Richard Arnold: US Correspondent on Donald Trump's push for Harvard University to change hiring, admissions, and teaching practices

President Donald Trump is going after the oldest United States university in a push to reshape top institutions.  

He's demanding Harvard University makes changes to hiring, admissions, and teaching practices to curb anti-Semitism on campus.   

The institution says no Government should dictate how a private university operates.  

US Correspondent Richard Arnold told Mike Hosking Trump is reacting by freezing close to NZ$3.5 billion in federal funds. 

He says the White House is calling for an end to the tax-exempt status for research operations.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
International correspondence with ends and eye insurance, peace of mind
for New Zealand business and did you go to the
site today? Are very good morning to you?

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Good morning, Mike.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
So Harvard not happy and not surprisingly Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
President Trump has declared yet another battle, not only on
tariffs and immigration, but this time it is a showdown
with this country's oldest and most successful university, that being
Harvard near Boston. I mean, who cares about university gigs
and freaks, right, Well, you might look at Harvard's record
on things like medicine, for instance, and a theater first
used at Harvard. That was a good development. The small

(00:34):
pox vaccine was created at Harvard. The EKG for hard
health was first used at Harvard's Teaching Teaching Hospital. First
kidney transplant nineteen fifty two Harvard. First person to survive
polio had their life saved at Harvard. The first MRI
was used at Mass General the Harvard Hospital nineteen seventy nine.
The pill, the oral contraceptive, was invented at Harvard, and

(00:56):
on and on and on. The university was started in sixteenth,
which was one hundred and fifty plus years before the
creation of the US government. Now Donald Trump wants to
run it. He's demanding control over hiring and admissions policies.
The university says no way. In a statement, they say,
no government should dictate to a private university what it

(01:16):
can teach, who it can hire or admit. So Trump
is reacting by freezing more than two billion US dollars
right now in federal grant money. Harvard is wealthy because
but the White House now is calling for an end
to the tax exempt status for operations and research unless
Trump gets to run just about everything.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Now El Salvador, that's back today, Wizl's head.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
It is the Trump team is battling over the fate
of this Maryland father of three who is deported to
the supermax prison in El Salvador because of what the
White House admits was an administrative error, mistake or no.
They're now saying this man, a Brego Garcia, cannot be
returned to this country, even though the US Supreme Court
says the government here should illitate his return. Trump's team says, well,

(02:02):
it's not on American soil anymore, So they washing the
hands of the whole thing. A federal court very soon
today will consider that White House response. Christy Nome the
Homeland Security Advisors saying the people that Trump sends to
El Salvador should stay in prison there for the rest
of their lives. Democratic Leader in the House that Kim
Jeffrey says the Supreme Court and or the Federal District

(02:24):
Court actually needs to enforce its order. Well. The White
House claims that Garcia as a member of the MS
thirteen gang. Garcia denies it. Another court said there is
no evidence of that two hundred and thirty eight people
have been deported to the Supermac's prison in El Salvador
from this country. The place is perhaps the most notorious
prison on the planet. New York Times Today saying the

(02:44):
majority of these people have no criminal backgrounds at all,
according to the research they've been doing. As you know,
the White House, Salvador's president, who calls himself the world's
coolest dictator, Naib Bukeli, says it is preposterous quote unquote
to our him to send this man back to the
United States. And Trump stirred things even further when he
joked with Bikelly about wanting five more of these supermankes

(03:07):
prisons built in El Salvador in order to send there.
Not only would be immigrants, said Trump, but some quote
unquote bad American citizens as well, So exporting supposed convicts.
Where have we heard that before?

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Exactly, you have a good, long week, Ken, We'll catch
up next week. Richard Arnold state. So, by the way,
a comprehensive survey out of CNBC, the Supply Chain survey,
this is the tariffs. Most companies say high costs will
keep them from moving manufacturing back to the state. So
all this is doing is confirming what everybody already knows.
And we talked to the Zuru people yesterday on the program.
Eighty one percent expect automation to be favored over workers.

(03:41):
Reassuring would double costs, the trade wars more likely to
kick off a new global search for low tariff regimes.
Seventy four percent in the survey said cost was the
top reason for saying they would not be reassuring production.
You can't go back to America and pay American wages
to make half the stuff they make in China or Vietnam.
Finding skilled labor was a major problem. For twenty one

(04:03):
percent of them. The price tag of building a new
domestic supply chain would at least be double current costs.
That's what eighteen percent of people said would likely to
be more than twice as expensive. That's forty seven percent
of people. Sixty one percent said it would be more
cost effective to relocate to a lower tarer of country,
and as well as the current administration's inability to provide

(04:23):
a consistent strategy. In other words, everything the Age day
makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. They also have supply chain
concerned sixty one percent. They feel like the Trump administration
is bullying corporate America. So that's corporate America telling Trump
that what he's doing is insane. Ten to seven.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
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