First Lady Melania Trump’s unprecedented breach of her privacy veil has sparked a running joke in the White House. It states President Donald Trump is out for Harvard’s blood because his son Barron failed to get there.
A completely different reason for Trump’s grudge, however, has been put out by presidential biographer Michael Wolff. As per the biographer, he is the one who was unable to enroll in the esteemed Ivy League.
With an interview with presenter Joanna Coles on Thursday’s episode of The Daily Beast Podcast, the author spilled the beans. Wolff, author of the best-selling books Fire & Fury and this year’s All or Nothing, explained his war on Harvard and other prestigious universities.
“It’s also odd because so many of the people around Donald Trump went to Ivy League universities. Several of them went to Harvard Business School,” Coles said. “Obviously, JD Vance proudly went to Yale. So it does seem particularly odd, but perhaps he’s also trying to stuff it to them too.”
“It’s important not to lend too much calculation and planning to anything he does,” Wolff said. “But the other thing is that, by the way, he didn’t get into Harvard. So one of the Trump things is always holding a grudge against the Ivy Leagues.”
White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers criticized Wolff’s assertion. However, she did not officially state if Trump applied to Harvard or not. “The Daily Beast and Michael Wolff have lots in common — they both peddle fake news for clickbait in a hopeless attempt to amount to something more than lying losers,” she said in an email. “The President didn’t need to apply to an overrated, corrupt institution like Harvard to become a successful businessman and the most transformative President in history.”
“People who have been to Harvard don’t quite understand how loathed the product of these elite institutions are to average Americans…”@bungarsargon and @BridgetPhetasy on why Trump is going to war with Harvard and the elites.
Watch below:https://t.co/r9TLzXCunB pic.twitter.com/wQSi5MCAd6
— Next Up with Mark Halperin (@NextUpHalperin) May 27, 2025
In the past, Wolff has dismissed the White House’s accusation that he is “a lying sack of s–t.” Regarding whether Trump applied to Harvard in the 1960s, there are no publicly accessible documents or reports. That claim has not been made in published biographies.
Although his actions against Harvard are now at the focus of a high-stakes lawsuit, the possibility that his war on the university is driven by personal animosity may seem insignificant. Also Harvard’s legal team is certain to meticulously examine any motivational issues.
What is known about Trump’s college experience is that he had a childhood aspiration of attending the University of Southern California, to study cinema which has also been the target of his recent assaults.
Trump didn’t just stop at funding. He also took issue with Harvard’s hiring practices, calling out the ideological in faculty ranks.
“He said, ‘Why are you hiring people from only one point of view?’—which I think is indisputable,” Hanson noted.
That’s when the backlash began. https://t.co/RiVqPoA05t pic.twitter.com/kiozARCugU— Andrew Man (@TegoArcanaDei) May 30, 2025
The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights claimed that the school had failed to “fulfill their obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to protect Jewish students on campus.” After which Trump withdrew funds from federal research grants, costing the college $17.5 million.
Trump’s aspirations to attend film school were crushed after he graduated from the New York Military Academy. In 1964, he moved from his family’s home in Jamaica Estates, Queens, to the Bronx to attend Fordham University, a private Catholic institution.
In Gwenda Blair’s book The Trumps: Three Generations of Builders and a Presidential Candidate, Trump stated, “I wanted to see my parents after being away at school for five years,” pointing out that the school was nearby. He chose to attend Fordham because they allowed him to, according to his late sister Maryanne Trump Barry. She died in 2023.
Just the kind of comment from huge narcissist!! He cannot handle ppl pushing back against his illegal dictate. For Trump its all ego.
Its never about whats best for Americans.
Harvard creates wealth by educating the most talented ppl in the world.
Trump hated educated pp! https://t.co/IawS3V2nEF— HJL (@HJLtoronto) May 30, 2025
While Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner attended Harvard, his two older kids, Don Jr. and Eric, attended UPenn. Months after his father, Charles Kushner, a real estate magnate in New Jersey, promised the university $2.5 million, he was accepted. In his book The Price of Admission, Daniel Golden cited several high school students who said that Kushner lacked the GPA and SAT scores necessary to be admitted to Harvard.
The president loves the drama, Wolff said. “He’s done what he set out to do,” he said. “Dominate the headlines. What do you do? You go after Harvard and you go after Harvard in a way that is draconian, dramatic, and existential. It’s threatening Harvard on that level.”
