Trump hints at a $500 million deal with Harvard on trade schools, signaling negotiations are close.
Has the Trump administration finally reached a deal with Harvard? President Trump suggested it had or at least that it was very close today.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday previewed a $500 million deal on trade schools with Harvard University, following months of talks about a potential settlement amid a broader fight between the Trump administration and the school.
“I guess we reached a deal with Harvard today, so we’ll see. What you have to do is paper it, right, Linda?” Trump asked Education Secretary Linda McMahon during an event in the Oval Office on pediatric cancer, before later saying the administration is “close to finalizing” it.
McMahon responded affirmatively but did not provide any specifics.
Trump said Tuesday that officials are “very close” to a deal and Harvard “will be paying about $500 million and they’ll be operating trade schools. They’ll be teaching people how to do AI and lots of other things, engines, lots of things.”
News of the possible deal comes on the same day that we’re learning that, earlier this month, Harvard sent a lengthy letter attacking the administration which had accused the school of not doing enough to stop anti-Semitism on campus.
In a strongly worded, 163-page letter with attachments on Sept. 19, which has not been previously reported, Harvard assailed the government’s findings. The university accused investigators at the Health and Human Services Department of relying on “inaccurate and incomplete facts,” failing to meet a single legal requirement to prove discrimination and drawing sweeping conclusions from a survey of one-half of 1 percent of the student body.
