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What A Day
In Trump vs Universities, Students Are Stuck In The Middle
00:23:24
In his first 100 days in office, President Donald Trump has fundamentally reshaped the federal government’s relationship with many of the nation’s most revered universities. Schools are finding themselves in an unwinnable fight: either capitulate to Trump’s authoritarian-esq demands or lose millions – even billions – in federal funding. Some schools, like Columbia, have already caved. Others, like Harvard, have been more defiant. Either way, the impact is not theoretical, and current students are feeling it acutely. Nathan Elias, editor and chief of the University of Southern California’s student newspaper paper the Daily Trojan, tells us what he’s hearing from his fellow students. And in headlines: The U.S. economy shrunk in the first few months of the year, Trump admitted he ‘could’ bring back a man wrongfully deported to El Salvador, and the Supreme Court appears ready to green light religious public charter schools.
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- [00:03]
Josie Duffy Rice
It's Thursday, May 1st. I'm Josie Duffy Rice in for Jane Coston. And this is what a day. The show that didn't know that President Donald Trump is joining the liberal war on Christmas.
- [00:13]
Nathan Elias
Somebody said, oh, the shelves are gonna be open. Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.
- [00:24]
Josie Duffy Rice
Daddy Warbucks says only two dolls for America's children. And you know what, as someone who lives in a house with so many dolls everywhere, all of the time with a four year old, I'm kind of for this two doll thing. On today's show, Ukraine signs a minerals deal with the US As Treasury Secretary Scott Besant criticizes Russia's war. And the economy shows more signs of decline with first quarter GDP numbers. But first, let's start with Trump's war. On college campuses, many institutions find themselves caught up in an unwinnable fight. You either capitulate to the president's authoritarian, esque demands, or you lose millions or even billions in federal funding, including critical medical research dollars. Some schools, like Columbia, have already caved. Others have been more defiant. Harvard, for example, filed a lawsuit against the administration. And others are trying to get out of his crosshairs while maintaining some autonomy. But either way, for many institutions, the impact is not theoretical. Diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives are being shut down. Campus protests are being curtailed, and the administration is threatening some of these institutions tax exempt status. Some of these policies, practices, and orders are being challenged and sometimes overturned in court. On Wednesday, a judge released Mohsen Madawi, a Palestinian student at Columbia University who protested against Israel's war in Gaza. Earlier this month, immigration officials arrested him during an interview focused on finalizing his American citizenship. Madawi was greeted with cheers from hundreds of supporters when he walked out of a Vermont courthouse. He's a kree. And he sent a message to the White House.
- [02:12]
Nathan Elias
I am saying it clear and loud.
- [02:17]
Scott Besant
Yes.
- [02:18]
Nathan Elias
To President Trump and his cabinet. Yes, I am not afraid of you.
- [02:25]
Josie Duffy Rice
So who knows how long this assault on higher education will last. But either way, in just his first 100 days, Trump has managed to fundamentally reshape the relationship between the federal government and many of the nation's most revered universities. And while this could impact pretty much everyone because we all need medical research people, current college students are paying the immediate price. I spoke to Nathan Elias, editor in chief of Daily Trojan, the student newspaper at the University of Southern California, one of the many institutions that the administration seems intent on Punishing. Nathan, welcome to What a day.
- [03:01]
Scott Besant
Thank you for having me.
- [03:02]
Josie Duffy Rice
So USC made headlines last spring when nearly 100 students were arrested by the LAPD and later disciplined by the university for their involvement with a pro Palestinian encampment on campus. Now we're talking to you. It's been one year since that encampment was torn down. What do things look like now on campus at USC in terms of student activism, especially amid the new administration's effort to crack down on these kind of protests?
- [03:29]
Scott Besant
Yeah, so essentially it was about a year ago, I believe, April 24, when about 50 students were arrested, about 40 community members were arrested. And since that day, our campus has been locked down. So we already had gates around campus. But it was to the point now where each day you have to scan your ID to get inside, or if you don't have, like, a student ID or like, faculty id, then you show your little government id that legacy is still here. There are gates around Alumni park where the protesters set up their first encampment. And there's just a greater sense of vigilance. Like, I. It's kind of a regular thing for me to walk around and see, like, our dps, Department of Public Safety, they're kind of posted up around, or they'd be biking, or you see their car kind of posted up next to that Alumni park area. And because of that, there hasn't been as many protests in the campus itself. Now they'd be, like, protesting maybe outside of the gates. That's kind of their response to USC's ramping up of security.
- [04:32]
Josie Duffy Rice
And we're also seeing across the country, the Trump administration target international students. Right. With its effort to deport students involved in these protests and other students as well. USC has a very large community of international students. What are you hearing from them? What are you seeing as they're kind of watching this crackdown happen?
- [04:52]
Scott Besant
I believe we're about a quarter international students. And so there's obviously, like, a very palpable feel, I mean, of people who maybe participated in the protest, even people who aren't involved, because there was also an order that the Trump administration made to, like, give information on students that are Chinese nationals, for example. USC literally sent an email, multiple emails to international students saying, be careful about where you travel, to think about what your summer plans are going to be. There's, I would say, palpable fear based on the uncertainty that the Trump administration is creating. I think, as it relates to visas being canceled. Other schools would like. I believe they sent, like, all their students an email whenever they had a confirmed cases of that happening. USC has not informed the wider public, and we've actually asked them multiple times and they wouldn't tell us either. I think palpable fear might be a way of describing it.
- [05:45]
Josie Duffy Rice
Yeah. I'm also wondering about the grants. So the Trump administration, more broadly, has been refusing to fund some medical research from the National Institute of Health or nih. So what guidance has USC given students or researchers who kind of depend on that funding? And are you seeing any efforts to kind of close those funding gaps from the university?
- [06:09]
Scott Besant
So the thing about funding and the interaction with the Trump administration is even before Trump came into office, USC was already amid funding uncertainty and confusion. I think the biggest thing they cite is USC has been wrapped up in a couple lawsuits related to sexual abuse and things like that that have totaled, I think, above $1 billion, essentially, that they've been having to pay out. There's like, other costs that they said have been kind of hurting them. And so even before the Trump administration came into power, they had already asked different departments to kind of wind down their own funding. But now that a lot of funding grants have came into question, and USC relies on that funding, they've essentially tried to comply as much as possible, I think is the best way to describe it. They'll never describe it as that. And I actually interviewed our president, Carol Folt, and she stood firm in saying that they are not complying in advance. But in many ways, they've already kind of changed the wording and like, you know, maybe consolidated some DEI departments to kind of disguise them in terms of people's research that have been, like, paused or canceled. Some of my colleagues in the news section of the Daily Children have done some reporting on that related to, like, new medical grants, including even like, humanities research that has been either canceled or paused. I think the main idea there is very much just like watching what the Trump administration does and trying to comply as much as possible to avoid any more blows to our budget, which is already really limited, is at least what the president has been saying.
- [07:45]
Josie Duffy Rice
Well, yeah, you brought up the DEI issue, which I was going to ask you about next, because Trump obviously has come for DEI programs, DEI language, and usc, like you mentioned, has sort of complied in some ways there. Right. They removed the phrase DI from its list of university values. Earlier this year, the president kind of instructed schools to get rid of their diversity programs. And yet they're still being accused by the administration and others of being, like, too DEI friendly. Right. You know, you co wrote this article in the Daily Trojan earlier this year about how Republican Senator Ted Cruz named USC on his list of universities that use federal funding for so called woke DEI research projects. What are you hearing about that on campus? And do you think that the school has really abandoned that as a value? How are you kind of seeing it as a student?
- [08:33]
Scott Besant
Definitely administration is trying to do its best to walk a really thin tightrope of. They've stated in the past that DEI is a value of theirs. And so there's a large group of the community and students and et cetera, that are counting on them to continue to uphold that value. But again, with their budget situation, they don't want to do anything that makes them a further target. But as students, it does really feel like that's what I'm hearing, that USC is essentially folded to the Trump administration in many ways. And even though we haven't been one of the schools yet to have this hundreds of millions of dollars be targeted like Harvard, Columbia, I believe it was our provost who recently had a meeting with faculty and he said it's very likely that USC might lose or is at risk of losing hundreds of millions of dollars. There's not necessarily much hope at the moment that USC will not fold to these demands.
- [09:25]
Josie Duffy Rice
Right, right. And out of curiosity, what projects is Senator Cruz referring to when he says like woke DEI research projects? What's he talking about?
- [09:35]
Scott Besant
I remember as we were reaching out to the people who were listed as like the principal investigators or like the main researchers, they were very confused because essentially it would be that they were doing research on like maybe like a recyclable material, but like, let's say it says the word environment or like research for a specific thing. But they have a statement that says, you know, we search for researchers of like marginalized backgrounds or something like that. So they kind of felt shocked that they were targeted on that list. But they also at the time they felt that kind of confident that they wouldn't have any further action taken against them. But it was kind of that initial shock of like I'm studying like recycled carbon fibers for like planes or something like that.
- [10:17]
Josie Duffy Rice
Most people would not call woke. Right?
- [10:19]
Scott Besant
Yeah, yeah.
- [10:20]
Josie Duffy Rice
So just from your perspective as a student, the attention that college campuses have gotten in American media kind of more broadly over the past year plus is just virtually unprecedented. It's just so such an onslaught. And now we're seeing that onslaught continue with the Trump administration's crackdown on campuses. What's this like for you as a student? How are you kind of taking all of this in what's it been like watching this from the front row?
- [10:47]
Scott Besant
College is just always been something in my mind, especially like, as my parents are like saying, oh, you know, college education is very important. It's always been built up as, like, this is the center of, you know, research and social mobility. In many ways, it's where students are researching and kind of putting these ideas into practice, maybe sometimes for the first time or like, in a real way more than ever before. So when things like protests happen, like, colleges are the center because students have that opportunity to use it towards whatever they think is most important. And at the same time, again, we're the center of, like, research. That's very important for a lot of people. Like, USC has like a deep medical portfolio of hospitals. It's very much an important facet of, I think, society. And so in that sense, I'm not surprised that we have again become like a center of the national conversation. But it is definitely at times concerning what implications does this have? For example, when or if our school ends up being targeted and they publish the number of how many millions of dollars are under threat, does that mean our newspaper can't hire any more people? Can we even print? Does that mean cultural organizations and their cultural centers on campus, their physical office spaces, can, can they still exist? Who else is going to get fired? So it's like the duality of, like, of course a college is going to be the center of this discussion, but this has real impacts on people.
- [12:16]
Josie Duffy Rice
Absolutely. Nathan, thank you so much for joining us.
- [12:19]
Scott Besant
Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you.
- [12:21]
Josie Duffy Rice
That was my conversation with Nathan Elias, editor in chief of Daily Trojan, the University of Southern California student newspaper. We'll get to more of the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe. Leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube and share with your friends. More to come after some ads.
- [12:49]
Peter Navarro
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- [14:10]
Josie Duffy Rice
Amazon One Medical presents Painful Thoughts. Do they ever actually clean the ball.
- [14:17]
Scott Besant
Pit at these kids play gyms? Or is my kid just swimming in.
- [14:21]
Josie Duffy Rice
A vat of bacteria catching whatever cootie of the day is breeding in there? A cootie that'll probably take down our whole family. Luckily, with Amazon One Medical 24. 7 Virtual Care, you can get checked.
- [14:34]
Scott Besant
Out for whatever ball pittitis you've contracted.
- [14:36]
Josie Duffy Rice
Amazon One Medical Healthcare just got less painful. Amazon has everything for every kind of Mother's Day. Whether that's a massage gun for an at home spa day. Or new shoes for her favorite salsa class.
- [14:54]
Scott Besant
Ah.
- [14:57]
Josie Duffy Rice
Or gifts like a biker helmet to unleash her inner daredevil. From hot stones to helmets, shop everything for Mother's Day on Amazon. Here's what else we're following today. Head of lines.
- [15:20]
Nathan Elias
You could get him back. There's a phone on this desk. I could. You could pick it up and with all the power of the presidency, you could call up the president of El Salvador and say, send him back right now. And if he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that. But the court has ordered you.
- [15:35]
Josie Duffy Rice
After weeks of insisting that there was absolutely nothing the US could do to bring back a man that they wrongfully deported to El Salvador, President Donald Trump admitted that he actually does have the power to make it happen. He just won't. He did so in an interview to mark his first 100 days back in office that he did with ABC News senior national correspondent Terry Moran that aired Tuesday. But Trump also said bringing back the deported man Kilmar Abrego Garcia is not up to him. The most powerful man in the world, not to mention within his own administration. You know, make it make sense.
- [16:09]
Nathan Elias
I'm not the one making this decision. We have lawyers who don't want to do this, but the buck stops in his office. No, no, no, no. I follow the law. You want me to follow the law. If I were the president that just wanted to do anything, I'd probably keep him right where he is. The Supreme Court says what the law.
- [16:24]
Josie Duffy Rice
Is truly incredible to hear this man say, I follow the law. Just couldn't write this if I tried. And who is making the decisions then? If it's not him, who are these lawyers that don't want to do that? Who's he talking about? Trump also notably derailed the interview at one point by wrongly insisting that Abrego Garcia literally had the gang name MS.13 tattooed on his knuckles, which he does not.
- [16:50]
Nathan Elias
It says Ms. 13. That was photoshopped. So let me. That was Photoshopped, Terry. You can hear that. Hey, they're giving you the big break of a lifetime. You know, you're doing the interview. I picked you because, frankly, I never heard of you. But that's okay. I picked you, Terry, but you're not being very nice. He had Ms. 13 tattoos. We'll agree to disagree.
- [17:09]
Josie Duffy Rice
It's possible Trump was referring to a photo that he posted earlier this month on Truth Social that shows Abrego Garcia's finger tattoos with MS.13 very clearly, like, typed digitally above them. For the record, he does have symbols tattooed on his knuckles, but they don't literally say Ms. 13 in, like, a Times New Romanesque font. The White House insists that Abrego Garcia is a member of Ms. 13, but he and his family have repeatedly denied that. While that exchange is obviously ridiculous, Trump's earlier admission is more notable because it directly contradicts what the White House is currently arguing in court, that returning Abrego Garcia, who was deported, in a, quote, administrative error, is up to El Salvador.
- [17:56]
Scott Besant
Today's agreement signals clearly to Russian leadership that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine over the long term. It's time for this cruel and senseless war to end.
- [18:15]
Josie Duffy Rice
Treasury Secretary Scott Besant announced Wednesday that the U.S. and Ukraine signed an economic partnership agreement. President Trump had been urging Kyiv for weeks to make a deal involving access to Ukraine's natural resources as repayment for US Aid to Ukraine to fend off Russia. The Treasury Department said in a statement that under the newly minted United States Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund. The two countries will, quote, work collaboratively and invest together to ensure that our mutual assets, talents and capabilities can accelerate Ukraine's economic recovery. Ukraine's economy minister said on Twitter that the deal sends a signal to global partners that long term cooperation with Ukraine over decades is not only possible, but reliable. The agreement comes after a disastrous Oval Office meeting in February between Trump Vice President J.D. vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that left much of the world wondering which side the US Was actually on. In the last few days, Trump has criticized Russia for its recent strikes on Ukraine.
- [19:18]
Nathan Elias
This was the best negative print, as they say in the trade for GDP I have ever seen in my life. It really should be very positive news for, for America.
- [19:32]
Josie Duffy Rice
Just an incredible, incredible way to spin the shrinking US Economy. Peter Navarro it makes sense that you're a trade advisor to the president. The real gross domestic product, or GDP, decreased for the first time in three years during the first quarter of 2025. That's according to the advance estimate released by the U.S. bureau of Economic Analysis. On Wednesday, President Trump commented on the numbers during a Cabinet meeting.
- [19:57]
Nathan Elias
Zero. You probably saw some numbers today and I have to start off by saying that's Biden, that's not Trump, because we came in on January.
- [20:05]
Josie Duffy Rice
The Commerce Department says the decrease in real GDP from January through March primarily reflects, quote, an increase in imports and a, quote, decrease in government spending. This comes after real GDP increased during the final months of the Biden administration. But economists say the GDP report might not be a full reflection of the state of our economic growth, especially because we saw a surge in imports as companies hurried to get ahead of President Trump's major tariffs announcement in April. In a case that could reshape a fundamental constitutional principle, the separation of church and state, the Supreme Court seems likely to let states use taxpayer money to fund religious public charter schools. The justices heard arguments Wednesday in a case out of Oklahoma. At issue is whether the First Amendment allows or potentially even requires states to fund such schools. The case is also noteworthy because it pits conservatives against conservatives. In one corner, you've got attorneys for Saint Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which applied for charter status. The Trump administration is siding with them. In the other corner is the office of Oklahoma's Republican attorney general, who sued to block the school from receiving that funding. The court's most conservative justices seemed ready to side with the Catholic school. Justice Brett Kavanaugh in particular seemed pretty much all in. When you have a program that's open.
- [21:30]
Scott Besant
To all comers except religion.
- [21:33]
Josie Duffy Rice
No, we can't do that.
- [21:35]
Scott Besant
We can do everything else that seems.
- [21:40]
Josie Duffy Rice
Like rank discrimination against religion. The court's three liberals appeared ready to side with Oklahoma's Attorney General. Justice Amy Coney. Barrett recused herself from the case, though she didn't really give a reason, and that would seem to leave Chief Justice John Roberts with the deciding vote, meaning the case could end in a tie. A 44 split would leave in place an Oklahoma State Supreme Court decision ruling that found funding the school to be unlawful. The Supreme Court is likely to issue its final ruling in the case in June. And that's the before we go, let's look overseas on what's happening across the pond this week on Pod Save the uk The UK Supreme Court just ruled that the legal definition of woman is based on biological sexual A chilling win for the anti trans movement. Trans campaigner and author Ellen Jones joins hosts Nish and Coco to break down how they got here, which A.K. rowling has to do with it, and what allies can actually do to support the trans community right now. Plus, with Australia heading to the polls, Nish talks to former Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan about what the US and UK can learn from Australia's voting system and why the Commonwealth might matter more than ever in the Trump era. Listen to this episode now on the pod save the UK YouTube channel or wherever you get your podcasts. That is all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, hoard some Christmas presents for the kids in your life and tell your friends to listen. And if you are into reading and not just tips and tricks on how to grow a tariff victory garden like me, what a Day is also a nightly newsletter, so check it out and subscribe@cricket.com subscribe I'm Josie Duffy Rice and maybe we'll get used to the Taste of Gruel.
- [23:49]
Scott Besant
Water Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producers are Raven Yamamoto and Emily4. Our producer is Michelle Aloy. We had production help today from Johanna Case, Joseph Dutra, Greg Walters, and Julia Claire. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison and our executive producer is Adrienne Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.