April 18, 2025

Friday, April 18, 2025. Annette’s Roundup for Democracy.

When the man in the White House is a revenge-filled bully.

This is not what the relationship between elected members of Congress and a President is supposed to be.

We are all afraid’: Murkowski says fear of retaliation from Trump administration is ‘real.’

The senator said this week that she has been “just trying to listen as carefully as I can to what is happening.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski said a fear of retaliation under President Donald Trump’s administration is rising to levels she’s not seen before, acknowledging this week that it is so pervasive that even the outspoken senator is “oftentimes very anxious” to speak up out of fear of recrimination.

The Alaska senator, who has been among Trump’s most prominent critics in the Republican Party, made the startling admission at a conference of nonprofit and tribal leaders in Anchorage on Monday.

> Addressing a question about how to respond to people who are afraid in the current political climate, Murkowski responded: “We are all afraid.” It’s quite a statement,” she continued after a long pause, in remarks first reported by the Anchorage Daily News.

“We’re in a time and place where — I don’t know, I certainly have not — I have not been here before. And I’ll tell you, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice because retaliation is real. And that’s not right. But that’s what you’ve asked me to do and so I’m going to use my voice to the best of my ability.”

Murkowski has repeatedly criticized Trump’s policies amid overwhelming buy-in from her fellow party members. The Alaska senator openly rebuked the president for “walking away from our allies” as he increasingly aligned himself with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and publicly berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. She has also voiced strong opposition against the Department of Government Efficiency’s mass firing wave and slash-and-burn efforts to cut down government agencies.

The senator said this week that she has been “just trying to listen as carefully as I can to what is happening” and trying to address the “impacts it is having on the ground.”

She did not explicitly mention Trump by name in a video of her remarks posted by the Alaska newspaper.

“It is as hard as anything I’ve engaged in in the 20-plus years I have been in the Senate,” Murkowski said, later recounting to the Anchorage Daily News anecdotes of people approaching her in tears to describe how they had been fired from their jobs with no notice or that they were afraid to speak up about the “status of where we are” out of fear of retaliation from their agency or employer.

Murkowski last month said she refused to “compromise my own integrity” by remaining silent as Elon Musk’s DOGE slashed through government agencies, ending longstanding federal programs and putting thousands of federal employees out of work.

The longtime senator, who successfully beat a Trump-backed challenger in 2022, said last month that she would not be cowed into compliance despite threats of being primaried, even if Musk should pour millions into backing a possible challenger. Murkowski is not up for reelection until 2028. (Politico)

If you’re not scared you’re not paying attention.

— Mia Farrow 🇺🇦🇨🇦🇪🇺🏳️‍⚧️ DEI (@miafarrow.bsky.social) 2025-04-17T20:12:29.282Z

One more thing.

With Trump, if you are looking for motive, it is always some personal slight.

Trump’s Bitter Personal Feud With Pritzker Family Is Behind His Harvard Hate Campaign.

Trump has a very personal beef with the college’s most senior member of its board of governors going back to his first real-estate deal.

The Trump administration’s five-page extortion letter threatening to withhold federal funding for Harvard if the university does not comply with onerous ideological demands was addressed to its president , Dr. Alan Garber.

It was also addressed to the most senior member of its board of governors, Penny Pritzker.

Penny Pritzker is the most senior member of Harvard's Board of Governors. She is also the leading member of the Pritzker billionaire clan—and the inheritor of a bitter feud with Donald Trump.

She has not made a comment about Harvard’s decision to stand up to the Trump administration and the university did not reply when the Daily Beast asked about her role.

But she must know from her family’s experience decades ago what it can ultimately mean to make a deal with Trump.

At the time the Pritzkers entered into a partnership with him, Trump was a 29-year-old outer borough unknown. He used his father, Fred’s political connections to secure a 40-year, $160 million tax break for the renovation of the 28-story Commodore Hotel adjacent to Grand Central Station.

“Whatever my friends Fred and Donald want in this town, they get,” New York’s then Mayor Abe Beame reportedly once said.

But the banks were not ready to bet millions on some unproven kid from Queens. Trump made a partnership deal with Hyatt Hotels that was the opposite of deals he would make in the future, when he would provide the Trump name and let the other party manage the property. This time it was the Hyatt name and Trump management.

After an initial financial success, the partnership devolved into a prolonged, acrimonious dispute between Trump and Hyatt, which was then headed by Jay Pritzker, Penny’s uncle.

“The china is smashing against the walls again in one of New York’s rockiest corporate marriages -- the partnership between Jay Pritzker, the Chicago financier, and Donald J. Trump the Manhattan developer, who jointly operate the Grand Hyatt Hotel” The New York Times reported.

Trump's development of the Commodore Hotel started in 1979 but relied on the Pritzkers—with whom he is now feuding two generations later. In 1978, he was the frontman of the deal, seen with (second left) then New York mayor Ed Koch and (second right) then NY governor Hugh Carey, who is pointing at a drawing of the plan for the decrepit Commodore.

Trump complained that Hyatt had actually asked him to pay his due share in upgrading the hotel at a time when his dependence on junk bonds and outsized sense of his own brilliance in other projects had left him at the brink of ruin. He narrowly escaped and revealed a taste for revenge that has become familiar to many of us in recent days.

“They attacked me when I was down,” Trump said. “Now I’m doing great again and it’s my turn. I always said, the first time I got back on my feet, the Pritzkers would be the first people I’d go after.”

The split had been presaged by a 1989 investigation by New York’s then Auditor General, Karen Brustein. She noted that under the terms of the tax abatement deal, the owners of the Grand Hyatt were required to pay a certain percent of their profits to the city.

The city’s end was $3.7 million in 1985, but dropped by more than $3 million the following year even though the hotel’s profits were up. Her office asked the Trump people to see the books.

“They denied that they had them,” Burstein told the Daily Beast this week. “[But] somebody sent us an original accountant’s report for the year.”

The report showed that Trump’s accountants had applied what Burstein would term “aberrant and distortive” procedures to reduce what was purportedly owed the city to $1.3 million. There was also a letter from Trump to account indicating that even this was not enough.

“Saying, ‘Can’t you get this down?’” Burstein remembers.

Trump’s accountants had complied and by using further unorthodox procedures and came up with $667,155. Trump’s people howled when Burstein prepared to release the findings of her audit.

“‘His people called all the time saying, ‘This is Donald Trump. You can’t do this,’” Burstein remembered. “And I said, ‘He’s exactly like any lessee of the city… Of course I can publish it.”

Burstein went ahead and released the results. Trump responded like a married guy who has been caught cheating.

Jay Pritzker in 1984, when he was in business with Trump. The relationship collapsed in acrimony—which still lasts.

“[The Trump people] insisted we were completely crazy, crazy wrong,” Burstein recalled. “And then we were reviewed by a major accounting firm that said our work was pristine.”

Burstein took exception to Trump essentially robbing the city she loves at a time it was so cash strapped it was struggling to maintain essential services such as the police.

“I’d never had dealings with him, and I was just horrified by his reckless flimflamerry,” she told the Daily Beast.

She continued, “I recognize that he’s a dangerous man, and he’s an absolutely unprincipled man. Nothing matters to him except his success, Nothing matters except that he wins, and winning means making more money or hurting other people.”

Trump tried to turn it around and then some, He filed a 1993 lawsuit in Manhattan Federal court charging that Jay Pritzker and his family had sought to force him to sell his share of the hotel. Trump further alleged that the Pritzkers had engaged in “a racketeering enterprise.”

“[The Pritzers] have systematically looted tens of millions of dollars from the Grand Hyatt through theft, fraud, waste and mismanagement,” Trump’s lawsuit charged, seeking $500 million in damages, using words that have in recent days become a DOGE mantra.

Trump tried to make it seem that Burstein’s audit was the result of an effort to conceal the supposed misdeeds of the Pritzkers.

“The defendants then fraudulently covered up this misconduct by…exerting undue influence over the Grand Hyatt’s auditors as well as through falsification of documents,” the lawsuit alleged.

Trump was even playing the victim even back in those days.

“There I was, at the lowest point of my financial life, and they tried to force me to default or sell my hotel cheaply,” he said when he filed suit.

Jay Pritzker replied that his family had only been pressing Trump to live up to his commitment.

### The Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York is still in the hands of the Pritzkers.

“While it is true that he had a problem, we also had a problem,” he was quoted saying. “We had a hotel to maintain. There was nothing personal about it.”

The Pritzkers said the suit was “totally without merit.” None of the numerous allegations against them were proven.

“I don’t think they’re crooks at all,” Burstein said.

In 1994, the Pritzkers filed a suit of their own, seeking $100 million from Trump for damages to the hotel and its business resulting from his alleged failure to live up to his financial obligations. Trump responded much as he does now.

“Hyatt is merely trying to cover up their total incompetence in the running of the Grand Hyatt,” he said “Never before in my career have I witnessed such gross mismanagement. It’s unbelievable.”

The two sides subsequently reached an overall settlement of both suits. Trump sold his share of the hotel to the Pritzkers for $140 million in October 1996.

Jay Pritzker died three years later, at 76. His nephew, J.B. Pritzker is now the governor of Illinois and has presidential ambitions, comparing Trump to Hitler and declaring , “we don’t have kings in America.” But J.B.’s brother, Penny has replaced her uncle as the central figure in the family. She has proven to be a tough, astute and principled business person and served as secretary of commerce in the Obama administration.

Now 65, Penny Pritzker is also the most senior member of the Harvard Board of Governors. That made her one of two people who received the extortion letter that comes as more evidence of how little Trump has changed over the half century since his first big deal and messy divorce from the Pritzkers that left him vowing revenge. Harvard responded in a letter from its lawyers, but a Pritzker joined the university’s president in refusing to submit to shameless threats.

Burstein, who is 82 and has since been a state senator and a widely respected judge, says that from all she can see, Trump is still exactly Trump.

“The same practice of undervaluing what he has in the way of profits, and overvaluing the cost to himself is how he has practiced his entire business life,” Burstein said. “And, it’s one of the reasons, by the way, in the end, nobody trusted him. He failed. He always failed. If he hadn’t been a reality star, he wouldn’t be where he is.”

Trump, seen at the White House Wednesday, is unchanged in the view of Burstein, the then-state auditor looking at his running of the former Commodore Hotel.

She added, “He has a world that he keeps creating for himself, and anybody who interferes with it is a danger to him. He sees the person as a terrible threat. It’s astonishing to me. I don’t think there’s anything like it in the history of the United States. We have had people like Trump, but they have been at lower levels, in the states. They’ve never been the president of the United States.” (The Daily Beast)

Touch to watch.👇

It is true that Barron is not at any Ivy.

I have always speculated that Trump attacked Columbia because he was rejected when he applied to be an undergraduate there. I feel this, without any hard evidence, because boys growing up in NYC, who were choosing to stay in the city for College unless they are Catholic, would hope to go to Columbia, not Fordham, where Trump started. They would certainly apply there.

Another publicly known circumstance also seems to suggest Fordham was not Trump’s first choice. He transferred from Fordham after only 2 years to go to a different Ivy, the University of Pennsylvania, which was willing to take him thanks to a significant gift from his father, Fred Trump.

After reading about Trump’s ire against the Pritzker’s and how that seems to be affecting his relationship with Harvard, I now also wonder what his dealings were with another New York real estate family, the Milsteins.

For decades, Cheryl Milstein ’82, P’14, has been chair of the Board of Trustees at Barnard. Her husband, Philip Milstein, CC’71, though not on the Columbia Board of Trustees now, has been vice chair of the Board of Trustees, and co-chaired Columbia’s major fundraising campaign, including the largest athletics fundraising initiative in the university’s history.

Seymour Milstein (Philip’s father) is another major Columbia benefactor, with the Seymour Milstein Scholarship Fund and the Vivian and Seymour Milstein Family Heart Center at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center named in his honor.

The Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate at Columbia Business School is named after Philip’s uncle.

Another wrinkle to think about in this conversation - both the Pritzkers and the Milsteins are Jewish families. Their positions at top schools which did not welcome Trump or his kids might well have especially gnawed at a petty and envious Donald Trump.

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Harvard update. In case you were wondering.

As Garber Stands Against Trump, Money From Harvard Donors Pours In

After Harvard publicly rejected the Trump administration’s demands, a wave of support — and money — has come rushing in.

In the 24 hours after Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 announced that he would not comply with the White House, the University received more than 3,800 online donations totaling more than $1 million, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The surge — more than 40 times Harvard’s average daily intake in April — was a striking show of support for Garber’s forceful stance, drawing praise from alumni, faculty, and even some non-Harvard affiliates.

And it comes at a pivotal moment as Harvard stares down a $2.2 billion cut in federal funding and continues to recover from a $151 million drop in donations last year.

To some longtime givers, Garber’s stand was a sign that Harvard is beginning to reclaim the conviction — and fighting spirit — they feared it had lost.

Peter L. Malkin ’55, the namesake of the Malkin Athletic Center, said he upped his donation to back Harvard in what he saw as a critical moment of trial.

“It’s a time of special need, and I have faith in the current leadership,” he said. “I'm not talking about the Corporation — I’m talking about the president and the provost.

Michael T. Kerr ’81 — the former co-chair of the Harvard College Fund Executive Committee — said the outpouring of support from alumni signaled it was a “critical point in time” for fundraising efforts.

“We’re back on track, and at long last we can reconnect and start to make the lockdown commitments,” he said.

Following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, some of Harvard’s biggest donors paused their donations in high-profile statements, citing what they called an institutional failure to address campus antisemitism.

Within two weeks of Oct. 7, the Wexner Foundation ended its programmatic and financial partnership with the Harvard Kennedy School, condemning Harvard’s response to Hamas’ attack as “dismal.”

Hedge fund manager Kenneth C. Griffin ’89 — who previously donated $300 million to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences — announced in January 2024 that he would pause donations to Harvard over its handling of antisemitism on campus.

So far, none of the high-profile donors who fled Harvard last year have indicated that they plan to resume their donations in light of Garber’s stand. But the reaction to Monday’s announcement indicates that the tide of donor opinion may have turned.

Harvard administrators have wasted no time in turning the support into an opportunity to woo donors and alumni who have become disillusioned with Harvard’s handling of campus protests and antisemitism.

Just three hours after Garber indicated he would defy the White House’s demands on Monday, Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra wrote to top Harvard College donors seeking their support.

“This is a critical time for Harvard, specifically, and for higher education, more generally,” she wrote in an email obtained by The Crimson.

Hoekstra offered in the email to individually meet with members of the Harvard College Executive Fund Committee — a group of top donors — “to discuss your perspective on the road forward for the FAS.”

Faculty have also encouraged alumni to give to Harvard as it braces for an escalating faceoff with Washington.

University Professor emeritus Laurence H. Tribe said that he has seen overwhelming support from alumni to up their donations to Harvard in the wake of the $2.2 billion federal funding cut.

“I'm getting a huge, huge response from people, not only alumni and not only former students of mine — of whom there are thousands — but also from people who never had a thought about Harvard that was positive in their lives,” he said.

Tribe added that several faculty members have also indicated to Harvard administrators that they were willing to take a cut in their salaries provided that the saved funds would be used to support research whose federal funding hangs in limbo.

“There are also a number of professors who are considering the possibility of voluntarily accepting a reduction in a salary on the understanding that if the amount that they decide to forego is contributed to research programs that are under pressure as a result of federal cutbacks,” he said.

A University spokesperson declined to comment on whether the faculty proposal had been offered or been accepted.

Harvard Business School graduate Mark E. Pelofsky ’84 said that he had been dismayed by Garber’s initial response to the Trump administration’s demands, but chose to up his donation following Monday’s stand.

“Everyone is supportive, and many people I know have given donations, many of whom like me have not been recent donors,” he said.

Pelofsky, like Malkin, said that they had donated to a University-wide unrestricted fund managed by the Office of the President to give Harvard administrators as much bandwidth as possible to invest as they see fit.

“We’re mostly symbolically giving him money that he can use at his discretion, perhaps, to offset some of the cuts that might be coming from the federal government,” he said.

But Kerr warned that while the alumni support was notable, it alone could not match the magnitude of the $2.2 billion cut to the University’s multi-year commitments.

“The reality is, the annual giving, even if we do a tremendous job, it can’t offset — it can help, but it can’t offset —the scale that the federal government is talking about,” he said.

Harvard Alumni Association spokesperson Cameron Wolfsen wrote in a statement that “we are deeply appreciative of our alumni whose support is vital and enables the university to have a lasting impact in areas of teaching, learning, research and innovation.”

The tidal wave of support Harvard has already seen, however, may only be the beginning of a monthslong donation surge for the University.

Charles H. Grice — a member of the Dean’s Council at the Harvard Kennedy School — wrote in a statement that continued giving was pivotal as the University takes on the White House.

“I have never been more proud or more worried for my University than the challenges and opportunities of this moment,” he wrote.

Eve J. Higginbotham — a former member of the Harvard Board of Overseers, the University’s second-highest governing body — said that while she has not increased her gifts yet, Garber’s response had inspired her to up her givings in the future.

“I’m just very proud as an alum, and I think this is the right decision and the right path,” Higginbotham said. “I believe that Harvard will lead others along with them in this path.” (Harvard Crimson).

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Trump abductions continue, as do the fights against them.

Mohsen Mahdawi’s Abduction “Should Terrify” Us, Says VT Rep. Balint, Whose Grandfather Was Killed in Holocaust.

The Trump administration is now seeking to deport Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi, who is being held in a prison in northwest Vermont. He was detained by Homeland Security agents when he went to an immigration services center to take a civics test that is the final step in the process of becoming a naturalized citizen. Mahdawi moved to Vermont from the West Bank in 2014 and has been a legal permanent resident, or green card holder, since 2015.

All three members of Vermont’s congressional delegation are calling for Mahdawi’s release, including Congressmember Becca Balint. “This should terrify every single person living in this country, regardless of your citizenship status,” says Balint. “This is Trump creating his own army of brownshirts right here in our country.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Vermont, where the Trump administration is seeking to deport Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi because his activities could, quote, “potentially undermine,” unquote, the Middle East peace process. That’s the reason cited by Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a memo the Department of Homeland Security submitted in Mahdawi’s case — the same one cited for the detention of his fellow Columbia student protest leader Mahmoud Khalil.

Mohsen Mahdawi was set to graduate Columbia this spring, but he’s now being held in a prison in northwest Vermont after he was detained by Homeland Security agents when he went to an immigration services center to take a civics test that’s the final step in the process of becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen.

Mahdawi has been a permanent resident, a green card holder, since 2015 — for a decade. He moved to Vermont from the occupied West Bank in 2014, where he was the third generation in his family to live in Faraa, a Palestinian refugee camp. He then attended Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, before transferring to Columbia in 2021 to study international affairs.

His legal team says they have not received, quote, “any information or basis for his detention.” They say the militant Zionist organization Betar has called for his deportation and targeted him online. The group wrote online Monday, quote, “We confirm we provided info on him and many others,” unquote.

This comes as all three members of Vermont’s congressional delegation — Senators Bernie Sanders and Peter Welch, as well as the Congressmember Becca Balint — are calling for Mahdawi’s release, as well as Vermont’s Republican Governor Phil Scott, who issued a statement Tuesday criticizing his detention.

In a minute, we’ll speak with Democratic Congressmember Balint of Vermont. But first, Democracy Now! spoke Tuesday to one of the many people who knows Mahdawi well and have been speaking out since he was taken by federal immigration agents.

GILI GETZ: My name is Gili Getz. I’m an organizer. I’m Israeli. I’m a peace activist, and I’m an organizer with the Israelis for Peace. It’s a group we started after October 7. We looked for a place where we could be fully human and recognize the humanity of Israelis and Palestinians and everybody who lives in the land.

And Mohsen was an incredible partner in conversation about peacemaking and bridge building in a reality that’s extremely polarized. He was doing the really hard work of empathy, listening to people, trying to bring people together across enormous divide. And the news of his kidnapping by the Trump administration was so devastating to us, as is the news of kidnapping of all students, illegally and unlawfully, as part of a larger attack on our democracy, our freedom, just our ability to live in a democracy.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Gili Getz, an organizer with the group Israelis for Peace NYC, who knows Mohsen Mahdawi.

For more, we go to Brattleboro, Vermont, where we’re joined by Democratic Congressmember Becca Balint. She’s the first Jewish member of Congress to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. She is the granddaughter of a man who was lost in the Holocaust. She issued a statement this week with Vermont Senators Bernie Sanders and Peter Welch on the Trump administration’s detention of Mohsen, saying, quote, “This is immoral, inhumane, and illegal. Mr. Mahdawi, a legal resident of the United States, must be afforded due process under the law and immediately released from detention.”

Congressmember Balint, welcome back to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us. Talk about what’s taken place, I mean, the fact that he was brought to Vermont, and explain. He reached out to all three of you, Senators Welch and Sanders and you, before saying, “I’m being told to come in for this test. I’m worried this is a trap.”

REP. BECCA BALINT: Yeah. And so, you know, what I want people to understand is you have a situation, as you said, he has been a green card holder for 10 years. Mr. Mahdawi has been accused of no crime. OK, this is critically important for people to understand. He’s been accused of no crime, went in for his final citizenship interview — it seems like this was possibly a ruse to get him to show up — then arrested upon his arrival. And again, I want people to understand, these were masked, hooded men in plainclothes with an unmarked van handcuffing him.

This is not the America I think many of us thought we lived in. And he was not afforded the ability to speak to his attorney right away. He was not afforded due process in a court of law. He’s being attacked because of free speech. This should terrify every single person living in this country regardless of your citizenship status. They are coming for people because of their beliefs and what they may have said.

And, you know, I just — I’m so enraged by this also because of who Mr. Mahdawi is. He has said in the past that the fight for freedom of Palestine and the fight against antisemitism go hand in hand, because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. He is not someone who is a threat to our supposed international foreign policy interests.

And it’s critically important that we do not allow Secretary Rubio to make these claims without providing proof, evidence to Congress. He is required to provide certification of his personal determination about Mahdawi’s threat to our country to Congress. That has not happened. And it is clear that he is abusing his position as secretary of state, and I won’t have it.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Representative, you’re a vice ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee. Have you had any conversations with your fellow members of the committee, especially some Republicans, about this state of affairs, of federal officers, as you say, masked, grabbing people off the street and disappearing them, effectively?

REP. BECCA BALINT: You would think that Republicans who serve on the Judiciary Committee would care deeply about the rule of law, care deeply about the Constitution. When we brought up the case of Abrego Garcia, that you were just discussing on the show, who is a constituent of our ranking member, Jamie Raskin, in the committee, we were mocked. We were dismissed, saying that — they were spewing all kinds of lies about him.

And they do not seem to understand that their stance on this is a threat to Americans everywhere. They are using talking points from this administration that are based in lies, and they don’t seem to care the damage that they are doing, certainly to these individual men and women who are being detained and disappeared, but, more broadly, to our Constitution and the system of government that we have here.

It is shocking. It’s disheartening. And you can bet that we’re going to continue to bring up these issues within the committee. But it is a bleak time right now in the Judiciary Committee, where we can’t even get our colleagues to stand up for our Constitution, something we thought we all agreed upon.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Could you talk, as well, about the difference with the public officials in Vermont? There was recently a Russian scientist working at Harvard, Kseniia Petrova, was detained by ICE and held at a Vermont women’s prison in South Burlington for a week. How have officials in Vermont responded to these things?

REP. BECCA BALINT: So, I will tell you that it is clear to me that we need a much stronger pushback from all elected officials in Vermont. I want more transparency about the kind of agreements that the state of Vermont has entered into with the federal government on these cases. Many of us in Vermont — and I was at a town hall the other night that was packed, many people asking about how is it that in a state that believes so clearly — the name, you know, the motto of our state is “freedom in unity.”

We stand up for each other. We believe in the rule of law. We believe in freedom — that we need more full-throated statements from elected officials, from the governor on down, about asking for more transparency on these issues. Vermonters do not want this happening in their name. And you can bet that the senators and I are going to continue to demand more answers. This is not who we are as Vermonters. It’s not who we are as Americans.

AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Becca Balint, I wanted to ask you about Rumeysa Ozturk, the graduate student at Tufts who was taken off the street as she was going to dinner by masked agents. She even said to them, “I’m calling the police.” They said, “We are the police.”

Also, interestingly, one of her lawyers said, at a “Liberation Seder” outside of ICE headquarters in New York the other day, that she had told him that when the ICE agents surrounded her, they said, “We are not monsters” — one of them said, “We are not monsters. We are only following orders.” Now, she, too, was driven to Vermont and then flown away. Can you explain, since now the federal court in Vermont is taking on her case, what’s happening with Rumeysa?

REP. BECCA BALINT: Yes. And so, it is deeply disturbing that she was so quickly flown away from our state. It’s difficult to — obviously, to have oversight when, without any delay in her movement, we were not able to get the answers that we need. There’s a lot we don’t know about her case, so I don’t want to misspeak.

What I do know is that any person who is in this situation needs to be absolutely clear that they have right to due process. This is the piece that’s getting lost here. This is the thing that my Republican colleagues will say.

I had a colleague who used to be on the Judiciary Committee with me. Her name is Representative Victoria Spartz. She said in a town hall a few weeks ago, you know, that these folks who are here legally, if they’re not residents, aren’t entitled to due process. That’s absolutely not true. Anyone within the borders of the United States are entitled to due process.

And so, it is critically important that we, as Americans, regardless of party, stand up for all of these students who are being detained, all of these professors and people who are simply speaking their minds, who are being detained, that this is not in accordance with what our government stands for.

And it is chilling to the bone to have somebody say, “We are just following orders.” That is what they said in Nazi Germany. That is what people said when they were listening to the Gestapo. This has got to stop. This is Trump creating his own army of brownshirts right here in our country.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Congresswoman, I wanted to ask you about the — if you could comment on the irony that here we’ve seen repeatedly now federal agents, as you say, masked when they are apprehending and detaining people, at the same time that the Trump administration is demanding that universities ban masks in any protest held on university campuses?

REP. BECCA BALINT: Yes, that gives up the game right there. OK? This entire fury that the Trump administration has directed at institutions of higher ed, it’s not about antisemitism. It’s not. And I will not continue to have this, these outrageous statements, being made in my name and others who have been actually impacted by antisemitism.

This is about authoritarianism. This is about attacking institutions, including schools, so that everyone will bend a knee and will cower in the face of an autocrat. This is what that’s about. And the fact that they are so intellectually inconsistent even about something like masks gives up the game right there. They don’t care about antisemitism. They are using this as a tool, a battering ram, against our institutions.

And I hope that so many Americans who are of Jewish descent will stand up with me and say, “Not in our name. Absolutely not.”

AMY GOODMAN: And finally, Congressmember Becca Balint, you’re a graduate of the Harvard School of Education. Before you were a state legislator and a congressmember, you were a middle school teacher. Your thoughts on Harvard standing up? We’ll be speaking with a Harvard law professor at the end of the broadcast. But rejecting the Trump administration’s attack on them, and now President Trump is threatening to pull their nonprofit status.

REP. BECCA BALINT: I am thrilled that Harvard is taking a stance. And I am frustrated that other institutions of higher learning are not taking a stance. I hope they will get some courage and some backbone for what Harvard has done.

Here’s the message. Whether you’re an institution of higher ed or you are a law firm or you are an organization or you’re a business, we have got to stand together. They are going to continue to pick us off one by one. And our strength comes in our unity. And I am angry that it took Harvard standing up for some other colleges and universities to say, “Oh, maybe that actually is the right path.” I am very disturbed by how easily people have decided to take a knee in front of this autocrat. And we have to stand together, folks. We have to stand together.

AMY GOODMAN: You lost your grandfather in the Holocaust?

REP. BECCA BALINT: I did. I did. And I have often asked myself throughout my adulthood: What would I do in the face of such depravity? And the answer is: You don’t lose your voice. You stand up. And he lost his life in the last few weeks of the war, standing up for another who was imprisoned. They were on a forced march out of Mauthausen concentration camp. And one of his fellow prisoners fell behind, and he stayed back to help him, and they were both executed. And that has ridden me my whole life. You do the right thing even in the midst of depravity, even when there is danger. You have to have skin in the game. And that’s my message to all Americans. We all have to stand up for each other.

AMY GOODMAN: Democratic Congressmember Becca Balint of Vermont, first Jewish member of Congress to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, the daughter of an immigrant and the granddaughter of her grandfather, who died in the Holocaust. (Democracy Now).

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Finally, and from an unlikely place - “It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising.”

Conservative New York Times Columnist, David Brooks issues a call to end Trumpism and its attack on America.

What’s Happening Is Not Normal. America Needs an Uprising That Is Not Normal.

In the beginning there was agony. Under the empires of old, the strong did what they willed and the weak suffered what they must.

But over the centuries, people built the sinews of civilization: Constitutions to restrain power, international alliances to promote peace, legal systems to peacefully settle disputes, scientific institutions to cure disease, news outlets to advance public understanding, charitable organizations to ease suffering, businesses to build wealth and spread prosperity, and universities to preserve, transmit and advance the glories of our way of life. These institutions make our lives sweet, loving and creative, rather than nasty, brutish and short.

Trumpism is threatening all of that. It is primarily about the acquisition of power — power for its own sake. It is a multifront assault to make the earth a playground for ruthless men, so of course any institutions that might restrain power must be weakened or destroyed. Trumpism is about ego, appetite and acquisitiveness and is driven by a primal aversion to the higher elements of the human spirit — learning, compassion, scientific wonder, the pursuit of justice.

So far, we have treated the various assaults of President Trump and the acolytes in his administration as a series of different attacks. In one lane they are going after law firms. In another they savaged U.S.A.I.D. In another they’re attacking our universities. On yet another front they’re undermining NATO and on another they’re upending global trade.

But that’s the wrong way to think about it. These are not separate battles. This is a single effort to undo the parts of the civilizational order that might restrain Trump’s acquisition of power. And it will take a concerted response to beat it back.

So far, each sector Trump has assaulted has responded independently — the law firms seek to protect themselves, the universities, separately, try to do the same. Yes, a group of firms banded together in support of the firm Perkins Coie, but in other cases it’s individual law firms trying to secure their separate peace with Trump. Yes, Harvard eventually drew a line in the sand, but Columbia cut a deal. This is a disastrous strategy that ensures that Trump will trample on one victim after another. He divides and conquers.

Slowly, many of us are realizing that we need to band together. But even these efforts are insular and fragmented. Several members of the Big Ten conference are working on forming an alliance to defend academic freedom. Good. But that would be 18 schools out of roughly 4,000 degree-granting American colleges and universities.

So far, the only real hint of something larger — a mass countermovement — has been the rallies led by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But this too is an ineffective way to respond to Trump; those partisan rallies make this fight seem like a normal contest between Democrats and Republicans.

What is happening now is not normal politics. We’re seeing an assault on the fundamental institutions of our civic life, things we should all swear loyalty to — Democrat, independent or Republican.

It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising. It’s time for Americans in universities, law, business, nonprofits and the scientific community, and civil servants and beyond to form one coordinated mass movement. Trump is about power. The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he’s confronted by some movement that possesses rival power.

Peoples throughout history have done exactly this when confronted by an authoritarian assault. In their book, “Why Civil Resistance Works,” Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan looked at hundreds of nonviolent uprisings. These movements used many different tools at their disposal — lawsuits, mass rallies, strikes, work slowdowns, boycotts and other forms of noncooperation and resistance.

These movements began small and built up. They developed clear messages that appealed to a variety of groups. They shifted the narrative so the authoritarians were no longer on permanent offense. Sometimes they used nonviolent means to provoke the regime into taking violent action, which shocks the nation, undercuts the regime’s authority and further strengthens the movement. (Think of the civil rights movement at Selma.) Right now, Trumpism is dividing civil society; if done right, the civic uprising can begin to divide the forces of Trumpism.

Chenoweth and Stephan emphasize that this takes coordination. There doesn’t always have to be one charismatic leader, but there does have to be one backbone organization, one coordinating body that does the work of coalition building.

In his book “Upheaval,” Jared Diamond looked at countries that endured crises and recovered. He points out that the nations that recover don’t catastrophize — they don’t say everything is screwed up and we need to burn it all down. They take a careful inventory of what is working well and what is working poorly. Leaders assume responsibility for their own share of society’s problems.

This struck me as essential advice for Americans today. We live in a country with catastrophically low levels of institutional trust. University presidents, big law firms, media organizations and corporate executives face a wall of skepticism and cynicism. If they are going to participate in a mass civic uprising against Trump, they have to show the rest of the country that they understand the establishment sins that gave rise to Trump in the first place. They have to show that they are democratically seeking to reform their institutions. This is not just defending the establishment; it’s moving somewhere new.

Let’s take the universities. I’ve been privileged to teach at American universities off and on for nearly 30 years and I get to visit a dozen or two others every year. These are the crown jewels of American life. They are hubs of scientific and entrepreneurial innovation. In a million ways, the scholars at universities help us understand ourselves and our world.

I have seen it over and over: A kid comes on campus as a freshman, inquisitive but unformed. By senior year, there is something impressive about her. She is awakened, cultured, a critical thinker. The universities have performed their magic once again.

People flock from all over the world to admire our universities.

But like all institutions, they have their flaws. Many have allowed themselves to become shrouded in a stifling progressivism that tells half the country: Your voices don’t matter. Through admissions policies that favor rich kids, the elite universities have contributed to a diploma divide. If the same affluent families come out on top generation after generation, then no one should be surprised if the losers flip over the table.

In other words, a civic uprising has to have a short-term vision and a long-term vision. Short term: Stop Trump. Foil his efforts. Pile on the lawsuits. Turn some of his followers against him. The second is a long-term vision of a fairer society that is not just hard on Trump, but hard on the causes of Trumpism — one that offers a positive vision. Whether it’s the universities, the immigration system or the global economy, we can’t go back to the status quo that prevailed when Trump first rode down the escalator.

I’m really not a movement guy. I don’t naturally march in demonstrations or attend rallies that I’m not covering as a journalist. But this is what America needs right now. Trump is shackling the greatest institutions in American life. We have nothing to lose but our chains. (David Brooks, Columnist, New York Times)

The Next Step.

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