Trump vows to 'win' against Harvard, threatens funding

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump vowed on Monday (May 26) to prevail in his clash with Harvard and again threatened to take away billions in funding from one of the world's top universities.

"I am considering taking Three Billion Dollars of Grant Money away from a very antisemitic Harvard, and giving it to TRADE SCHOOLS all across our land," Trump said, without giving details, in one of a flurry of texts on Monday, the Memorial Day holiday in the US.

He also brought up the issue of removing foreign students from Harvard - a key source of enrollment and tuition money for the oldest university in the US - saying he is waiting for Harvard to provide a list of these students.

Trump said he wants this list "so that we can determine, after a ridiculous expenditure of BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, how many radicalized lunatics, troublemakers all, should not be let back into our Country".

He added: "But have no fear, the Government will, in the end, WIN!"

The Trump administration moved last week to block Harvard from enrolling foreign students, but on Friday a judge suspended the order pending a hearing this week.

Trump is furious at Harvard - which has produced 162 Nobel prize winners - for rejecting Washington's oversight on admissions and hiring, amid his claims the school is a hotbed of anti-Semitism and "woke" liberal ideology.

Trump is attacking US universities and other sources of what he sees as left-leaning power in the country like the media as he tries to exert tight, unprecedented presidential control over life in America.

In his fight with Harvard, Trump has threatened to put US$9 billion of government funding under review, then went on to freeze a first tranche of US$2.2 billion of grants and US$60 million of official contracts. The administration has also targeted a Harvard Medical School researcher for deportation.