'King Henry VIII!' Legal scholar compares Trump to history's worst despots
Former Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe compared President Donald Trump's disregard of the law to some of history's worst autocrats in a CNN interview Wednesday.
Tribe's comments came after Trump upped his retaliatory measures against the Ivy League university for defying him on issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as allegations of antisemitism. So far, Trump has threatened to cut billions of dollars in grant money and attempted to revoke Harvard from enrolling foreign students — a move that has since been blocked by a federal judge as a "blatant violation" of the Constitution.
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CNN's Kate Bolduan asked, "When you add it all together, the moves that the administration is making against Harvard...trying to ban international students, trying to freeze grants and redistribute money to vocational schools — if this is illegal, how far do you think the president and this administration has gone beyond the bounds of the law here? What do you compare it to?"
Tribe was unequivocal in his answer.
"Well, I compare it to King Henry VIII, King Edward II — not even King George III, who was the proximate guy against whom we fought a war of revolution — not even he had this kind of power because he needed parliament. This president thinks he doesn't even need Congress! Congress decides who gets money, who gets visas, but he thinks he's got the unilateral power that not even King George III had to pick those against whom he will exact retribution. It's Congress that has the power of the purse. He can't just move billions of bucks from one place to another all by himself."
Tribe then offered some educational advice to the entire Trump administration.
"Most recently, Harvard made available to every person in the United States free of charge, an online course from the government department in how our Constitution works. I recommend that Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, and all the guys around them take a refresher course in the Constitution."