From ‘Woke’ Colleges to Hunter Biden and Big Law: Trump’s Week of Settling Scores
President’s allies say they are leveling out a playing field that they believe has been tilted toward Democrats
ET
WASHINGTON—During a visit to the Kennedy Center earlier this week, a reporter asked President Trump whether he was aware that Hunter Biden had taken 18 Secret Service agents with him on a recent trip to South Africa.
“That will be something I’ll look at this afternoon,” Trump said. “I just heard about it for the first time.” Within hours, the president ordered Secret Service protection yanked from Hunter and his sister, Ashley Biden.
The scene played out as Trump was meeting with a new Kennedy Center board he installed to replace officials he terminated because he felt the arts programming didn’t sufficiently reflect his tastes. Also this week, the Trump administration paused $175 million in federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania, criticizing the college for allowing a trans swimmer to participate in women’s competitions, and issued letters to 20 law firms expressing concerns about their diversity programs and employment practices.
Late Friday, Trump revoked the security clearances of a host of political opponents and prominent Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken and former national security advisor Jake Sullivan.
The moves this week accelerated the pace of Trump’s efforts to settle scores, which began when he took office. The president is continuing to target his perceived enemies and punish institutions that he believes haven’t adequately aligned themselves with his administration’s values.
In his first two months in office, he used the vast powers of the presidency to sanction three well-known law firms whose attorneys opposed him or worked with others who did in various legal matters, a news outlet whose coverage he objects to and academic institutions he says foster views that conflict with his policies. He dismissed Democratic commissioners at a slew of federal boards that were designed to have bipartisan representation—including this week’s firing two Democratic members of the Federal Trade Commission, saying their service was “inconsistent” with his administration’s priorities.
On Thursday evening, Trump rolled back restrictions placed on Paul Weiss, one of the law firms targeted by executive order. The firm’s chairman, Brad Karp, agreed to spend $40 million in pro bono legal services to support the administration’s initiatives.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.) said Trump is overseeing an “unprecedented shake down of private businesses and law firms.”
Trump’s allies say the president is leveling out a playing field that they believe has been tilted toward Democrats and Democratic causes. After years of struggling to secure representation from top law firms hesitant to be associated with Trump or his orbit, they believe it is time to eradicate bias where they see it.
Likewise, elite academic institutions, they say, are breeding grounds for restrictive liberal thinking. They add Trump’s decision to withhold funds from them is the fastest way to force policy changes, such as eradicating DEI initiatives, that the new administration believes it has a mandate to pursue.
In their view, success begets success. During the transition, ABC News paid $16 million to settle a lawsuit with Trump. Shortly after Trump took power, Meta paid $25 million to settle a lawsuit that legal experts said was frivolous. X also settled a similar suit.
The score settling is occurring at a faster clip now than Trump’s first term because his White House is stocked with advisers who are loyal to him and his mission, rather than a mishmash of Republican aides that were brought into the administration in 2017, Trump allies say. Trump’s team also used its four-year hiatus out of power to come up with more detailed plans to quickly enact the president’s agenda.
“President Trump was elected to bring accountability to Washington, D.C., and that’s exactly what he’s doing,” said White House spokesman Harrison Fields. “For too long, the bureaucracy has gone unchecked with the status quo and the administration is turning the page on this failed proposition.”