Hey everyone, welcome back and happy Friday.
Our top story today: a federal judge tossed the Trump administration’s big lawsuit against Harvard, the one claiming that the school wasn’t protecting Jewish students. The President was using the lawsuit to claw back a billion dollars and bend the university to his will, and the judge saw this case for exactly what it was.
We’ll also get into a heartbreaking crisis aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, where sailors have been forced to be stuck at sea for a record 250 days because of Trump’s endless war, and the Trump-picked Kennedy Center board voting to shut the place down and slap Trump’s name on the front. Also today, newly revealed documents showing Homeland Security spying on peaceful left-leaning groups in Minnesota, and a genuinely nice story to end on, the mayor of New York handing thousands of free Broadway tickets to city kids.
Let’s get to it.
1. Deemed Retaliation, Judge Dismisses Trump Lawsuit against Harvard
On Thursday, a judge dismissed the Trump administration’s lawsuit against Harvard. The suit accused Harvard of failing to protect Jewish and Israeli students from harassment after the October 7th attacks.
But that’s not actually what this lawsuit was really about for the administration. Look at what they wanted the court to do: to claw back nearly a billion dollars in federal research grants, money for cancer studies and science labs, and to block Harvard from ever receiving federal funding again. That’s not something that would protect students, it’s a blatant attempt to wound the entire institution. Indeed, protecting students would look like increasing mental health funding, or creating support groups. Not destroying the institutions they rely on.
The judge, of course, saw right through that. He ruled that the incidents the government pointed to were, quote “too isolated and episodic” to prove that Harvard was breaking federal civil rights laws. He noted the government’s complaint leaned almost entirely on events from two years ago. In plain terms, the administration didn’t bring this case to fix a problem. Instead, they used a horrifying situation and twisted it as a pretext for their true intentions. Harvard’s lawyers called it exactly that, a retaliation campaign for refusing to hand the federal government control over what it teaches and who it hires.
Any kind of discrimination— whether on racial, ideological, or sexist lines— is unacceptable, and that’s exactly why it’s so insulting to see it used as an excuse. And in this case, by using antisemitism as a facade to attack academic institutions, the administration is taking credibility away from Jewish Americans that actually experience it. All they’re doing is proving that the concern was never real in the first place.
2. Kennedy Center Board Votes to Shut Down Building, Adorn it With Trump’s Name.
On Thursday, the board of the Kennedy Center, our national performing arts center here in Washington, voted to shut down its main building for what it’s calling a two-year, 250 million dollar renovation. And conveniently, the Trump-picked board also threw in a line about putting President Trump’s name back on the front of the building, describing it as a project “restored and renovated by President Donald J. Trump.”
As you probably know, there’s plenty of backstory here. A federal judge blocked the last time they tried to close the building, saying the board members didn’t have nearly enough information to justify shutting the doors. A separate judge ruled that adding Trump’s name to the building was flat-out unlawful. And for months now, his name has been sitting under a tarp on the front of the building because of that.
I was on CNN last night where Laura Coates, one of their anchors, asked me about this:
The place used to offer free performances 365 days a year. Now, they want to shutter it like so many other things around town. If you’ve walked around downtown D.C. recently, you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about. It’s one large construction zone and is depressing to look at.
Like I mentioned on CNN, this is all a perfect little window into the mindset of this administration. Take a beloved public institution, one that belongs to the American people, shut it down and carve your own name into the front while a court is literally telling you that you can’t. The ballroom, the Smithsonian, the Reflecting Pool, even the ridiculous arch the President wants to build himself. It’s the same impulse every time. It was never about the art or the country. It’s about whose name is on the building.
3. Deplorable Conditions on the USS Lincoln, Hegseth Claims Misinformation.
Last November, more than 5,000 sailors and Marines left San Diego aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on what was supposed to be a routine deployment. But since the ship got redirected to join the war in Iran, it has been at sea for more than 250 days. With only a couple of brief stops, the ship has set a modern record for consecutive days without a real port call.
The strain on that crew has become a genuine crisis. Sailors’ families describe deteriorating conditions on board. Contaminated water. Plumbing failures. Shortages of basic supplies like soap and toothpaste. And a crew that is being pushed past its breaking point. Parents, speaking anonymously out of fear of retaliation, say their kids have lost 15 pounds or more since deploying, and that they can hear the exhaustion in their voices.
Then came August 3rd. That day a sailor went overboard in what the Navy is treating as a mental health episode. Thankfully, he was rescued within the hour and taken for care. But families of this crew say he was not the only one who reached that point.
Confronted with reports of this harsh reality, take a look at how the Secretary of Defense responded:
“Completely misrepresented”, he says. This administration is so desperate to downplay the failures of this war that they can’t acknowledge a crew in crisis. Admitting the Lincoln has been out there too long means admitting the war has no plan and no end. So instead, they call the families liars. And if you’re a sailor on that ship, what you’re hearing is that public image is more important than your wellbeing.
By the way, I wrote a lot more about this story in this morning’s column, and I hope you’ll take a minute to read it. These brave sailors have earned that minute.
4. Covert Spying Operations By DHS on…Bicycle Repair Shops.
Newly released court documents reveal that during the immigration crackdown in Minnesota earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security secretly spied on peaceful, left-leaning groups. We’re talking about labor unions, a climate change organization, even a small bicycle repair collective. Groups that were never accused of any crime.
And the tactics are chilling. Undercover agents attended community meetings in church basements. They infiltrated private group chats. They ran license plates to build lists of who attended. They used subpoenas to pull years of financial records. They even made a PowerPoint slide titled ‘The Conspiracy,’ connecting 18 organizations including the AFL-CIO, the largest labor federation in the country. Real tinfoil hat stuff.
And here’s the thing: they knew it was nonsense. One undercover agent, sitting in on a climate organization’s meeting, reported back that the group was focused on peaceful protests. Their own spy told them these people were peaceful. They kept spying anyway.
The very first of these investigations, called Operation Puppet Master, was opened just days after immigration agents shot and killed Alex Pretti. Think about the choice made there. When a government nurse was killed on camera, the target of the investigation was not the agents who pulled the trigger. It was the protesters.
Look, I’m writing this as a Republican who spent years defending law enforcement and our intelligence agencies. There is difference between investigating a crime and investigating a perspective. Spying on a labor union or a climate group because you don’t like their politics, pulling their bank records when they’ve committed no crime, that is a police state. That’s the stuff we used to condemn other countries for. Now, it’s us.
5. The City Skyline is Alive with the Sound of Music.
Finally, something positive. In New York City, Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani and the Theater Development Fund announced a program to hand out more than 2,000 free Broadway tickets to city high school students, along with thousands more at a discount.
Kids across all five boroughs can enter a lottery for tickets to shows ranging from In the Heights to The Great Gatsby. Something for everybody, unless you’re looking for a show about competent White House governance. That one’s still off- Broadway.
And every single student who enters, win or lose, gets a free two-month membership to a program that unlocks discounted theater tickets and free entry to museums all over the city.
Here’s Mamdani sharing the good news:
Here’s a nice detail. Much unlike the administration’s recent programs, this didn’t cost the taxpayers a dime for the tickets. The Broadway shows themselves donated them. While my policy preferences don’t always align with Mayor Mamdani’s, this serves as an important reminder that you don’t have to love a politician to support their truly good acts.
Look, here’s why I wanted to end with this story. For the rest of this show, we talk about people using power to punish, intimidate, and put their name on a building. And here’s a small, simple example of the opposite. Using power to give something to kids who could never afford it, and asking for nothing back.
Some other stories that caught my eye:
President Trump signed a national security memorandum yesterday directing the Navy to tear out the electromagnetic catapult system on future Ford-class aircraft carriers and go back to steam, a reversal that will likely cost billions of dollars. The White House says the decision will produce carriers powered by battle-tested steam and hydraulic systems that are more resilient than the newer technology. But the electromagnetic system launches aircraft at faster speeds, is easier to maintain, requires fewer sailors, and takes up less space aboard the ship. Navy leaders have resisted this idea since Trump first floated it in 2017, after a sailor praised steam during a ship visit in his first term. Meanwhile, China’s newest carriers use electromagnetic catapults, and France plans to put them on its next carrier too.
Michael Boren, the Agriculture undersecretary who oversees the U.S. Forest Service, asked agency staff last month to escalate the number of aircraft fighting a seven-acre fire near his mega-ranch in Idaho’s Sawtooth National Forest, according to two Forest Service officials. A department spokesman called it a non-story, saying that Boren never pressured leadership or ordered more resources. But the record says otherwise. Nine aircraft converged on the Cabin Creek Fire, including helicopters, air tankers, and a Black Hawk, while a nearly identical 21-acre fire in June got just three aircraft for about 13 minutes. The response cost roughly $115,000 in federal funds, on a day when 44 large uncontained fires were burning nationwide and aircraft had to be pulled from other fires in Idaho to do it. A 38-year Forest Service veteran said he couldn’t recall ever seeing a response like that for a fire so small.
