4/22/25: DHS Secretary Robbed, Trump Floats Birthrate Incentives, Harvard Sues Trump, Free Speech Org Sounds Off
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Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our

full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at BreakingPoints.com. News broke yesterday that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had...

$3,000 worth of cash stolen out of her purse at a restaurant here in downtown D.C. We can put that first element up on the screen. This is a report from CNN that lays out exactly what happened. I'm just going to read from the story. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem fell victim to a

thief while eating dinner at a downtown DC restaurant Sunday night, the secretary confirmed Monday. Noem, who was asked about the theft at the Easter egg roll, acknowledged the incident and said the matter has not been resolved. The thief got away with Noem's driver's license, medication, apartment keys, passport, DHS access badge,

makeup bag, blank checks, and about $3,000 in cash. Now, a DHS spokesperson explained this to CNN by saying her entire family was in town, including her children and grandchildren. She was using the withdrawal, referring obviously to that $3,000 of cash, to treat her family to dinner activities and Easter gifts.

Now, I do want to also put the next element up on the screen. This is a post from Susan Crabtree, who is one of the best reporters on the White House beat, period. She says, "This appears to be yet another significant Secret Service failure. The agents protecting Noem allowed a man in a medical mask to walk by her table and snatch her purse with $3,000 in it."

Susan goes on to say, the detail leader of Nome's Secret Service team should have been sitting within 10 feet of her, one or two tables away, according to USS protocol. Why aren't we hearing that a Secret Service agent tried to intervene or at least intervene?

chased the man down. Sager, this is such a bizarre story. I don't know if you've ever been to the restaurant. This is Capital Burger. So it's by the convention center across from the Apple store that's the Carnegie Library turned Apple store. I know exactly what you're talking about. I've just never been inside. Yes. You know, it's actually a pretty good restaurant. Okay. All right. Shout out Capital Burger. Yeah. Shout out Capital Burger. But

so bizarre that you have a cabinet secretary sitting to dinner with Secret Service having her purse snatched. Now there's another layer of weirdness by the fact that you had three grand in cash. - That's a lot of money. - And her passport on her. - Yeah, that is weird too. - Perhaps to get into the White House, even though you're a cabinet secretary, you may still need something like that. I have no idea.

But it's extremely weird that Secret Service should be sitting within 10 feet of her. Yes. Again, this is a presidential candidate was shot in the head not even a year ago. I mean, she's the top law enforcement officer in the country. I don't think people understand this. This is insane. She literally is the boss of the largest law enforcement agency in the United States. Homeland Security. They can't secure the secretary of Homeland Security in the nation's capital about five blocks from the White House.

I don't know. I mean, look, maybe she was targeted because of her notorious flashy taste.

So we were – by the way, for watch nerds, she was rocking a Rolex – a solid gold Rolex Daytona, which is – for anybody familiar with watches, you're like, whoa. I mean that's a minimum of $25,000, $50,000. That's got to be one of the – that is the ultimate rich guy flex is a Rolex Daytona. And yeah, even the women's ones, they can really climb up.

there in price. So she's previously worn a Rolex Daytona, I think on a price raid. Even the women's one. No, I mean, just traditionally, women's watches are not worth as much because they're not idiots like me who are willing to pay. But yeah,

Anyways, Kirstie Noem is top law enforcement officer in the country. The whole thing is just bizarre because it's like you said. She has a protection detail, which is supposed to be immediately within her vicinity. $3,000 in cash, driver's license, and apartment keys stolen while she's eating dinner at the downtown. You also have the department there where—

There's, you know, theoretically, if you think about it, like there's tons of classified information on her phone or possibly in her purse, like notes, other access keys. All cabinet secretaries have like this specific type of phone. I forget the name. I used to know what the name of

it is, but it's like a name, it's a phone specifically which can have like your, it's like your outlook for classified information, but it's heavily restricted. Like there's only like 50 or 60 of these phones in the whole U.S. government. It's literally only for top cabinet secretaries and I think like one or two other officials. So I think it's called HiSide. That's what it is. Well, maybe that was taken and we don't know.

Maybe they're not telling the press because we're relying on them to tell us what was stolen. Yeah, so the high side, that's like the communication apparatus. And by the way, that's what these people were supposed to be using instead of Signal. Yeah, I was just going to say. If you see actually in that, they're like, this is in your high side email. That's what I'm talking about here. That's what the high side is. So you can see that clearly there's like a major security breach that happened here. But I mean, just broadly, it's one of those where the veneer every time of...

like the veneer of the protection around these individuals gets pierced, I think is really bad. That was what we really saw with the Trump attempted assassination where you're like, dude, like this guy got this close to the president and only by Trump turning his head does his head not explode on live television. And then, you know, we had previous incidents in the Obama administration where people jumped the fence and there's just this mystery and like Hollywoodization of,

about the professionalism of a lot of the people who protect these people. Yeah. But then in reality, you know, an average thief is able to just steal your purse. When you're going, and you're like, hold on a second. In front of Secret Service. Don't forget this. Um,

Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor under Joe Biden, was in his house working at 3 a.m. in the morning. And a guy broke into his house and was in his kitchen, completely past the Secret Service detail. And Sullivan, only because he was awake, came downstairs and he's like, who are you? He's like, what's going on here? I had to

call his own detail to come and get this guy out of there. I mean, that's an extraordinary breach. This is just a number of these types of incidents where people get incredibly close to these individuals and you're just like, oh,

Well, I mean, what's going to happen, right, as a result? And it's not a joke, obviously, because he's the top law enforcement officer in the country. You also have, I mean, there's so many different figures like this who are all about Washington. I just saw a picture of a, I saw a video of Kennedy yesterday walking out of Martin's Tavern with the Saratoga water bottle. So that's

A little bit too on the nose for me personally. But yeah, so like he's obviously a very high profile figure. His father was literally assassinated. I mean, what is the protocol around protecting these individuals? It's really dangerous. It's so dangerous. And this is in the middle of a reckoning period for Secret Service. I mean, remember after the Trump assassination attempt.

They were hauled in front of Congress and gave all of these testimonies and pledged. First of all, they blamed local police, but then also pledged to put in reforms and be better. And how this is not this is less than a year from a presidential candidate being shot in the head on live television. Christine Noem was not at a rally. She was at a restaurant with Secret Service at.

at least supposed to be within 10 feet of her. And it sounds like from the news report that they didn't know her purse was stolen until they reviewed the security camera footage, that they literally had to go back, look at the footage to notice that someone swiped

the Homeland Security Secretary's purse in the middle of a busy restaurant when the entire purpose of Secret Service is to have eyes on her and her belongings. Another thing to mention is that during Signalgate, one of the points, I think it was Jeffrey Goldberg who made this, and loath as I am to say it, he's completely correct. One of the problems with Signal is that someone gets your phone. If someone took Jeffrey Goldberg's phone,

he would have had these signal messages on it. If someone took Pete Hegseth's phone, he would have had these, or Susie Weil's phone. They would have then, if they stole their purse and they had a phone in it, for example, they would have had access to the signal messages about the strikes. Like, if you are a bad act

who wants to penetrate the circle of the president, of the decision makers, of the U.S. government, of our military, and you see the Homeland Security Secretary having her passport lifted at a frigging burger restaurant five blocks from the White House. I mean, this is an embarrassment. This should be, to your point, this is the last thing I'll say about this,

The social fabric can be disrupted very, very severely and very quickly by security breaches that could be assassinations. They could be close brushes with assassinations. They could be access to classified information, whatever it is.

The country already feels like it is teetering on the edge of something very, very dark. I totally agree. It's insane. You're right. Top cabinet officials and all. I mean, just think about the consequences of a security breach and all. We came close with the Trump attempted assassination and yeah.

Ever since then, it's just been a spotlight on this organization. You would think that they would tighten things up, but it really looks more as if it's because, not because of their competence, but because of, you know, like nothing has just happened, all of that yet. So anyway.

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All right, tell us about motherhood. What's happening? Yes, as the only childless host of Breaking Points, I thought it would be a good subject for me to handle. Still technically childless, I guess. Well, but... It's cooking. It's cooking. It's still got, you know, one or two more days. By the way, you know, I would like for it to go ahead and hurry up.

but it is what it is. You're getting there, man. Yeah, yeah. All right, so let's turn to this big story in the New York Times yesterday that laid out exactly what the Trump administration is planning to do in order to make good on Donald Trump's pledge to create a, quote, baby boom in the United States of America. We can put this first element up on the screen. The New York Times published a big feature yesterday digging into exactly how the administration is approaching this. You can see the headline is White House Assesses Ways to Persuade Children to Have Moms.

to persuade women to have more children. Emma Waters from the Heritage Foundation is featured in the photo there. I think we both know her. Yeah, old friend of mine. Yeah, Emma's actually a really interesting thinker. First graph of the story, the White House has been hearing out a chorus of ideas in recent weeks for persuading Americans to get married and have more children, an early sign that the Trump administration will embrace a new cultural agenda, which, by the way, I took issue with that line in the story, by the way, a quote, early sign that the Trump administration will embrace a new cultural agenda?

Are you kidding me? There have been so many signs that the Trump administration will embrace this new cultural agenda. One proposal shared with aides would reserve 30% of scholarships for the Fulbright program. For applicants who are married or have children, another would give a $5,000 cash quote baby bonus to every American mother after delivery. A third calls on the government, and this is a saga where I know you have all kinds of thoughts and are excited to weigh in, to fund programs that educate women on their menstrual cycle.

Sager specifically pitched this story. Yeah, that's right. That was what I – no, I wanted to discuss it with you because we've both been involved in some of these discussions now for quite some time, pronatalism. And, you know, I think it's difficult for me to –

It's difficult because I think four or five years ago when I started to hear this stuff and policy like in Hungary, right, where they're like, oh, we'll pay off your mortgage if you have four kids. You don't have to pay any tax, no income tax. I was like, wow, this is fantastic. Here's the truth, though. It hasn't worked. Hungary, it didn't work. And by the way, this is not a knock on Hungary. It's a noble effort. But the truth is, is it doesn't work in any form that it takes. Every developed country in the world –

Even with socialized medicine, better healthcare and childcare than we could ever imagine, it doesn't work. It's like a product of industrial capitalism. It's like industrial capitalism itself is the main engine. Amen, Mother Socrates. Yeah, I mean, I'm not.

if you really want me to put my red hat on right now. But I mean, even then, let's talk about the Soviet Union. Like we saw the destruction there of birth rates and of, you know, they're talking about, for example. Can we put the next element up on the screen, please? So the producers made this great graphic just sort of talking about the specifics of what

Yeah, read them off. It has been proposed by people in these circles. So we talked about the $5,000 cash baby bonus to every American mother after delivery. Fund programs that educate women on their menstrual cycles and parts they can better understand when they're ovulating and able to conceive. And let me just briefly pause on that point. The idea behind that is to...

Basically undercut the power of birth control, which people in these circles believe. I think it's a pretty good argument. Actually has affected women's fertility. Women get married later, meaning they're on birth control for longer and longer periods of their life, which makes it harder to ultimately conceive when they want to because they've married later in their 30s. And that's already harder off the bat. So that's the idea behind it.

You know, is it going to be a tough sell? Absolutely. Is it the role of the federal government? That is a different conversation that we can have. But just to sort of explain some of the thinking, that's where it comes from. And then three, this gets to what Sagar was just talking about, bestowing a special medal on mothers of six or more children. So basically all the Mormons.

Well, all the Mormons, and this is, you were about to allude, because you were talking about how the Soviet Union looked at policies like these, and particularly that policy. Yes, the metal, like the hero of the Soviet Union, if you had more than four more children, and guess what? If anything, actually the fertility rate fell off a cliff even more after the decline of the Soviet Union and the ushering in of their 1990s disaster capitalism.

So I have a run in front of me of all of the programs which have even been moderately successful. So France, highest birth rate in all of Western Europe, 1.8. So still not above replacement. They have up to three years of paternity leave, of parental leave, up to three years. They have...

monthly child allowances, which are not means tested. They have huge tax benefits. They have massively subsidized childcare, which is actually good. Like people who are very well-trained and they give them very nutritious food. They have a quote, cultural normalization of working mothers. They're still only at 1.8. And a lot of that, let's be honest, is because of the immigration problem.

Number two, the Swedish, Swedish and Nordic countries. These places have universal childcare, job security protection. They have parental leave that you're like required to basically take culturally for a year. Guess what? Doesn't work. You got to turn parental leave. Hungary, probably the single, like the one country which threw everything, massive cash incentives, 30,000 euro loan for young couples who are partially forgiven per child.

lifetime income tax exemption for mothers of four kids, home buying subsidies, free IVF, slight increase only to 1.6 in the overall birth rate. You need 2.2 just to be above. Like I can go on forever. Russia, same thing. They tried in 2015. It's actually declined so far. War doesn't help. Actually, again, the only country developed in the world that has an above replacement fertility rate is Israel.

Even amongst their secular Jewish population. Nobody really knows why. I mean, look, they do have a lot of policies. They've got norms. Exclude the Orthodox Jews. That's not really fair. There's an existential fear that natural capitalism removes for most. Yeah, that's a good point.

It's literally like a civilization that's like, if we do not reproduce, our land will be taken away from us. But they have the same thing. They have state-funded IVF. They have generous family allowances. They have universal health care. They've got big cultural norms favoring children. If you ever go to Israel, there's kids everywhere, right? But my point just on all of this is it's not policy. It's just culture. And I hate to say that. I wish if it were a policy problem, we could fix it. But –

At best, you can squeeze like a 0.3 or a 0.4. I mean, that's a lot, actually. Exactly. But, I mean, even then, you have to rewrite the social contract of the entire United States. Now, I'll also be clear. I would be in favor of many of these policies, even if it only did 0.3 and 0.4, because it makes life easier for even when you have one or two children. I mean, going through this process right now, oh, $5,000, thanks. I'll consider covering a portion of my deductible, which is just going to be just for childbirth.

I really appreciate you covering it, even though I pay like $500 a month. Awesome. Dad's soccer is going to be so much fun. Yeah, I'm already going off. It's just like already an old man. This is part of my blue maga turn. It's like, oh, great. Now my stroller's more expensive. The car seat's going to be more expensive. I bought all this stuff before the tariffs, but there's a lot of people out

there they don't have any money those are investments right yeah you can flip those and you go oh this shit only lasts for six months great now i have to go actually a good point i should probably buy my infant stroller seat right now uh before the tariffs and all of that go up because i was gonna wait guess i can't now i'm just saying we're already getting grumpy text messages from saga by the cost of shit that's true that's true you should you know berries i mean these kids they're like berry machines uh the amount that they're buying there and drum wants to put a 10 tariff on them forever

Joking, joking. My point is just looking at these policies, I think they're very noble. I think it's a good idea. However, it is not a magic bullet. It's just not. And the truth is, is that every developed society in the world just has a low birth rate.

And there's just something about the comfort of industrial capitalism, of the lack of like need for, you know, of the lack of like rural, you know, area community, you know, all these other things. The truth is, is like even here in America, the poorest people have the most kids. It's one of the most like, it's the craziest thing is that the people who are the most impacted by it.

but who largely have not yet absorbed like all of the cultural milieu of like the middle class lifestyle and vacations and all these other things are the people who are having the most children. The moment that you assimilate to the higher echelons of American society, you have less children. The only exception is when you reach the extreme end of the wealth spectrum of like 0.1%. Oh, yeah. They love to get married and have kids.

They love to get married and to have children, but that's because they've genuinely exited like US society. It's everybody else in between that you're like, well, people are like, yeah, but I want to go to Disneyland or whatever. I'm like, oh, do you have 5,000 bucks if you have four kids? Hope you do. And you're going to be driving. You know, you're not, you can't even fly. And to be honest, I don't even think a lot of the economic constraints affect the question of whether people end up going above replacement rate. I think it's genuinely just that when you have

a career-centric society. It's very hard to have three children. And that's where we see, I think, one of the saddest things that Lyman Stone has researched. He's quoted in this article with the Institute for Family Studies.

is that American women actually say that they have fewer children than they want. Yeah, that's true. And it's because they start later than they want in order to have, well, not than they want, but they start later, so late that they don't end up being able to have as many children as they want. And that's genuinely one of the sadder things. And it's not really a policy, at least not in the structure, the policy structure of the American economy right now or in the American government right now. That's not really a policy question. It's much more of a cultural question.

It's a huge cultural question. It's also about what do you even want, right? Like, yeah, I mean this gets to the whole two-income trap and a lot of the problems with the consumption economy and the driving up of the overall consumptive rate of the average family, which necessitates a two-person household that has to work. But there are realities here. But I mean – but the counter to what I'm saying is the Swedish model.

Yeah. Where they have everything, every benefit that an American could possibly want to make their life easier. Leave, money, you know, cultural norms and all that, and they still don't have a lot of kids. Like –

Well, so this is really interesting because this is where both the left and the right are predicating their solutions on materialism. Yeah, that's right. Right. So the right solution is a little bit more money. The left solution is a little bit more money, a little bit more child care. And those things can be good policies. Totally. Whether or not they help the birth rate, they can be good policies. Like a $5,000 baby bonus is probably a good policy. I think it's a good policy. Yeah.

But is it actually going to help the birth rate? No, because these are not primarily material concerns. They're cultural ones. And just to wrap this all up, Ross Douthat reacted to the New York Times article by posting it on Axn saying, of course, you know, I think it's good for the administration to consider pronatalist ideas. But right now, nothing would be more pronatalist than avoiding an unnecessary recession. Yeah, that's right. Exactly. What we're looking at six months down the road is a Trump administration coming up with a $5,000 baby bonus into a horrible economy for families.

where, to your point, they can't buy bananas for their babies. Or they can buy bananas. They're just exceedingly expensive and there aren't as many of them in stock. So, yeah, this is heading, it's on a collision course for the Trump administration. Wow. Yeah, I just looked it up. Birth rate collapsed by 0.5 just in 2009 from 2008. Yeah. Just to show you what a recession can do.

At the same time, there is an extraordinary showdown with Harvard going on right now between the Trump administration, which is not only putting immense financial pressure on them, basically trying to tell them how to run the university, but it all apparently stems back to a massive mistake inside of the bureaucracy, which kicked this entire thing off.

uh... this was broken down in a recent c_n_n_ segment and yes i know it's the answer that she did decent job this time around must be less okay for the white house's position is it was malpractice by harvard to not realize that this letter with so outrageous it probably wasn't sure 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, OK, we'll meet these demands, and actually that they had been sent in error to them? Well,

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 to 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 committed now and we're going to have to have this fight through to the end? So to recap, this entire showdown with Harvard,

is because, let's put this up there on the screen, an official on the, quote, anti-Semitism task force told the university that a letter of demands was actually now one that was sent without authorization from the government. So the university basically published the letter and said, no, we're not going to agree to these demands.

Days later, the Trump administration is like, well, screw you. We're actually going to cut off your funding. But by the way, that letter was actually unauthorized and sent by the acting general counsel of the Department of Health and Human Services on the Anti-Semitism Task Force. And it was sent in error. So the letter arrived.

when Harvard said they still believe they could have prevented a confrontation, then they get this fake letter and they're like, no, we're not going to do it. And so then now, 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, quote, Harvard went on a victimhood campaign. That is a direct quote from the White House. Instead, Harvard, so...

Harvard's position, as that guy just laid out, or the government's position is that Harvard is stupid because it took a letter that it got from the United States government and then responded to... I cannot believe I'm positioned to... I know. This is painful. Thoughts and prayers. Painful to sit here and to defend this ridiculous institution. But their position...

is that they should have realized that this was a fake letter. And now, nonetheless, despite the fact that it was fake by the government's own admission. It was signed, but it was also signed. This is Harvard's day. It was signed. Listen, if I get a letter from the government, if I get a letter from the IRS, should I call the IRS and be like, hey guys, this is a real letter? Or should I just do whatever they fucking tell me to do? Why are they signing drafts? Good point. All right, so now you tell me, Emily, based on all of this, though,

The government's position is still, nonetheless, we will still take all of your funding from you. So let's put that up there on the screen. Quote, what would it even mean for Trump to revoke Harvard's tax exempt status? Which, by the way, is different. I just want to say that's different. Yeah, no, you're right. You're right. But I'm saying this is all a cascading part of this. So Harvard says no. So the Trump administration goes, even though we sent you this thing in error, we're cutting off $2.26 billion in funding. And then a week later,

There was this all coming out that actually we're going to revoke your entire tax exempt status based on all the, I mean, this is crazy shit. And it gets to the tariff thing.

Nobody hates Harvard more than me, okay? These people should lose their tax-sum status. These people should be paying massive amounts of taxes. They're a hedge fund. They're not actually a real university. They admit less students today than they did when the U.S. population was 100 million less people, okay? Absurd. It's just complete credential-washing, inflation, student debt. I could go on forever for all of the issues with that. But...

As we are going to talk about soon with Greg, there needs to be a little bit of a process. There needs to be a little bit of a principle here, a little bit of an effort by the United States government to say, we're doing this because of what I just laid out, because you are bilking the federal government under false pretenses for student loans. You're putting your students in debt. Not because of some fake, in this case, quite literally, a fake anti-Semitism demand of the government. Right.

So the whole thing is insane. And Harvard is now countersuing the Trump administration. Every legal expert I see says Harvard or the government has no chance in this case right now. I mean they may prevail in the long run if they go through a proper process. But as of where things started right now, Harvard is getting a temporary restraining order like tomorrow.

Based on the way that this entire thing is happening. When I care obviously much more about the corruption and degradation of higher education than I care about some idiot bureaucrats in the Trump administration botching it. But do you end up actually addressing the problem if you are too incompetent to address it correctly and hurt your ability? This is the problem, exactly.

Right, because you and I are actually probably sympathetic to the argument that if you're making an omelet, you're going to break a few eggs. If the omelet is reforming higher ed, yes, obviously the media is going to pick out a few examples of really bad process work from the Trump administration and blow them up into something that they're not. This actually is really bad. There's like no question. This is so stupid. This is not like common behavior. You know, it's like this is classic behavior.

stupidity with a capital S where it's embarrassing to even have to be in a position to be like, yeah, well, they kind of have a point. And this is what they've done with everything. With tariffs, with deportation. And that's why I'm like, I'm done with you. I am done with this bullshit.

It's like this amount of stupidity that you require people to debase themselves to defend your idiocy is enough. Look, I know that there's some maga memas or whatever. They're going to stand and ride or die forever. Fine, okay, you can have them. But for people out here who actually have to follow this stuff for a living and have actual acquaintance with competence and with people who actually know what the hell they're doing, it's absurd. It's an attack on intellect itself. Go ahead. Well, so I mean, I think...

What's interesting here is that we compare Trump 1.0 and Trump 2.0 and say Trump 1.0 was more haphazard and they didn't have their ducks in a row. They hadn't spent four years preparing this detailed policy agenda that they could install immediately when a Republican president, whether it was Trump or DeSantis, was in office. I think what we're starting to see, whether it's the student deportations, this letter to Harvard or the tariffs, is that actually they...

did plan directionally what they wanted to do. They planned who they wanted to put in place, but they just lack the know-how to execute. Well, actually, it's a huge indictment. I've been thinking about this a lot. It's a massive indictment of Project 2025 and all of the projects that were ostensibly to professionalize the Trump administration. It's just not happening.

at all. Congratulations, you had some executive orders that were ready to go on day one. Let's look at the actual result of your flagship product, Doge. $2 trillion to $1 trillion to $150 billion, which is the exact amount that we're going to increase the Pentagon budget. Okay, so you didn't cut a single dollar of federal spending. I'm judging you by what you say that you wanted to do. Doge, you failed. It's a complete failure. Elon is leaving soon, right? Literally, he has to.

because of this whole special government thing. Well, that may actually help Doge, to be honest. It probably will. If you let Russ Vogt start, who is a highly competent bureaucrat. So, look, we're only 100 days in, so Doge. Deportation. It's like, okay, yeah, I mean, you know, I said this previously yesterday. The Bureau of Prisons validates gang members every day. Every single day. The Bureau of Prisons has...

thousands of gang members in the United States penitentiary system and knows exactly what they look like and how they do. Tattoos and everything. Do they make mistakes? I'm sure they do, but I guarantee you it's a much more professional. So when they come out, they go, oh, we're sending these gang members to El Salvador. I'm like, oh, okay. You know, it makes sense. It's the U.S. Department of Justice. No, it's like, oh,

Complete bullshit the way that you guys did this. Autism awareness tattoo. Mahmoud Khalil said, oh, we're going after the student criminals, right? I'm like, oh, okay. So the Hamilton Hall guy, right? No. The guy who handed out a flyer?

or this lady who co-authored an op-ed or the guy who's married to a lady who's related to someone. What? Like, and that tariffs, this fucking formula. It's the exact same thing. Same bullshit. It's the same as the first time around. I mean, I remember the census thing. This is the first thing. This is the first thing that pissed me off about the Trump administration. As people know,

The census currently counts illegal immigrants, which is insane, right? Insane. Because it basically means that if you have enough illegals in your state that you get more representation in Congress. What? And more electoral votes. Nonsense. Well, the administration had a plan in 2018 to get rid, to basically change the census. It only costs U.S. citizens. Great. Awesome.

Would have completely changed the electoral map. Well, they did it in such an incompetent way. The Supreme Court was like, we don't even disagree, but we are striking this down because you did it so stupidly. And then they're like, oh, the 2020 election was stolen. I'm like, well, you know, also you can't do the basic paperwork. The travel ban.

How many travel bans did we have in 2017? Do you remember? Maybe four? Five? It was ridiculous. Actually, that's a really good parallel. I hadn't even thought about that because it's so hard to pull all of these different references out because there's literally hundreds of them. That's actually a really good reference point. And I think the difference really now that I'm thinking of it between 1.0 and 2.0 here is that 2.0, to use a somewhat violent metaphor, in 1.0, nobody knew where to aim.

In 2.0, everyone spent years figuring out exactly where to aim but didn't train at shooting. They weren't going to the range and they're not right on the target. They know exactly what target to shoot at, but they don't know how to hit the bullseye. And that's what's happening in this administration and in ways that are probably undermining their ability to ultimately hit the target because people are going to pull them out of the range. Right?

before they can figure out how to hit the target. They'd be like, get the hell out of here. You don't know how to use that gun. They're already, I mean, how many days has it been since January 20th? Let's see. All right, January 21st. Let's see. It has been, all right.

All right. Chat GPT is not working right now. All right. It's been 80 or 90 days. You run out of political capital. They only have one piece of legislation they're going to pass. Exactly. For the next two years. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Good luck with that one. I hope it works out, considering all the things you guys have said that you want to do. Oh, by the way, and you have to lift the debt ceiling. That's not rinse and repeat. They're trying to stuff a bunch of stuff in reconciliation. It's not just re-upping the tax cuts. It's actually stuffing a bunch of other policy priorities in. Totally.

But I'm saying you have one piece of legislation. That's all you guys have left. You burned all your political capital. You haven't deported that many people. If anything, you're actually trailing the Obama and Clinton administration, and you're roughly on par with the Biden administration. Tariff policy, disaster. Sorry. It's true. There's been – I mean maybe you'll get some benefit a few months from now. I'm genuinely doubtful as –

I mean, this is where I'm just going full Richard Hanania. Like, they do not have elite human capital. Who are behind it? It's true. It's true. No, it's true. I don't see it. I don't see a single one. I don't think anybody has the human capital to accomplish the goals that they've set their sights on. Maybe you're right. You know what? That's actually a decent point. They're trying to radically transform a system that's built up over 100 years. And I don't think it's a matter of the Trump people being—I think there are absolutely some idiots in the Trump administration. I think we could both— I would say more per capita. Yeah.

Okay, but yeah, it's because Republicans haven't trained up an army of bureaucrats over the course of the last 100 years. Democrats have. And now Republicans are trying to use this sort of like haphazard, like Lexington and Concord band of policy amateurs to do something much more difficult than anyone's ever tried to do in the policy space. Very fair counter. And I actually think that's probably a good place to leave it.

to leave it. So anyway, Harvard, that's what happened. Let's get to the CEO of FIRE, Greg Lukanoff. He's going to break down some of the free speech attacks for us, including some on Harvard. Let's get to it.

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Every morning brings a fresh new energy. This is today. And no matter what the day holds, we come to the Today Show for all of it. When things are tough, we talk about it. When there's something to figure out, we dig into it. And when there's joy, we celebrate it. Because today is where it's all happening. We get the best start to every morning because we start it together. Watch the Today Show with Savannah Guthrie and Craig Melvin weekdays at 7 a.m. on NBC.

Joining us now is Greg Lukianoff. He is the CEO of FIRE, one of the most principled free speech organizations in the United States. We're very excited to be joined by him. Greg, it's great to see you. Thanks for joining the show. Thanks for having me. So, Greg, we wanted you to get sound off on some of the extraordinary moves by the Trump administration. First of all, you are the author of several books, and more recently, this one. Let's put it up there on the screen, The Canceling of the American Mind.

But more recently, you might look at that and be like, oh, this is a right-wing guest or something. But Greg, you're unique in that you really have stood up against a lot of unprecedented attacks on free speech currently by the Trump administration. We have a list that we can just put here right now assembled by your team. Let's put it up there on the screen. Relevant, in fact, to some of the Harvard discussion that we just had here on the show. Why don't you break down for us why you see this as an attack on free speech recently?

with the Harvard situation and for a lot more. - Oh yeah, I mean, there is no small irony in my taking so much hate mail at the moment for defending Harvard. Because Harvard finished dead last two years in a row on our campus free speech ranking. And I wanna be very clear, they earned that position.

But the answer cannot be the government wildly exceeding its power to effectively nationalize Harvard using powers it doesn't have. And I'm a civil libertarian. So like I'm concerned about left-wing authoritarianism and I'm concerned about right-wing authoritarianism. Like I'm mostly afraid of the accumulation of power.

And what they're currently claiming is that because of the history of anti-Semitism at Harvard, which I'd say like that's a real concern, they now can restrict, what, $2.6 billion in potential funding to Harvard unless Harvard meets demands that control everything from certain departments to what is taught to who is admitted, etc.

And that's what I mean by effectively nationalizing. It's micromanaging this massive company. And I think that, yeah, is it possible that if you followed the procedures and did Title VI hearings and even Title IX hearings on the way Harvard has behaved over the last five years, that Harvard might lose and be in risk of losing its federal funding? Absolutely. That is absolutely a possibility. Right.

But the government does not have the power to completely skip over that entire process and just declare by you cause, you know, that essentially you now have to do what the government says you do because you receive any federal federal funding at all. And I did write I'm taking some flack for this right now, but I take this very seriously. The idea that, yes, Harvard has made a ton of mistakes and, you know, I'm first in line and criticizing and canceling of the American mind. You know, Harvard does not come out. That does not come out particularly well.

But the idea that we'd freeze a massive amount of science funding for things that could actually be groundbreaking. I mean this is the one thing that consistently scares me is essentially that in an effort to deal with very real problems in higher ed, we're going to destroy our unique ability to push the frontiers of science, which harms everyone, not just even in the United States and the globe.

And we might disagree on this because I'm more sympathetic to the idea of the federal government exercising some power over federal funding. And to your point, Greg, I think also there's Title IX, Title VII, like all of this could get pretty interesting in the courts. Sure.

I have seen, I'm curious what you make of this, some really interesting commentary on the question of viewpoint diversity. The federal government asking Harvard to implement different measures to ensure there's viewpoint diversity at Harvard or in its research and all of that.

I mean, it's the same thing with the anti-Semitism definition that FIRE has been really brave and for years standing up against the overly broad IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. Those seem like problematic answers to a problem in and of itself. And could you just speak to the viewpoint diversity question? Because you've been advocating for viewpoint diversity at the university level for a long time. Then when the federal government asks about it, it becomes a different issue.

Exactly. I want viewpoint diversity in higher ed. And for example, if Congress decided to make some of these contingent on federal funding, you have a lot of power to decide what you tie federal funding to in the first place. Right.

But you can't work backwards and then say, oh, by the way, we've now decided that federal funding is contingent on viewpoint diversity. That also poses really serious First Amendment issues because what you're saying is a private institution has to basically have a political litmus test to make sure that they have greater viewpoint diversity.

Now, I want schools to achieve viewpoint diversity, and I think one of the ways they can do that is to have more classes co-taught by people who disagree. I think this would be powerful on multiple levels, and it could be a great way to introduce more viewpoint diversity. But as a civil libertarian, when it's achieved through government coercion –

We're rightfully concerned about that. So definitely – and to be clear, the government does have power to put strings on its federal funding, and they do. And we – and that's why I made the point that essentially could they be found guilty of violating Title VI, Title VII, and Title IX? Yeah. I think that's a real possibility. But you can't just do it.

without proving it, without going through the procedural steps, because those really matter. That's the difference between a government, a republic, and something that looks a lot more authoritarian. Well, what you're really talking about here is process through the legal courts where you have to

Present evidence where you have to have a judge who is ruled here. Let's put the next parts up there, guys, on the screen, which FIRE has also spoken out against. Some of the deportation efforts here of students who have criticized Israel and or participated in protests on college campuses.

Can you just tell us why, again, in this particular case, the administration is justifying this as a violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act, saying that they're expressing support here for a terrorist organization and thus these students are eligible for deportation. Fire has spoken out against this. Tell us why.

Yeah, and again, people could point out some irony here. I don't really see it as irony because FIRE has been one of the ones pointing out – actually alone to a degree pointing out that pro-Palestinian protesters are responsible for all but essentially three of the highest number of campus shout-downs of speakers on record.

It's been overwhelmingly a pro-Palestinian movement. In some cases, I remember they did a shout down. They shut down an event of someone who was just there to talk about black holes. You know, like it was ridiculous and we called it out all the time. So I think that a lot of these protests have been in some cases a disaster for free speech and academic freedom.

However, again, you have to follow process and you have to prove it. So when they first accused Mahmoud Khalil, for example, I was like, well, you know, Columbia was a disaster. And I'm willing to bet, not willing to bet, I suspect they might actually have something more serious on him. Like he was involved in some of the vandalism or some of the anti-Semitic harassment himself or some of the really bad, in some cases, criminal behavior that took place at Harvard or at least things that they could have kicked him out of school for.

But as the case went on, we're like, the government's not making this argument. They're basically pointing to flyers that a group that he was loosely affiliated with circulated. And I'm like, okay, that's saying that you're kicking him out just for speech that would be protected by an American citizen. And that's problematic according to the law. There was a weird argument that I keep on getting that people here on a green card, and green card is one step away from citizenship.

have no free speech rights. And that's absurd. And in 1945, the Supreme Court was incredibly clear in a case called Bridges v. Wixson that resident aliens do have First Amendment rights. Now, what the full parameters of those rights are is the one remaining question. But it certainly should not be that you can be at a protest at a college campus

where there are 10 protesters, all of it peaceful, all of it protected. And nine of those protesters are fine because they're American citizens. But the 10th has to show his papers and could be kicked out of the country for being on the wrong side of it. So the Mahmoud Khalil case actually just got

worse the longer it went on. And the Oster case is even worse because the only thing they're pointing at this tough students is that she wrote a op-ed that was critical of Israel, that was critical. And it was much more mainstream than it was being presented as. And this is the young woman that they actually drove a van by and plainclothes policemen stuff her and take her away for deportation. That's scary stuff. And it's one of these things where you

Think about all the great Americans that we are proud to have come to this country and eventually became naturalized or didn't in some cases who would be horrified if they were deported. I think of Christopher Hitchens. I don't think Christopher Hitchens – he definitely was here on a green card for a long time. I don't think he ever actually became a citizen.

And the idea, or for that matter, what I point this out to conservatives, what about, oh my God, Peterson. Jordan Peterson. Jordan Peterson. Or Elon Musk. Or Elon Musk. So I think that I understand that people are concerned about what happened at Columbia and a lot of these schools. I am too, passionately so. I think they shamed themselves during this period.

But that's not the same thing as saying these students are responsible for it and that they should be kicked out because of their opinion. That's much more dangerous. Ingrid, you didn't just write Canceling of the American Mind. That was a follow-up to a really great book you wrote as well called The Coddling of the American Mind with John Haidt. And that's a really important book. I mean I would say that's like a landmark book in the way that we've sort of come to view our culture as.

And the reason I want to ask you about that is in the midst of this conversation about the quote-unquote woke right, one of the things that as a conservative I worried about sometimes pre-2024 is that there were cancellations that did see conservative students being the victims of attacks on free speech. They were really truly being victimized in some cases. Absolutely. That fueled, though, a really interesting sense of victimhood online.

on the right, which is something the right critiqued the left, uh, for sort of being defined by, uh, for a very long time. And I'm curious as the author of coddling and canceling, uh, if, if you see that sort of, uh, instinctive, instinctive illiberalism that comes when you end up genuinely being a victim, actually starting to, um, fuel right-wing encroachments on speech. Is there something to that? Oh, no, I think there absolutely is. I think, um,

I'm reading Musa al-Gharbi's book, We've Never Been Woke. And he really kind of saw James Lindsay's term, woke right, you know, coming. That essentially when you look at some of the tenets of the right, of the heart, the authoritarian left and the authoritarian right, both of which I very much opposed.

They have very similar characteristics and it goes so far as to have people like Chris Ruffo talking about their admiration for Gramsci and Lenin and like all of these monsters that my family had to flee Russia to fight because they were so good at manipulating the public opinion.

Oftentimes with an initial sense of grievance that called for centralization of power on the basis of identity. The woke right and woke left are more similar than they're comfortable with even to the point at which they're citing the same – and I'm going to show my own bias here – historical monsters to justify their position. Yeah, and the last part here is on these law firms. This is one where I have not.

Not yet truly wrapped my head around this one, but go ahead, Greg. We're going to put it up there on the screen. We haven't even done a full segment just because it is kind of convoluted in a way. You're like the president is like attacking a law firm and thus saying that he had to do like pro bono work for him personally. But why is that a free speech problem here?

Oh, my God. It's a problem for a free speech organization because we go into court to defend freedom of speech, and we're all lawyers, not all of us. I'm actually really glad that some of us are social scientists as well. But what they're saying is – and it went beyond just –

people who opposed the administration. People, I mean, but they're going after law firms that, for example, you know, helped with the January 6th prosecutions or helped oppose some of the attempts for the, over the 2020 election, the argument that, who fought against the idea that the election was stolen, which, by the way, it wasn't. And, and,

What they're saying to some of these law firms now is that because you opposed the administration on their position on affirmative action, for example, like word – that's one of our justifications for targeting you. I'm like, so wait.

But here's the most important thing. The way they're targeting them is, one, telling these law firms that they're losing their security clearance, which as a D.C. lawyer, that's, you know, death sentence for some of these lawyers. But more importantly and more horrifyingly, they're telling them that they can't go into federal buildings. And guess what's a really important federal building for lawyers? A court. So, like, the idea that the federal government has power to say that lawyers can't enter courtrooms –

is an extraordinary addition to power. And because FIRE is currently in court with Donald Trump's personal lawyer in a case where he's suing a pollster for getting a poll wrong. Oh, Ann Seltzer. Ann Seltzer, back in Iowa. And because we're a nonprofit that goes into court, we're very aware of the idea, like how on earth are we supposed to do our advocacy in a situation in which lawyers can be told that they can't enter a courtroom if you oppose the administration? Mm-hmm.

Well, yeah, very interesting. Greg, we can always look to you and your organization. We really, really appreciate the work that you guys do over here at Breaking Points, and we're just really happy to have you on, man. So thank you. We appreciate it. It can feel like a really thankless job to constantly be angering both sides of the political spectrum.

But at least I've had a lot of practice. That's great. There are a lot of people out there who definitely see and appreciate the work that you guys do. So thank you very much, Greg. Thank you so much. Take care. Thank you guys so much for watching. And Emily, thank you for being here. It was great fun. I hope the audience got what it needed, what it deserved, possibly. All we do is give. Huh? Yeah, that's what we're givers. I'm a giver. I'm forgetting what movie that's from. Anyway, all right. We will see. Oh, you'll be on tomorrow with Crystal. So there you go. We will see you all later.

Spring cleaning? Sure, if we have to. But we're way more into spring streaming. Finding something to watch shouldn't feel like a chore, so we let Xfinity's entertainment experts do all the heavy lifting. They drop hand-picked TV, movie, and music recommendations right into your social feed. New premieres, returning series, exclusive interviews, the top music playlist for My Heart Radio, and all the rest.

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