'But this is everyone': CNN host knocks down defense of Trump attacks on Harvard

CNN's Audie Cornish briefly clashed with a conservative panelist over the Trump administration's latest attack on Harvard University.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ordered the termination of the university’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, which would prohibit the the oldest and the richest Ivy League college from hosting foreign students, and conservative journalist Rob Bluey justified the move.

"It's a privilege for foreign students to study in the United States," said Bluey, executive editor of The Heritage Foundation's "Daily Signal" website. "It's also a privilege for universities to host those students. Now, [DHS secretary] Kristi Noem in her letter did give Harvard an opportunity to respond, and she provided a list of things that they need to comply with. They're not in compliance with the federal government's requirements right now in providing her the information that she's requested."

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Cornish wasn't satisfied with his explanation and pointed to the harm that could come from the government's escalation.

"Right now, the best and the brightest from around the world want to come to the U.S., whether it's Harvard or any other place, why would they now?" Cornish said. "We've seen in other postwar context, for instance, what happens when a country experiences a brain drain? Do we want to start telling people, take a hike?"

Bluey again defended the administration's order, saying that foreign-born campus protesters were "disruptive" and therefore problematic, but Cornish was unpersuaded.

"But this is everyone," she said. "This is all 6,000."

Bluey pressed on, arguing that campus protests against Israel's war in Gaza justified the removal of all foreign students at the university.

"This is everyone at Harvard," Bluey said. "But I think that what you see in Kristi Noem's comments, and also the letter that she sent to Harvard, they really focused on the antisemitism that's taking place on that campus and other campuses across the country, and so, yes, it does affect everybody. But I think what she's saying is clean up the mess you have with antisemitism, and then you won't be in this crosshairs."

Harvard has challenged the administration's withdrawal of federal funding and demands for control, and the university is expected to challenge the government's ban on foreign students, which Cornish said had a historical parallel.

"It's interesting because when I think back to the era of integration, when the federal government also used its levers of power to say, no, you cannot have segregated schools," Cornish said. "It's interesting seeing this in this new context, because it's not leverage the same way, right? Like I said, it's not across the board, it's not going after particular policies. It's going after particular schools. We had that Harvard professor earlier in the clip talking about this being what authoritarians do, and CNN's Stephen Collinson writes, they also fit into the category of presidential acts that ordinary citizens lack the capacity to influence, and that this mirrors how autocrats corrode checks and balances by fostering cynicism about government institutions and disempowering the public."

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