Memorial Day, Mayhem Edition

Edition · May 26, 2025

Trump spent the holiday turning a self-inflicted Harvard fight into a louder, uglier money war, while the administration kept leaning into the kind of governance-by-threat that keeps generating lawsuits, blowback, and easy ads for the opposition.

On May 26, 2025, the Trump White House managed to make Memorial Day feel like just another opportunity for escalation. The day’s biggest screwup was Trump’s fresh public threat to yank billions more from Harvard and steer the money elsewhere, even as the university fight was already dragging his administration deeper into court and public criticism. The broader pattern was the same one that has defined much of this presidency: threat first, legal theory later, and institutional consequences somewhere off in the distance. It is a style that can produce headlines, but it also keeps producing plaintiffs.

Closing take

The holiday message was simple: Trump wanted another brawl, and he got one. The problem is that every new round makes the legal exposure clearer, the political backlash louder, and the governing case thinner. That is not a sign of strength. It is a sign of a White House that confuses escalation with control.

Ranked by how bad the fuckup was

5 stars means maximum fallout. 1 star means a smaller self-own.

Story

Trump doubles down on the Harvard money brawl

Harvard payback Confidence 4/5

★★★★☆Fuckup rating 4/5 Serious fuckup

On Memorial Day, Trump revived the fight with Harvard by threatening to strip away billions in federal money and redirect it to trade schools. The move followed days of escalating punishment against the university, including the earlier attempt to block its enrollment of international students, and it kept the administration on a collision course with judges, researchers, and higher-ed critics. It also handed opponents an easy example of Trump using federal power like a grievance cannon instead of a governing tool.

Open story + comments