kind of stuff, that the
RS would waste one second in at least starting the
process to revoke their five oh one C three status.

(21:44):
Of course they wouldn't. And then when you think about
the fifty plus plus billion dollar endowment, how can Harvard
claim that it's by necessity designated a charity as at

(22:07):
least one thing the letter points out that was accurate.
They have assets that surpassed the gross domestic product of
one hundred countries or more, and the Harvard Corporation generates
annually turns into billions. And it's so much so that
the Harvard Corporation has professional investors, and those professional investors

(22:33):
get paid the equivalent of what many Wall Street executives
get paid, and then that returns an inordinate amount of
money back to the administrative bureaucracy of Harvard itself. It's
not an Harvard's not a charity, it's an empire. But

(22:54):
their insistence on institutional autonomy leave us alone, grantest the
tax exempt status will leave us alone is particularly disgusting
when rebuffing the calls by the Department of ed or
by the administration or anybody else, even even me, that

(23:16):
you need to protect Jewish students from physical harassment. Need
you can allow anti Semitic language and speeches on your campus,
and I'll defend those till the cows come home, as
long as it doesn't spill over into violence or intimidation

(23:39):
or actual discrimination against Jews. If Harvard is private when
it comes to oversight, it should be private when it
comes to taxation. We can't accept the privileges of a
taxpayer subsidy while rejecting the responsibilities of getting that taxpayer subsidy.
Otherwise you got double standard that privilege that privileges elite

(24:04):
institutions over the Constitution. Now, the legal basis for revoking
five O one C. Three is not just something that
you can make up out of ten air, you've got
to have some reasons for doing it. Under Section five
O one C three, the Internal Revenue Service is empowered
to revoke the tax exempt status of any institution, any

(24:28):
organization that violates public policy, including civil rights statutes. Go
back to the Bob Jones case, where the Supreme Court
said that the government has a quote fundamental overwriting interest
in eradicating racial discrimination and education that substantially outweighs whatever
burden denial of tax benefits places on the university's exercise

(24:50):
of religious beliefs. Now, if that applies to religious doctrine,
it certainly applies to Harvard's secular dogma. Now some will
argue you that if you revoke Harvard's tax exempt status,
you're politicizing the tax code. Well that's a total red herring.

(25:10):
The high horss is already politicized because it favors progressive
organizations progressive causes. We know that from the lowest learner cases.
It grants exemptions to countless left wing NGOs that engage
in advocacy in violation of the tax tax exempt status

(25:32):
that actually that advocacy is electioneering. In my opinion, the
IRS turned a complete blind eye to flagrant abuses by
activists or foundations that indoctrinate and don't educate. The only
novelty in Trump's proposal is the idea that elite institutions

(25:55):
ought to be held to the same standard as their
less pedigree counterparts, the Podux of the world. Now, I
know they're going to invoke academic freedom as if somehow
that principle absolves the university of all their other legal obligations.
But academic freedom is not a license for institutional impunity.

(26:21):
Academic freedom doesn't mean that you can just go violate
whatever rules, regulations, policies, or statutes that exist that preclude
the activity or prohibit the activity that you're engaged in.
You're trying to use academic freedom as a shield for
In fact, it is a shield for individual scholars, But

(26:43):
it's not a cover for bureaucratic malpractice. Should American taxpayers
simple question?

Speaker 2 (26:53):
Should it?

Speaker 3 (26:54):
American taxpayers be compelled to subsidize a multi billion dollar
corporation that discriminates on the basis of race and religion,
that actively encourages, allows and permits physical hostility, not just
ideological hostility, but physical hostility toward Jewish students in flaunx

(27:20):
its defiance of public accountability. Trump says no, and I
think he's right, and the IRS ough to act, and
it's certainly going to take more than just a letter
from a poorly written letter from the Secretary of Education. Charity,
and in particular now charity as opposed to five O

(27:40):
one C three status. Five O one C three status
is not a given. You are not entitled to five
O one C three status. It is a privilege, a cloak,
a status that is granted by the government, and it
is grounded in public trust and certain legal tenants that

(28:02):
by which you have to abide. Harvard's broken those, and
so the IRS need to step in and revoke their privilege.

Speaker 8 (28:11):
Michael, I believe this lady is correct. She can steal
anything she wants. She's so downtrod. You know what it's called.
I got a new word for it. It's called anti privilege.

Speaker 2 (28:23):
I'm sorry, who is correct?

Speaker 5 (28:25):
I missed the lady that was stealing from the target, because.

Speaker 4 (28:30):
That's anti privilege.

Speaker 3 (28:31):
That's okay, all right, So that's the new standard, anti privilege.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
Got it? Got it?

Speaker 9 (28:37):
So?

Speaker 3 (28:37):
Jd Vance was on CNN recently, and I'm always amazed
at how he's able to cut through and just kind
of obliterate.

Speaker 10 (28:47):
Ask yourself a basic question about network integrity. You guys
talked about the Russia hoax NonStop.

Speaker 3 (28:54):
You talking to Jake Tapper. By the way, it's CNN.
I should have pointed that out.

Speaker 10 (28:58):
Ask yourself a basic question about network integrity. You guys
talked about the Russia hoax NonStop.

Speaker 11 (29:05):
The FBI was investigating, The FBI was investigating it.

Speaker 10 (29:08):
So we recovered that, and so you took the words
of unnamed FBI agents and put them on your network.

Speaker 9 (29:13):
As if they were the gospel truth. You did it
again and again.

Speaker 10 (29:16):
A view of your network would have believed that Donald
Trump and Vladimir Putin conspired in twenty sixteen.

Speaker 9 (29:22):
That was totally, im preposterously false.

Speaker 11 (29:24):
Now, well, that's what you just said is we covered
an FBI investigation. I don't know why you want to
talk about the FBI investigation.

Speaker 10 (29:30):
You covered it in a way that gave credence to
anonymous sources accusations.

Speaker 9 (29:35):
You did it yourself, your network did it.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
Jake Man calling out Jake himself.

Speaker 10 (29:40):
I love it, But again, can we talk about the
issues that Americans can I'm talking.

Speaker 11 (29:45):
About things that Donald Trump has said. If you have
an issue with whether or not he's talking about the
economy enough, that's between you and your running mate. I'm
talking about things he has said this week.

Speaker 10 (29:54):
Every single rally that he does, he talks about how
he wants to unleash American energy so we can walk
lower the cost of groceries.

Speaker 9 (30:01):
He talks about the.

Speaker 10 (30:01):
Fact that housing has become unaffordable. He talks about the
wide open border shake. Kamala Harris and her allies. You know,
it's interesting, Kamala Harris and her media allies, and I
would put seeing it in this category.

Speaker 9 (30:12):
You guys, what you guys seem, I'll tell I'll tell
you that they would.

Speaker 10 (30:15):
Well, they should watch your network more because you guys
seem to care more about Donald Trump's past than the
future of the American people. We're running this campaign on
making the American dreams, specifically.

Speaker 11 (30:27):
Asking about how Donald Trump is going to be president
in the future should he win, and then we're being
told we're going to pursue economic policies that lower the
cost of groceries and make life more affordable again. He
talks about it every single day on the campaign trail,
and so do I what you're talking about is is
an anonymously sore story or one guy or who one guy?

Speaker 9 (30:47):
One guy who is a disgruntled employee and told her
five other people.

Speaker 10 (30:50):
Five other people push back against him and said that
what he said was dishonest.

Speaker 9 (30:54):
So why don't we talk about the.

Speaker 10 (30:56):
Policy that's affecting American citizens and not what Donald allegedly said?
According to one guy who's pissed off because he got
fired by Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 (31:06):
So the reason I wanted you hear that is because
they sent Vance again to the Munich Security Conference. That's
the place where shortly after the election he went and
he basically said, hey, listen, you're not pulling your weight,
you're pulling away from Western civilization values by allowing all
of this migration and illegal immigration to occur. Well, guess

(31:30):
what they did recently, just in the past week or so.
They sent him to their US version of the Munique
Security Now not the US version. They send him back
to the Munich Security Conference, but the conference of the
Munich Security Group that is held in the US. And

(31:51):
he repeated the same thing again. Now they welcomed him
with open arms. But I think all of this shows
that there is a pattern that when you just stand
up to the journalists, when you just challenge them, which
nobody seems to want to do. When you just challenge them,

(32:13):
they really don't have an answer. For example, all you
did was quote anonymous sources. No, we had six sources, Yeah,
all six of which were anonymous. So one anonymous source
versus six anonymous sources. Guess what the underlying thread is
throughout all of those they're anonymous sources. It's like the

(32:34):
Fetterman story from yesterday. If if you quote disgruntled employees
or all former employees, what's the thread through all of those? Oh,
all former employees and they're all disgruntled, and now that
they're no longer within range of being terminated because they're
no longer working for Fetterman, then we can just say

(32:55):
whatever you want to say about John Fetterman and do
it on behalf the Democrat Party, so that up day
from pushing agenda. The cabal is always pushing an agenda.