FThe President of the United States of Ormer, Joe Biden, celebrated Harvard’s decision to challenge the Trump administration’s requests during a private seminar from the Politics Institute with the main advisor Mike Donilon on Wednesday afternoon.
The discussion with the de facto leader of the Democratic Party, scheduled for weeks before the university funding confrontation, comes when Harvard’s confrontation with President Donald Trump degenerates. After rejecting Trump’s requests, Harvard is now faced with a possible revocation of his tax exemption status in addition to a financing freezing of $ 2.2 billion – with expected layoffs and arrest work orders.
“Harvard intensified in a way that no one else did,” said Biden, according to two students who attended the event outside the record. “You should be really grateful.”
When asked by a crimson journalist after the event if Harvard was to continue a legal action, Biden doubled his university defense – but refused to say if the president of Harvard, Alan Mr. Garber ’76, should carry the White House in court.
“I think Harvard should simply do what he does – raising everyone,” said Biden after the event.
A spokesperson for Harvard Kennedy School refused to comment on Biden’s remarks. A spokesperson for Biden also refused to comment.
Since leaving the office in January, the former president has largely disappeared from public life. He made his first public remarks one day before visiting Harvard at a chicago conference for disability defenders on Tuesday.
Biden appeared in HKS at the invitation of Donilon, a resident from spring to IOP. Biden did not meet Garber during his brief visit to Harvard, according to Harvard spokesperson Jason A. Newton.
Instead, Biden arrived in HKS shortly before 3 p.m. for a photo session with the IOP student advisory committee before going to private discussion with Donilon and around 50 students, only opened to members of the guest IOP and selected HKS students.
Its appearance was marked by stammering of the genre that became political parasics during the 2024 presidential race, in particular by making Ukraine in Iraq by discussing the invasion of Russia before Donilon corrects it.
And when Biden bites in an ice cream bar after the conversation, the partially melted dessert fell to the ground.
The appearance was not published on the IOP website, and the students of HKS invited were not informed of who was Donilon’s guest in advance. The mayor of Boston, Michelle Wu ’07, and the former member of the Congress Joseph P. Kennedy III also attended the event, but none made many comments.
The comments of Wednesday of Biden – his first support reported for Harvard after Garber’s declaration on Monday – add to a wave of support from the Democratic management.
The former President of the United States, Barack Obama, congratulated the university in an article on X, saying that Harvard “gave the example to other higher institutions”. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT.) And the Governor of Massachusetts Maura T. Healey ’92 also publicly supported Harvard.
But the support of powerful political figures has been downright in the political sense, and the republican reprisals of government agencies were rapid.
The Internal Internal Service plans to revoke Harvard tax exemption status, and the Ministry of Homeland security has threatened the University’s capacity to register international students to a request for information on Wednesday evening, demanding disciplinary files and information on international students on their participation in demonstrations.
While Biden spoke to guest students, around a dozen demonstrators condemned Biden’s support for the War of Israel in Gaza during a demonstration organized by Harvard de La Palestine occupied.
The demonstrators sang “Biden, Biden, you cannot hide. You commit a genocide ”and you tried to disrupt the event by singing, by sounding bells and hammering the drums.
“We are here to protest against the arrival of another genocidal on our campus, in particular the president, who has granted billions and billions of dollars in support to Israel,” said Olivia G. Pasquerella ’26, an organizer of the Solidarity Committee of Solidarity of Harvard.
“Harvard must stop inviting genocidaires to speak on campus,” added Pasquerella.
A participant in the event declared that the demonstration was weak and indistinguishable inside the class, but still audible.
Inside, Biden also issued radical criticism of the current White House, saying that the erosion of democratic institutions threatened interior and international stability.
“If America does not lead the world, who does it?” Said biden. “Someone has to get up and unite the world.”
“We need you. No hyperbole,” said the former president.
—The writer Elise A. Spenner can be contacted at Elise.spenner@thecrimson.com. Follow it on X at @Elissenner.
—The writer Tanya J. Vidhun can be contacted in Tanya.vidhun@thecrimson.com. Follow it on x @tanyavidhun.
