Dem
47
GOP
53
Trump threatened to cut off paying Harvard for contracts already signed. Harvard refused to cave. Then he threatened to revoke Harvard's tax exemption and Harvard still didn't cave. Now he is threatening to ban Harvard researchers from getting any new grants. We are going to go out on a limb here and predict that Harvard won't cave on this either. What's next? Ordering the Army to occupy the campus and arrest all students and professors unless they sign a loyalty oath to Donald Trump?
This could end badly for Trump. On legal and constitutional grounds, he has absolutely no basis for refusing to pay out on existing contracts. The only time the government revoked a university's tax exemption was when Bob Jones University banned interracial dating—and that took 10 years to get to the Supreme Court. There is absolutely no legal basis for saying that the five Harvard professors who have won Nobel Prizes in medicine are not allowed to apply for federal grants. Trump thinks everything is a zero-sum game, and by just continually ratcheting up the pressure, Harvard will eventually cave. He believes there is only one possible winner: either Harvard or himself. There are no other possibilities.
The potential problem is that these cases are so open-and-shut that there is a good chance he will lose a Supreme Court case 9-0 (or, more realistically, 7-2) and then, out of spite, defy the Supreme Court. That will hand the Democrats a golden opportunity to run against all the House members who support "Dictator Don." Several polls have shown that 70+% of the voters think that defying the Supreme Court would be a bridge too far. That defiance could cost the Republicans big time next year. (V)