Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey claimed Tuesday President Donald Trump channeled “McCarthyism” by threatening to pull over $200 million in federal funds for Harvard University.
The Trump administration is investigating the Ivy League school over its failure to address antisemitism on campus, particularly since the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by the radical Islamic terrorist group Hamas that killed over 1,200 people in Israel. Markey claimed the crackdown on antisemitism would “turn out very poorly” for the United States.
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“Look, anti-Semitism is wrong, anti-Semitism must be fought, anti-Semitism is something that we cannot tolerate in our nation,” Markey claimed. “But authoritarianism is not the answer to anti-Semitism. Harvard University has hundreds, thousands of scientists working on finding the cure for Alzheimer‘s, for cancer, for diabetes, for Parkinson‘s disease.”
“If the plan of this administration is to just absolutely wipe out the research that we are doing all across our country, especially at our universities that have drawn the smartest young people in our country and around the world to find the cure for these diseases, and do so in an authoritarian way, that it is going to ultimately wind up very bad for our country,” Markey continued.
Pro-Hamas demonstrations at multiple universities and colleges since the attack have seen anti-Israel protesters occupy buildings, chant a slogan that has connotations of wiping out Israel and block Jewish students from parts of campus.
“It is going to be a return to McCarthyism in the 1930s. We know that Roy Cohn was the mentor for Donald Trump, as he was for McCarthy, as he was for Nixon,” Markey said. “And all we’re seeing right now is just Roy Cohn once again insinuating himself into the brain of a very powerful person in our country now, Donald Trump, and it’s going to turn out very poorly for our nation.”
The Trump administration has previously cut funding for schools, such as $400 million for Columbia University, over ongoing pro-Hamas protests. The school has since appeared to reach an agreement with the administration to beef up enforcement of protest rules and recruit more campus police officers.
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