The Adam Mockler Show - Trump Retreats From Fight, Admits He Was WRONG!?

Episode Date: April 19, 2025

Adam Mockler with MeidasTouch Network breaks down Donald Trump's admin sending a letter to Harvard then backing down immediately. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Never in my life have I seen such an incompetent administration or organization of any kind. I mean, I had college group projects that were more coordinated than the current administration in office. I almost couldn't believe the story that came out last night detailing how the Trump admin is now claiming it mistakenly sent a letter to Harvard University. And this letter was insanely escalatory. It was making all of these demands of Harvard to make sweeping changes across their leadership, their admissions, their hiring practices. It said, you can't teach this, you have to teach this. It was a hugely demanding letter that was a massive amount of government overreach. And then Harvard came out a few days later and said, no, we're not capitulating to any of these demands.

And then a few days after that, the Trump admin said, we didn't even mean to send this letter in the first place. They called it, quote, unauthorized, even though it was signed by top officials from the Department of Education, which is funny, they hate the Department of Education until they want to leverage it. It was signed by officials from the HHS, from the General Services Administration, so it was signed by top officials, yet the Trump admin called Harvard and said this was a mistake. And the cherry on top, the cherry on top, is that the Trump admin is now placing the blame on Harvard and saying they should have known better than to think a letter this wild would actually be real.

It's beyond parity, and that's why I couldn't believe it. Let's break all of this down. It says, Trump officials blame mistake for setting off confrontation with Harvard. An official on the administration's anti-Semitism task force told the university that a letter of demands had been sent without authorization. Again, how incompetent and uncoordinated can one administration be? I made a video yesterday describing the Schedule F executive order that Trump put into place that says that civil service employees can be hired and fired based on loyalty rather than merit and experience. And this is a common theme within the Trump admin. When you look at signal gates and you look at nobody being held accountable, all of the people involved in,

and Signalgate, we're just inexperienced. They are super loyal to Trump, but they are inexperienced. And now we're going to see that across the government. We're seeing it right here with this Harvard story. Harvard University received an emailed letter from the Trump admin last Friday that included a series of demands about hiring, admissions, and curriculum, so onerous that school officials decided they had no choice but to take on the White House. The university announced its intentions on Monday, setting off a tectonic battle

between one of the country's most prestigious universities and the U.S. president. Then, almost immediately, came a frantic call from a Trump official. The April 11th letter from the White House's task force on anti-Semitism, this official told Harvard, should not have been sent and was unauthorized to people familiar with the matter said. Again, they are so incredibly uncoordinated. How do you trigger a public standoff between the administration and the top university and then call and back down? this administration backs down on literally every single thing it makes it starts a trade war it then

backs down starts a war with the media starts this and that then it just backs down and now that I've laid out some of the context I just want to pop in and say either the trump admin is so incompetent they accidentally sent out a letter that was signed by multiple officials and had a letterhead to Harvard or they are lying I think there's a high likelihood they are lying and they realize that Harvard's not going to capitulate and they want to save face now there is still a chance that they are incredibly incompetent. I do grant that as being a reality. It is unclear what prompted the letter to be sent last Friday.

The letter was sent by the Acting General Counsel of the Department of Health and Human Services, according to three other people who were briefed on the matter. Now, some people at the White House believed it had been sent prematurely, according to three people who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about internal discussions. Now, others in the Trump admin thought it had been meant to be circulated among the task force members rather than been sent to Harvard. No matter what the explanation here is, it's just incompetence or lying. But its timing was consequential. The letter arrived when Harvard officials believed

they could still avert a confrontation with President Trump. Over the previous two weeks, Harvard and the task force had engaged in dialogue. But the letter's demands were so extreme that Harvard concluded that a deal would ultimately be impossible. After Harvard publicly repudiated the demands, the Trump admin raised the pressure, freezing billions in federal funding to the school and warning that its tax-isempt status was in jeopardy. Okay, so if they continued to escalate, then it clearly was not a rogue email. This was a high-level document that had been crafted, signed by multiple officials, and sent. And the moment Harvard pushed back, the White House froze $2.2 billion in federal grants. So actually, the idea that this was incompetence

is getting even lower. Now, to be fair, it is very likely that it's actually a blend. They're bleeding into each other. Most of the Trump admin officials are lying, but in that lying, there's so much incompetence that it becomes incoherent. Okay, now this is where it gets crazy. A senior White House official said the admin stood by the letter, calling the university's decision to publicly rebuff the admin overblown in blaming Harvard for not continuing discussions. This is wild.

Quote, it was malpractice on the side of Harvard's lawyers not to pick up the phone and call the members of the anti-Semitism task force who they had been talking to for weeks. Instead, Harvard went on a victimhood campaign. Listen to CNN covering this exact story. Okay, so the White House's position is it was malpracticed by Harvard to not realize that this letter was so outrageous. It probably wasn't true. I mean, that letter came from. I mean, I think that statement actually just sort of gives away the whole game.

Essentially, the argument that we're hearing there from May Mailman at the White House is they should have known. They should have known there was something wrong. They should have picked up the phone and said to us at the White House, hey, guys, this looks like a mistake. I think it's pretty obvious where the fault lies, though. I mean, Ellie, could you imagine if Harvard had responded to this letter by saying, okay, we'll meet these demands and actually that they had been sent in error to them? Yeah, I mean, exactly.

Look, this is serious stuff. I mean, this is a major showdown that is escalating by the day. You know, if Harvard had acquiesced these demands, I mean, it would have changed the institution and compromised the institution forever. But I'm interested to see now what happens next? now does the White House withdraw this, or do they sort of decide, whoops, we're pot committed now, and we're going to have to have this fight through to the end? One thing Trump is known for is recognizing his mistakes and, you know, submitting after,

obviously being sarcastic, Trump is going to continue to escalate, and the showdown will continue, but look at this. It's a letter to Harvard with a letterhead. Dear Dr. Garber, the United States has invested in Harvard University's operations. Now, I'm not going to read this whole letter because it's BS, but you can just read, merit-based hiring reform, view diversity in admissions and hiring, reforming programs with egregious records of anti-Semitism or other bias, discontinuations of DEI. It talks about what curriculum they can and can't include, who they can and can't hire, a massive overreach coming from the admin. Well, I guess coming from the admin that is also sending people to other countries illegally and even suing law firms to try to get them to bend to their way. will. But to continue this article, still, Ms. Mailman said, the White House senior policy

official, there is a potential pathway to resume discussions if the university, among other measures, follows through on what Mr. Trump wants and apologizes to his students for fostering a campus where there was anti-Semitism. Why negotiate at all? Why is Trump negotiating with college campuses try to get them like change their curriculum? Mr. Cervaney could not be reached for comment. In a statement, a spokesperson for the anti-Semitism task force said, quote, the task force, and the entire Trump admin, is in lockstep on ensuring that entities who receive taxpayer dollars are following all civil rights laws. Yeah, the task force is in the lockstep, but does not seem like that whatsoever. Harvard pushed back on the White House's claim that it should

have checked with the admin's lawyers after receiving the letter. The letter, quote, was signed by three federal officials, placed on an official letterhead, and was sent from the email inbox of a senior federal official, and was sent on April 11th as promised, Harvard's Sunday state went on Friday. Quote, recipients of such correspondence from the U.S. government, even when it contains sweeping demands that are astonishing in their overreach, do not question its authenticity or seriousness. True. The statement then says, it remains unclear to us exactly what among the government's recent words and deeds were mistakes or what the government actually meant to do and say. But even if the letter was a mistake, the action the government took this week have

real life consequences on students and employees and, quote, the standing of American higher education in the world. Huh. That seems like a well-written letter. It's almost like the people at Harvard might be smart. The letter shocked Harvard, not only because the nature of the demands, but because it was sent when the university's leadership and lawyers, now the letter shocked Harvard, not only because the nature of the demands, but because it was sent when the university's leadership and the lawyers it hired to deal with the administration and thought they could head off a full-bore conflict with Mr. Trump, and then Trump escalates it to the highest extent. So I'm going to leave it at that. Make sure you drop a like. Subscribe to help boost this message.

and I'll see you all in the next one. Peace up.