A rumor ran rampant last week that the reason Donald Trump hates Harvard so much was due to his youngest son, Barron, not being accepted by the Ivy League school. Earlier this week, Melania Trump squashed those rumors, claiming that Barron had gotten into every school that he had applied to. Now, Trump biographer Michael Wolff says that there is a different reason why Trump has such a vendetta against Harvard.
Why Trump Hates Harvard
Wolff, who is the author of two bestsellers, “Fire & Fury” and this year’s All or Nothing,” says Trump hates Harvard because he is the one that the Ivy League school rejected. Wolff appeared on the Daily Beast Podcast on Thursday and discussed Trump’s war with Harvard with host JoAnna Coles. “It’s also odd because so many of the people around Donald Trump went to Ivy League universities. Several of them went to Harvard Business School,” Coles said.
Cole then added, “Obviously, JD Vance proudly went to Yale. So, it does seem particularly odd, but perhaps he’s also trying to stuff it to them, too. It’s important not to lend too much calculation and planning to anything he does,” Wolff replied. “But the other thing is that, by the way, he didn’t get into Harvard. So, one of the Trump things is always holding a grudge against the Ivy Leagues.”
White House Responds To Wolff
White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers was critical of Wolff’s claims, but she did not confirm or deny that Trump was rejected from Harvard. In the past, the White House has called Wolff “a lying sack of shit.” Unfortunately, there are no public records to confirm or deny that Trump applied to Harvard in the 1960s.
“The Daily Beast and Michael Wolff have lots in common—they both peddle fake news for clickbait in a hopeless attempt to amount to something more than lying losers,” Rogers said. “The President didn’t need to apply to an overrated, corrupt institution like Harvard to become a successful businessman and the most transformative President in history.”
High-Stakes Litigation
Trump’s moves against Harvard are now the center of a high-stakes litigation and often appear to be a part of a personal grudge. Questions about Trump’s motive will no doubt play a role in the litigation. What we do know about Trump is that he wanted to go to film school at the University of California, which is also a school that Trump has recently targeted. Trump stripped the university of $17.5 million in federal research grant money.
After Trump’s dreams of attending film school were dashed, he enrolled at Fordham University. Trump’s sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, who died in 2023, had said that Trump only attended Fordham because “they let him in.”Throughout his time at Fordham, his average. He did not make the dean’s list, which at the time required a GPA of 3.5, which is a B+. Trump had only been at Fordham for two years when his brother, Fred, called in a favor after his friend Jim Nolan had been hired at the admissions office at the University of Pennsylvania.
Brother Got Trump Into Wharton
Freddy asked Nolan to get his brother an interview for the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce. Nolan got Trump the interview, and he showed up with his father. Trump’s grades at Wharton were just high enough to meet the school’s standards. While Trump was running for president in 2016, his then-attorney, Michael Cohen, reached out to Fordham to demand that it keep his transcripts a secret.
Trump’s war on Harvard has been in the spotlight, and despite Trump stripping the school of crucial funding, it has refused to bend a knee to Trump’s demands. Trump has successfully forced other Ivy League schools, including Columbia, to change policies, fire staff, and stamp out “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” He has also demanded an end to any anti-Israel sentiments.
Final Thoughts: Trump And The Spotlight
Back on May 25, Trump demanded that Harvard supply him with the “names and countries” of all enrolled international students. He would later say that he would determine “how many radicalized lunatics, troublemakers all, should not be let back into our country.”Wolff says all of Trump’s attacks on higher education institutions are part of a scheme to keep him in the spotlight. “So, [Harvard] will oppose this, and therefore the courts will stop this from happening. But at the same time, that becomes another aspect of the Trump show,” he said. “He forces them to play their part, which is to oppose him.”
