Trump Admin Says “Oops” After Threatening Harvard—Then Doubles Down Anyway

Trump Admin Says “Oops” After Threatening Harvard—Then Doubles Down Anyway

The Trump administration just pulled the political equivalent of “our bad”—but instead of deleting a tweet, they sent an official federal letter demanding Harvard change its hiring, admissions, and curriculum... and then claimed it was an accident.

According to new reporting from The New York Times, Harvard received the sweeping demands last week from the White House’s so-called anti-Semitism task force. The letter was signed by multiple senior officials and printed on agency letterhead. In other words: this was no prank email.

Harvard pushed back—publicly. And Trump, furious, escalated instead of backing down. He froze $2.2 billion in federal funding and threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status.

But here’s where it gets wild: after Harvard called out the move, a Trump official reportedly called them in a panic saying, “Wait! That letter wasn’t supposed to go out.” Unauthorized. Premature. Oops?

Yet, the administration never withdrew the letter.

Harvard officials say they’re stunned. Because if this was a mistake, it was a mistake backed by multiple agencies, official seals, and sweeping demands to gut academic freedom.

This follows a pattern:

• Firing the U.S. nuclear oversight team? “Mistake.”
  
  

• Shutting down the Ebola response? “Oversight.”
  
  

• Wrongfully deporting migrants to El Salvadoran prisons? “Administrative error.”
  
  

The Trump administration has become the world’s most dangerous typo. And instead of hitting backspace, it hits the gas.

This is what authoritarianism looks like when it's disguised as incompetence.