Donald Trump-Barack Obama Spat on Harvard Funding has Caught Global Attention
By Sushil Kutty
The President Donald Trump is going after Harvard University with a vengeance after Harvard chose to reject Trump’s “reforms”. In the process, Harvard is losing loads of dollars but is also drawing admiration and encouragement from Trump’s bete noire, former President Barack Hussein Obama. Trump and Obama are always daggers drawn and share a mutual dislike spanning several presidential terms. It started with Trump questioning Obama’s ‘birth’ in Obama’s first term, also the legitimacy of his presidency, and Obama cracking jokes at Trump at a White House dinner.
Barack Obama didn’t forget the dogged stalking. First, when Obama was President and then when Trump became POTUS. Came April 2011 and President Obama was doing the roasting and private citizen Donald Trump smarting under the roasting. People at Trump’s dinner table at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner said it was then and there that Trump decided he would be POTUS!
Blame it on Obama, who to this day hasn’t forgotten the ‘Birther Movement’ led against him by Trump, the ‘You’re Fired’ star of ‘The Apprentice’, the hit reality show. Real-estate tycoon and wrestling enthusiast Donald Trump questioned Obama’s birthplace, Obama’s nationality; his very identity. Obama extracted revenge by cracking jokes at the expense of Trump, jokes which made dinner tables rock on their legs!
Everybody laughed except Donald Trump. In 2015, Trump “came down the elevator” and Trump beat Hillary Clinton for the big Prize. Fifteen years on, Obama got another chance to dig Trump into the ground. This time, after the failed attempt to derail Trump’s 2024 Presidential run and Kamala Harris was Obama’s choice for US President.
It didn’t work out quite like how Obama wanted it to. Barack Obama rode roughshod over President Joe Biden’s feelings. Biden could have been a tougher contestant. But then, Obama’s vanity shone through and Donald Trump’s 2024 win was a personal defeat for Barack Obama.
On April 14, 2025, Obama got yet another chance to get back at Trump when the President put Harvard University on notice and cut off its funds flow, $2 billion in federal funds, for refusing to toe the Trump administration’s line. President Trump asked the varsity to act on DEI and curb anti-Semitism in the campus. Harvard refused and Obama congratulated Harvard with a heartfelt post on ‘X’.
Compared to President Trump, the ex-President is not only Left and Liberal, he is also a progressive. His shirt tails are properly tucked in. Obama said Monday that Harvard University has “set an example” by standing up to President Trump’s diktat to “limit activism on campus.” The University said it would not “bend to the government’s demands” including changes to Harvard’s admissions policies
“Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions – rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking concrete steps to make sure all students at Harvard can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect. Let’s hope other institutions follow suit,” Obama posted on ‘X’.
Obama took the battle home to President Trump and asked Harvard to take concrete steps to ensure all students of Harvard benefited, renewing his fight with Trump which it appears was only lying low for the right opportunity to present itself.
The feud apart, President Trump is not letting the dust of his disruptions settle down; his actions remain the focus at home and abroad, disrupting both humans and institutions. Try as much, people can’t get a wrap on what this President of the United States is up to and what’s the picture of the world he carries in his mind?
To reiterate, blame it on Barack Hussein Obama. Trump’s path to the White House started from a White House dinner and ridicule at his expense. The story drifted to “revenge and redemption” and Obama doesn’t seem to have learned anything. He should have left Trump to whatever was on the menu on that night in April 2011!
A reality TV star and real estate mogul couldn’t have been in a position to harassing Harvard if Obama hadn’t underestimated Trump. Now, it is up to Harvard and other Ivy League institutions of learning to pick up the pieces and start life afresh, short on dollars if not on spirit.
Last, but not the least, ex-President Barack Hussein Obama should get off his moral high horse and stop prodding President Trump, and consider Trump his equal, which is what ‘DEI’ – diversity, equity and inclusion – is supposed to all about. Also, very presidential! (IPA Service)
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