Politics

The email landed at 10 minutes to midnight on a Friday in early April—a more menacing email than Alan Garber had imagined. The Harvard president had been warned that something was coming. His university had drawn the unwanted and sustained attention of the White House, and he’d spent weeks scrambling to stave off whatever blow was coming, calling his institution’s influential alumni and highly paid fixers to arrange a meeting with someone—anyone—in the administration. When he finally found a willing contact, he was drawn into aimless exchanges. He received no demands. No deadlines. Just a long conversation about the prospect of scheduling a conversation. Garber wanted an audience because he believed that Harvard had a case to make. The administration had been publicly flogging elite universities for failing to confront campus anti-Semitism. But Garber—a practicing Jew with a brother living in Israel—believed Harvard had done exactly that. In the spring, Garber had watched Donald Trump take aim at Columbia, where anti-Israel demonstrations the previous year had so overwhelmed the campus that the university canceled the school’s graduation ceremony and asked the New York Police Department to clear encampments. In early March, the Trump administration cut off $400 million in federal funding to the school and said that it would consider restoring the money only if Columbia agreed to dramatic reforms, including placing its Middle East–studies department under an auditor’s supervision. Ever since William F. Buckley Jr. turned his alma mater, Yale, into a bête noire, the American right has dreamed of shattering the left’s hegemony on campus, which it sees as the primary theater for radical experiments in social engineering. Now the Trump administration was using troubling incidents of anti-Jewish bigotry as a pretext to strip Ivy League adversaries of power and prestige. The administration’s demands of Columbia impinged on academic freedom. But from Harvard’s parochial vantage point, they were also oddly clarifying. Whatever had gone wrong in Cambridge—and Garber’s own university faced a crisis of anti-Jewish bias—it hadn’t metastasized like it had in Morningside Heights. Harvard had disciplined protesters, and Garber himself had denounced the ostracism of Jewish students. Whichever punishment the administration had in mind, surely it would fall short of the hammer dropped on Columbia. [Franklin Foer: Columbia University’s anti-Semitism problem] That was Garber’s frame of mind when the late-night ultimatum arrived: Submit to demands even more draconian than those imposed on Columbia, or risk forfeiting nearly $9 billion in government funding. Even for Harvard, with a $53 billion endowment, $9 billion represented real money. The email ordered the university to review faculty scholarship for plagiarism and to allow an audit of its “viewpoint diversity.” It instructed Harvard to reduce “the power held by faculty (whether tenured or untenured) and administrators more committed to activism than scholarship.” No detail, no nuance—just blunt demands. To the Trump administration, it was as if Harvard were a rogue regime that needed to be brought to heel. Trump’s team was threatening to unravel a partnership between state and academe, cultivated over generations, that bankrolled Harvard’s research, its training of scientists and physicians, its contributions to national security and global health. Federal funds made up 11 percent of the university’s operating budget—a shortfall that the school couldn’t cover for long. Stripped of federal cash, Harvard would have to shed staff, abandon projects, and shut down labs. Yet the message also offered a kind of relief. It spared Garber from the temptation of trying to placate Trump—as Columbia had sought to do, to humiliating effect. The 13 members of the Harvard Corporation, the university’s governing body, agreed unanimously: The only choice was to punch back. The university’s lawyers—one of whom, William Burck, also represented Trump-family business interests—wrote, “Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government.” Soon after Harvard released its response, absurdity ensued. The Trump administration’s letter had been signed by three people, one of whom told Harvard he didn’t know the letter had been sent. The message, Garber realized, may have been sent prematurely. Or it may have been a draft, an expression of the White House’s raw disdain, not the vetted, polished version it intended to send. But the administration never disavowed the letter. And over the next three months, the president and his team would keep escalating. On Memorial Day, I met Alan Garber at his home, a 10-minute walk from Harvard Yard. One of the perks of leading Harvard is the right to reside in Elmwood, an imposing Georgian mansion that befits a prince of the American establishment. But Garber had declined the upgrade, choosing instead to remain in the more modest home provided to the university’s provost. When he took the president’s job last year at 69, after 12 years as provost, he agreed to a three-year term; he didn’t want to uproot his life. I was surprised he found time to talk. It wasn’t just a national holiday—it was the start of the most stressful week on a university president’s calendar. Graduation loomed on Thursday, with all its ceremonial burdens: the speechifying, the glad-handing, the presence of the school’s biggest donors. Garber led me into his living room, undid his tie, and slouched into a chair. A health-care economist who also trained as a physician, he carries himself with a calm that borders on clinical. Even an admirer such as Laurence Tribe, a Harvard Law professor, describes Garber as “meek in the way he sounds.” He is the opposite of bombastic: methodical, a careful listener, temperamentally inclined to compromise. But after Harvard’s feisty reply to the administration, Garber found himself cast a mascot of the anti-Trump resistance. This was surprising, because in his 18 months as president, Garber has positioned himself as an institutionalist and an opponent of illiberalism in all its forms: its Trumpian variant, yes, but also illiberal forces within his own university, including those concentrated in the divinity and public-health schools, the hot centers of extremism after October 7, 2023. [Rose Horowitch: What

In January 2020, Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock—the world’s largest asset-management firm—released his annual letter to corporate executives. The letters had become something of a tradition: part investor missive, part State of the Union, dispatched each year from the top of the financial world. This one struck a tone of alarm that would reverberate far beyond Wall Street. “Climate change has become a defining factor in companies’ long-term prospects,” Fink warned. “We are on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance.” He said that BlackRock would be “increasingly disposed to vote against management and board directors when companies are not making sufficient progress” on sustainability. The message signaled the degree to which a once-obscure investing philosophy known as ESG—short for “environmental, social, and governance”—had become a boardroom priority. For a moment, it looked like corporate America would weigh carbon emissions alongside profits. More major companies soon announced climate goals and promised new standards of accountability. BlackRock helped lead an effort to elect sustainability advocates to the board of ExxonMobil. A consensus seemed to be forming: Business could be a force for good, and markets might even help save the planet. Now, just five years later, that consensus is crumbling. BP is pulling back on a commitment to invest in renewables—and is reportedly expanding plans for drilling. PepsiCo and Coca-Cola have scaled back their plastic-reduction pledges. Major banks, such as JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, are hedging their climate bets and investing heavily in fossil-fuel companies. Asset-management firms that joined BlackRock in embracing ESG—including Vanguard and State Street—have also backed off. And Fink’s 2025 letter to investors does not even mention the word climate. [James Surowiecki: The hottest trend in investing is mostly a sham] “This further exacerbates the problem of slow-walking climate action at a time when the temperature records are being broken and devastating weather events are accelerating,” Richard Brooks, the climate finance director for Stand.earth, an international environmental-advocacy organization that focuses in part on corporate contributions to climate change, told us. This global retreat has been particularly acute in the United States, where political resistance to ESG has grown into an organized countermovement. The issue is now a fixture in partisan attack ads, Republican statehouse legislation, and right-wing media. The forces arrayed against ESG say they are just getting started. In January, a group of present and former Republican state officials gathered at a posh resort in Sea Island, Georgia, together with conservative leaders, for a two-day lesson in how to dismantle corporate America’s most ambitious response to climate change. At the Cloister, with its golf courses, tennis courts, and beaches, ESG was denounced as a sinister force undermining free markets and democracy. “I would hope everyone here is pretty much committed to destroying ESG,” said Will Hild, the executive director of Consumers’ Research, the organization that has led the fight. His group, he said, had spent $5 million running ads “educating consumers” about the dangers of ESG. Hild spread a similar message at other events this spring, according to transcripts of his remarks that we obtained. “ESG is when they use their market share to push a far-left agenda, without ever having to go to voters, without any electoral accountability,” said Hild at a March meeting of state activists. “This is not the free market operating. This is a cartel. This is a mafia.”   At its core, ESG investing means integrating nonfinancial factors—such as climate risk, carbon emissions, pollution, and corporate governance—into investment decisions, with the idea that these issues could materially affect long-term performance. Firms that offer ESG funds screen out companies that don’t meet a set of criteria for climate protection, and pitch their products to investors as climate-friendly alternatives to conventional funds. But in the eyes of its critics, ESG investing undermines democratic governance, imposes political priorities through the financial system, and breaches the independence of state financial officers to seek maximum return on investments. “By applying arbitrary ESG financial metrics that serve no one except the companies that created them, elites are circumventing the ballot box to implement a radical ideological agenda,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said in 2023 when he introduced legislation prohibiting the use of ESG investment by Florida pension and other state funds. That narrative has taken hold with a wide swath of Republican leaders. Donald Trump attacked ESG on the campaign trail last year, and in an April 8 executive order, the president said that state-level climate-emissions and ESG laws “are fundamentally irreconcilable with my Administration’s objective to unleash American energy. They should not stand.” The roots of ESG can be traced to faith-based investing of the 18th century, when some religious denominations sought to avoid investment in corporations that promoted trading enslaved people. In the 20th century, the movement called “socially responsible investing” gained momentum during the civil-rights era and, later, in connection with opposition to apartheid in South Africa. The term ESG was formally coined in a 2004 report by the United Nations Global Compact titled “Who Cares Wins,” which argued that better corporate integration of environmental, social, and governance factors could lead to more-sustainable markets and better outcomes around the globe. ESG investing grew in the 2010s as the public grew more concerned about diversity, the environment, and executive pay. Major asset managers such as BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street began offering ESG products, and companies competed to establish metrics to track compliance. As the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock played an especially influential role. Because there was no single established metric for meeting climate goals, critics on the left complained that ESG encouraged greenwashing, in which companies claim to be making environmental progress without making an actual commitment. But even critics were forced to concede that ESG brought about increased transparency. In 2018, 34 percent of publicly traded global companies disclosed greenhouse-gas-emission details. By 2023, that share had risen to 63 percent, an increase generally attributable to ESG efforts, according to R. Paul Herman, the founder and CEO of HIP Investor Inc.

On Thursday, specialized services for LGBTQ+ youth calling the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline are going dark.  The 988 hotline, which was federally established by President Donald Trump during his first term, will still exist, but it will no longer offer a specific dial option for LGBTQ+ youth to feel safe and understood in a time of crisis.  “Our country’s federal government—including the very agency in charge of protecting our mental health—cut a literal lifeline that has provided 1.5 million LGBTQ+ youth with suicide prevention services,” Jaymes Black, CEO of The Trevor Project, said in a statement released Thursday. “I am heartbroken that this administration has decided to say, loudly and clearly, that they believe some young people’s lives are not worth saving.” A protester outside the Kansas Statehouse holds a sign after a rally for transgender rights in March 2023, in Topeka, Kansas. LGBTQ+ youth are at a significantly increased suicide risk, according to a 2023 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study found that 41% of LGBTQ+ youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the previous 12 months, and 20% attempted it. In April, the Trump administration’s budget proposed cutting all funding to 988’s specialized service for LGBTQ+ youth. And last month, the administration followed through on this. The Trevor Project, which worked with the government on the specialized service, operates its own separate hotline. Since taking office in January, Trump and his underlings have worked overtime in their assault on the LGBTQ+ community. Government websites were scrubbed of LGBTQ+ terms. And transgender members of the military were pushed out of their positions on the argument that they were not mentally fit to serve.  And despite Trump being the one who signed the 2020 law acknowledging that LGBTQ+ youth face a disproportionately high suicide rate, the president’s efforts toward erasure and pain have been successful.  For LGBTQ+ youth seeking help, they are still able to call into The Trevor Project’s 24/7 hotline at 1-866-488-7386, via chat at TheTrevorProject.org/Get-Help, or by texting START to 678678.

A cartoon by Nick Anderson. Consider supporting my work so I can continue creating it: Substack: https://nickanderson.substack.com/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/editorialcartoons Ko-Fi: https://www.patreon.com/c/editorialcartoons Related | Even Republican elections officials aren’t down with Trump’s demands

California Democrats say they are looking for ways to extract as many as seven Democratic congressional seats out of the state, Punchbowl News reported, and are currently debating the legal avenues to make that happen. It’s Democrats’ effort to combat Republicans’ naked attempt to rig the 2026 midterms. Related Texas Republicans are trying to rig the map for the next election “We’re ready,” Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA) told Punchbowl. “If Texas goes, we are going.” President Donald Trump has demanded that Texas and Ohio redraw their congressional maps to make more Republican-leaning seats, offsetting potential losses in other states across the country to ensure Republicans keep their House majority. He fears that if Democrats retake the House, it will both thwart his legislative agenda as well as open him up to investigations of his corrupt and illegal actions. Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott has acquiesced to Trump’s demand, calling a special session of the legislature to get the Republican-led body to redraw Texas’ U.S. House districts. Texas Republicans could try to extract as many as five seats from a new map—though experts say doing so could backfire on the GOP. Distributing Republican voters across more districts would create some marginally Republican seats that could flip in a Democratic wave election. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Ohio is also doing a mid-decade redraw of its egregiously gerrymandered districts, and could wipe out as many as three Democratic lawmakers. In California, in order to redraw the districts, Democrats would have to find a way to negate the state’s independent redistricting commission, which was added to the state constitution in 2010 after voters passed a ballot measure. Punchbowl reported that Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom could call a special election for voters to strip the commission from the state constitution—paving the way for a redraw. “Democrats believe voters would back their proposal if they frame it as the key to thwarting what they see as a congressional power grab by President Donald Trump. Democrats would need to go on the airwaves to message the issue, and this would be extremely expensive. Republicans will try to fight this dramatic redraw of the map, of course,” Punchbowl reported, saying that Democrats may sell it to voters by saying that the independent commission would return if states like Texas and Florida pass independent commissions of their own. If California is successful, it would be a step in the right direction for Democrats, who need to fight fire with fire. “Any Democrat in the California state legislature in a safe blue district that opposes this should be primaried with the fire of a thousand suns,” Democratic pollster Adam Carlson wrote in a post on X. “Oh they’re a [Yes In My Backyard]? Run another YIMBY against them who actually cares about preventing another federal Republican trifecta.” California’s Democratic lawmakers seem to understand that. “We want our gavels back,” Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA) told Punchbowl. “That’s what this is about.”

President Donald Trump’s recent handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case files marks one of the few times where his MAGA base is not marching in lockstep with him. Trump and the Justice Department, led by Attorney General Pam Bondi, continue to stonewall efforts to release documents related to Epstein, a convicted sex offender who was also charged with trafficking underaged girls. While most congressional Republicans have resisted Democratic attempts to make the information public, a few have broken ranks. However, among conservative pundits, some prominent figures are more openly criticizing Trump. White supremacist and former Mar-a-Lago dinner guest Nick Fuentes complained on a recent episode of his podcast that Trump’s actions regarding the Epstein case proves he is a “scam artist.” “This entire thing has been a scam,” Fuentes said. “We are going to look back on the MAGA movement as the biggest scam in American history. And the liberals were right—the MAGA supporters were had.” Nick Fuentes to Trump: “Fúck you. You suck. You’re fat, you’re a joke, you’re stupid, you’re not funny… This entire thing has been a scam. We’re gonna look back at MAGA movement as the biggest scam in history. The liberals were right… we will see Trump as a scam artist.” pic.twitter.com/yEEYZmzM8r — Ron Smith (@Ronxyz00) July 17, 2025 Longtime Trump supporter and notorious conspiracy theorist Alex Jones also complained about Trump’s actions and rhetoric chastising conservatives for their concern about the Epstein cover-up. “Trump, if this continues down this line, if he starts saying ‘I’ll excommunicate people,’ well—you’re not allowed, unless it’s a cult, to say to people, ‘You either agree with everything I do and don’t question things, or you’re not in our club. I don’t want you.’ Well, that kinda sounds like a thoroughbred cult to me,” Jones said on his show on Wednesday. Mediamatters Content Right-wing pundit Matt Walsh, who is most notorious for his attacks on transgender rights, conceded on his Monday show that Trump had mishandled the issue.  “Pam Bondi needs to go, at a minimum,” he said, and accused her of lying to the public about Epstein’s purported client list, which she claimed to have during a Fox News interview in February. Despite the protests of his true believers, Trump has always used his position to hype conspiracy theories without delivering on them. Before he became president, Trump claimed that private investigators were set to expose former President Barack Obama for purportedly not being a U.S. citizen. That never happened—but figures like Jones and Walsh continued to back him. Now that they are on the other end of Trump’s lies, they are newly critical. Trump is continuing his efforts to spin the story, including firing federal prosecutor Maurene Comey, who put Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell behind bars. But the anger at Trump is real from all sides, and his old technique for dodging blame doesn’t seem like it will work this time.

President Donald Trump’s Justice Department wants the cop convicted of violating Breonna Taylor’s civil rights to serve just one day in jail—and suggests he never should’ve been prosecuted in the first place.  The DOJ made the surprising request late Wednesday night, asking a judge to sentence Brett Hankison—the only officer convicted so far on criminal charges related to the deadly 2020 raid on Taylor’s apartment—to a single day behind bars, which would count as time served. The department also recommended three years of supervised release and used the memo to argue that Hankison never should have faced civil rights charges in the first place. Former Louisville Police officer Brett Hankison describes what he saw in the apartment of Breonna Taylor during testimony, on March 2, 2022, in Louisville, Kentucky. The request wasn’t just unusually lenient—it was blatantly political. It wasn’t signed by the career prosecutors who handled the case, but by Trump appointee Harmeet Dhillon, who now heads the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, and her senior counsel, Robert Keenan. Neither had a role in prosecuting Hankison. Hankison, a former Louisville officer, was found guilty last year after firing 10 shots through a covered window and glass door during a botched “no-knock” raid, endangering Taylor and her neighbors. None of the bullets hit Taylor, but several tore through the apartment’s walls and into the unit next door. Taylor was fatally shot by another officer after her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired a warning shot with a legally owned firearm. Taylor’s killing happened just weeks before the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, and became a key moment for the Black Lives Matter movement—one of several cases that sparked nationwide protests against police violence. Before Hankison’s conviction, the only person held criminally responsible in the raid was Kelly Goodlett, a former detective who pleaded guilty to federal charges for helping falsify the search warrant used to enter Taylor’s home and cover up her actions after Taylor’s death. If Hankison gets a lenient sentence, it could reignite anger among activists who say the justice system protects police officers from consequences. His federal conviction was the first time any officer had been held criminally responsible in Taylor’s death. He faces up to life in prison, with sentencing scheduled for Monday. But the DOJ’s new filing insists Hankison “did not shoot Ms. Taylor and is not otherwise responsible for her death.” The memo notes that the Justice Department respects the jury’s verdict, but questions whether the case should’ve gone forward at all, stating: “Counsel is unaware of another prosecution in which a police officer has been charged with depriving the rights of another person under the Fourth Amendment for returning fire and not injuring anyone.”  Legal experts and former DOJ officials were alarmed. According to The Washington Post, Samantha Trepel, a former civil rights prosecutor who helped secure convictions against the officers who violated Floyd’s rights, called the memo “transparent, last-minute political interference” and “a betrayal of the jury’s verdict.” The memo, she said, sends a dangerous message “that the Justice Department will not hold officers accountable who violate the law.” Hankison was previously acquitted on state charges. His first federal trial ended in a mistrial in November 2023, but a second jury convicted him last November. Notably, they found him not guilty on a separate charge involving Taylor’s neighbors. Related  | Justice Department smothers Biden-era police reform deal The DOJ memo is just the latest sign of Trump’s aggressive efforts to dismantle Biden-era reforms meant to hold law enforcement accountable. In May, the department eliminated consent decrees in Minneapolis and Louisville, Kentucky, two cities at the center of the 2020 protests. Consent decrees are legally binding court agreements meant to enforce civil rights reforms in departments found to have engaged in unconstitutional practices. And it fits Trump’s broader pattern: from Daniel Penny to Kyle Rittenhouse, he’s repeatedly embraced men who harmed or killed people of color, then turned them into heroes. So yes, Trump loves criminals. But only the ones who serve his politics.

They’re having a meltdown over at r/conservative, the main political hub for right-wing users on Reddit. In thread after thread after thread after thread, pro-MAGA users are losing their minds over President Donald Trump’s gaslighting on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. On Wednesday, a furious Trump called his own supporters “weaklings” for demanding his administration release the Epstein case files. He said his “PAST supporters have bought into this ‘bullshit,’” and declared, “I don’t want their support anymore!” Daaaamn. Epstein has been a central fixation of right-wing conspiracy theorists for years—one Trump himself has gleefully exploited. He repeatedly promoted the idea that Democrats, especially former President Bill Clinton, were implicated. And while the vast majority of the conspiracy ecosystem is nonsense, there is a legitimate core question: Who were the powerful people who abused the underage girls Epstein trafficked? If his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of helping traffic the girls, who were the clients? That gap in public knowledge—i.e., verifiable crimes but very few named perpetrators—has long fueled the Epstein conspiracies. And now Trump is pretending it’s all a “Hoax”? Even his base isn’t buying it. For the first time in memory, a significant chunk of Trump’s online base is taking off the blinders. They’re not just furious that Trump is calling the Epstein files a Democratic smear job—they’re seeing it in the context of broader betrayals: There are countless comments like that one: Trump said he’d end the war in Ukraine and cut the debt but now he’s arming Ukraine and signed a spending bill that adds trillions to the deficit. I want him to support Ukraine (assuming he doesn’t flip-flop), but it’s enraging his fanbase that loves Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. And the budget deficit? His base doesn’t yet realize how badly this bill will gut rural America—but they do know it explodes the deficit. And yet … none of that made them waver much. Not until now. Not until Epstein. And Trump is so rattled by the backlash that he’s pretending to dump them before they can dump him. “I don’t want their support anymore!” he wrote in Wednesday’s Truth Social post. What happens next is anyone’s guess. Never underestimate the cult’s ability to rationalize themselves back into his arms. But this time? This break feels real. It might finally be too deep to mend.

A daily roundup of the best stories and cartoons by Daily Kos staff and contributors to keep you in the know. They came for us. We stood strong. We won. And we couldn’t have done it without your support! DOJ’s latest firing ensures Epstein scandal won’t go away Hmm … that’s not suspicious at all. Senate GOP deals blow to rural America in voting to defund NPR and PBS Republicans are doing what they do best: hurting their own base. Democratic senators are fed up with GOP colleagues’ bullsh-t “This is us simply trying to rush through one of the most controversial nominees we’ve had under this presidential administration.” You won’t believe the latest evidence of Trump’s brain rot He’s very good at making up stories, we’ll give him that. Cartoon: Fed TACO Will he stay, or will he go? Even Republican elections officials aren’t down with Trump’s demands Unfortunately for Trump, people who run elections are fanatical about election security. Trump wants cane sugar in Coke—at the expense of corn country He’s alienating his voters in the name of … Mexican Coke? Click here to see more cartoons.

A cartoon by Mike Luckovich. Related | Americans reject MAGA meanness as ‘Superman’ soars