President Donald Trump suggested this week that Harvard University could lose all federal grant funding, citing the school’s ideological direction, academic standards, and student body. The warning came during an interview with NewsNation on Wednesday, where Trump criticized the elite institution for offering remedial courses and accepting foreign students who he claimed “viciously hate our country.”

“Harvard gets four or five billion dollars a year from the United States government in the form of grants, and they have $53 billion,” Trump said. “And yet they don’t treat the people right.”

The president emphasized that his administration is now reassessing why taxpayer dollars are flowing to some of the nation’s wealthiest schools while others struggle. He raised concerns about both academic performance and anti-American sentiment among students.

“They take foreign students, nobody knows where they come from. And they viciously hate our country,” Trump said. “If we’re going to give grant money, we want people in that school that are going to love our country, not people that are going to hate our country.”

Trump also ridiculed Harvard’s decision to provide basic-level math courses to incoming students, framing it as a sign of the university’s declining standards.

“They said they want to teach their students remedial mathematics,” he said. “That’s basic math — two and two is four. And you say, well, Harvard’s supposed to be so great, why do people have to have remedial… very simple mathematics?”

The president noted that the government has the authority to reallocate that money, implying that funds could be diverted from elite institutions to initiatives that better serve working-class Americans and high-need schools.

“We can grant that money to people that really need it,” Trump said. “And frankly, people that you’d rather have me give the money to.”

The comments reflect Trump’s broader push to defund ideological programs and institutions he believes are out of touch with American values. Earlier this year, his administration launched a crackdown on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs, ordering the shutdown of DEI offices across federal agencies and threatening universities with funding cuts if they failed to remove such policies.

The Harvard threat comes as part of this sweeping reevaluation of education funding and institutional accountability.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, speaking at a press briefing on Thursday, reinforced the president’s position. “We are going to have a system of merit,” Miller said. “We’re not going to let our society devolve into communist, woke, DEI strangulation.”

Critics have argued that targeting Harvard is political theater, but supporters say it’s long overdue.

“Harvard’s sitting on a $53 billion endowment, and yet still gets billions in federal support? While teaching first-year students how to add and subtract?” said one conservative education policy analyst. “This isn’t about education — it’s about elitism.”

While no formal action has been announced yet, Trump’s remarks signal that Harvard and other universities could be on the chopping block for federal grant funds unless they dramatically shift course.

The administration has already threatened similar funding consequences for Harvard’s failure to reform admissions, governance, and campus policies following antisemitism controversies earlier this year. Officials demanded that the school adopt more rigorous ideological vetting of international applicants and revise its administrative structure to reflect constitutional values.

Whether Harvard responds or doubles down remains to be seen, but the president made it clear: the status quo is no longer untouchable.

“If we’re going to invest taxpayer money,” Trump said, “it needs to go where it actually helps our country.”