The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its Harvard Plans

The world found out shortly before 3 a.m. Eastern time on March 28 that the Trump administration had decided to rescind all federal funding from Harvard University as well as claim by eminent domain the griffin statues on Robinson Hall as they “would look sick on the White House lawn.”

I, however, knew two hours before the first tweets were posted that Trump would pull the money. The reason I knew this is that Secretary of Education Linda M. McMahon had texted me the exact plans, along with a Canva graphic reading SHALOM HARVARD and a GIF of a populist hamster happily wiggling its butt, at 12:57 a.m.

This is going to require some explaining.

The story technically begins when all hell broke loose on Harvard’s campus last year, with a dodgy Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee statement, doxxing trucks, Sidechat antisemitism, fiddle theft, and a lot of concerned bubbies. It kicks into gear with Trump’s election, his promise to crack down on campus antisemitism, and the administration’s ultimately successful ultimatum to Columbia University.

This is where Linda McMahon and I come in.

I was added to a Signal group chat containing myself, Linda, Donald Trump, Alexander “Shabbos” Kestenbaum, Anti-Defamation CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, and the Pfoho flasher, who was there because he used to intern for DOGE.

Initially I was unsurprised: I’ve long expected that the Trump administration would tap me to write all its executive orders in my trademark snappy style. Furthermore, the White House is one of my Company Interests on LinkedIn. However, I soon realized that a job offer was not in the works. Nor was Jonathan Greenblatt offering to sell me his extra Adderall. Instead, my presence in the group chat seemed to be an innocent mistake.

A message to the group, from “WrestleLvr1776,” read as follows: “Team – must punish terrorist-loving, America-hating protestors DIRECTLY. Must defund research around campus so that 55-year-old Jewish physicists are sad about not being able to research participle motion (sic) and the status of world’s research powerhouse transfers to China or another upstanding country that knows how to keep its student protesters under control.”

The message continued, “Will cut funidng tomorrow morning. Will take the cool Statues. Feel bad for the kids tho — will leave enough money to get an actually famous graduation speaker.”

One minute later, a person identified only as “OrangeIsTheNewCrimson” wrote, “it’s no wonder that our unis are rotten to the core after years of DEI snowflakes saying that ideas are threats to their safety & that so-called Micro Aggressions must be legislated away. As such am strongly in favor of Deporting student protesters, suspending clubs that think things I don’t like, and keeping Libraries free of upsetting pieces of blank paper. Yes on Funding Pull [eagle emoji] [shouting emoji] [hypocrisy emoji].”

Nine minutes later, “BaeDL” added, “said it b4 and I’ll say it again. Most impt thing for Jews is not stopping climate change, democratic backsliding, lung cancer, and world hunger. Must instead improve administrative responses to dangerous protesters who are scared of sprinklers. They r ruthless.” And at 2:36 a.m., “also must replace so-called bagels in dining halls; 1930s-Germany-level affront.”

That was the end of the Friday morning text chain.

So I waited in the Quad Shuttle as it idled outside Widener Library. If this Signal chat was real, I reasoned, the first strikes would come just before 3 a.m. At around 2:58 a.m., I checked the webpage of the Women, Gender, and Sexuality program. It had been completely wiped, replaced with pictures of various Trump women and a sparkly hyperlink for a tutorial on Republican makeup.

I checked the chat again. “Funding pulled. Statues look sick.”

Yona T. Sperling-Milner, an Associate Editorial Editor, is a sophomore in Cabot House studying Social Studies. If she were a clause in the perpetual lawsuit against Harvard, she would be “Mobs of pro-Hamas students and faculty have marched by the hundreds through Harvard’s campus, shouting vile antisemitic slogans and calling for death to Jews and Israel.”