Columbia University's funding cut and Mahmoud Khalil's arrest.

I’m Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day — then “my take.”

Are you new here? Get free emails to your inbox daily. Would you rather listen? You can find our podcast here.

Today's read: 14 minutes.

SPONSORED

Craving balanced news beyond just politics? We've got you covered. Interested in what’s happening in the world of finance, economics and world business news? We’ve got the answer: The Daily Upside. Founded and authored by a team of career journalists, experienced investment bankers and finance professionals, the team over at Tangle reads The Daily Upside. It’s your direct line to global business news. Recent headlines: Tesla’s stock closed down for a record seventh consecutive week. A full fledged economic war with Canada and Mexico. The leading state for renewable energy generation is… Texas? Join over 1 million daily readers who choose clarity over clickbait. Start reading

ICYMI.

On Friday, Tangle founder Isaac Saul shared some reflections on his first six weeks of fatherhood. The members-only Friday edition told the story of his son’s birth and touched on pregnancy, labor, birth, abortion, parental leave, and an assortment of little oddities about welcoming a child into the world. You can read the post here.

Quick hits.

1. Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, imposed a 25% surcharge on all its electricity exports to the United States in retaliation for the Trump administration’s threatened tariffs on Canada. (The move) Separately, China began imposing retaliatory tariffs of 10-15% on U.S. agricultural products. (The tariffs)
2. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that 83% of U.S. Agency for International Development programs have been eliminated and said the State Department would administer the remaining programs. (The announcement) Separately, Rubio is meeting with Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to discuss potential concessions to end the war with Russia. (The meeting)
3. The S&P 500 hit its lowest level since September 2024, the Nasdaq had its sharpest one-day decline since September 2022, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped over 2% amid investors’ concerns about a potential U.S. recession. (The markets)
4. The Senate voted 67-32 to confirm former Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR) as secretary of the Department of Labor. (The confirmation) 
5. A Portuguese cargo ship struck a U.S. tanker off the coast of eastern England, causing multiple explosions and setting both vessels on fire. One crew member from the cargo ship is reportedly missing. (The collision)

Today's topic.

The federal crackdown at Columbia University. On Friday, the Trump administration announced it will cut $400 million in federal funding to Columbia University in New York City for allegedly failing to protect Jewish students from harassment. Additionally, the administration has directed the Departments of Education, Justice, and Health and Human Services to form a Federal Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism and investigate participants in pro-Palestinian protests on campuses last year. On Saturday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia graduate student and U.S. resident from Palestine, on State Department orders to revoke Khalil’s student visa. When ICE discovered through his attorney that Khalil had a green card, they told him they would revoke that instead. Khalil has not been formally accused of a crime.

Back up: Columbia was the site of large-scale protests throughout the spring 2024 semester, following Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza. While protests took place across the country, Columbia’s campus was a flashpoint for student activism, with protestors occupying buildings, disrupting classes, and clashing with police. In August 2024, university President Minouche Shafik resigned, citing “a period of turmoil where it has been difficult to overcome divergent views across our community.” During his 2024 presidential campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump called for a heightened police response to university protests. 

On Monday, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) sent letters to 60 universities, warning them of potential penalties from pending investigations into alleged antisemitic discrimination and harassment. In response to the cuts and a warning from the U.S. General Services Administration that the university could lose up to $5 billion in federal funding, Columbia’s Interim President Katrina Armstrong said the university takes the cuts “very seriously” and is open to working with the government on its “legitimate concerns.” Armstrong added that Columbia’s disciplinary process “previously only existed on paper” and vowed to “acknowledge and repair the damage to our Jewish students, who were targeted, harassed, and made to feel unsafe or unwelcome on our campus last spring.”

Following Khalil’s arrest, President Donald Trump said ICE acted in accordance with his recent executive order on combating antisemitism, writing on Truth Social, “This is the first arrest of many to come.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested that Khalil would have his green card revoked and face deportation. 

Khalil’s attorney and wife were unable to locate him the day after his arrest; on Monday, ICE said that he had been moved to a detention facility in Louisiana. Some groups, including the New York Civil Liberties Union, said Khalil’s arrest violated free-speech protections and overstepped the president’s legal authority on immigration matters. On Monday, a federal judge in Manhattan blocked Khalil’s deportation and scheduled a hearing on his case for Wednesday.

Today, we’ll explore the federal government’s recent actions at Columbia University, with views from the left and right. Then, my take.

What the left is saying.

• The left denounces Khalil’s arrest, calling it blatantly illegal. 
• Many say the funding cuts are similarly unlawful and will have a chilling effect on colleges.
• Others claim the moves are part of an effort to dismantle higher education.

In The Intercept, Natasha Lennard said “if Trump can Deport Mahmoud Khalil, freedom of speech is dead.”

“There is no going back from this point: President Donald Trump’s administration is trying to deport a man solely for his First Amendment-protected activity, without due process. By all existing legal standards, this is illegal and unconstitutional: a violation of First Amendment protections, and the Fifth Amendment-protected right to due process,” Lennard wrote. “If Khalil’s green card is revoked and he is deported, no one can have any confidence in legal and constitutional protections as a line of defense against arbitrary state violence and punishment. Khalil’s arrest marks an extraordinary fascist escalation.”

“Some of the only activity not protected by the First Amendment in this regard is material support for a group designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the government. What counts as ‘material support’ has a strict legal standard — even expressing support or sympathy for a foreign terrorist organization is not included in that standard,” Lennard said. “Khalil has not been charged with material support for terrorism, nor any other crime. Under law, green cards cannot be summarily revoked; grounds for removal require criminal convictions for specific crimes including assault or theft, or proof of visa fraud.”

In Bloomberg, Noah Feldman argued “cutting Columbia’s aid over alleged antisemitism is illegal.”

“Federal law and regulations say the government can’t terminate these grants or contracts for violation of the anti-discrimination law unless a court has found that it has done so after a hearing at which the university has the right to defend itself,” Feldman wrote. “The announced action fits a pattern the Trump administration has been following since it came into office: It declares that it’s doing things it can’t legally do and doesn’t worry about the consequences. At some point, a university, whether Columbia or the next one Trump targets, will challenge the action in court — and will win.

“By then, however, the damage will already be done, as universities that depend on federal funding inevitably try to figure out what they can do to avoid the disaster of losing the money that enables their basic function,” Feldman said. “A court faced with the Columbia situation, or one like it, is extremely likely to rule the administration’s actions unlawful and order them reversed. That’s what has happened with essentially all of the Trump administration’s unlawful actions thus far.”

In Inside Higher Ed, Brian Rosenberg wrote about “the attempt to destroy Columbia.”

“Like most announcements coming from the administration, this one was vague, probably unlawful and ominously threatening, hinting at further, even larger reductions in funding to follow. Cuts of the magnitude hinted at in the announcement would at least cripple the university and potentially render it unable to operate in anything like its current form,” Rosenberg said. “Any attempt to make sense of the Trump administration’s Javert-like pursuit of Columbia needs to begin with the recognition that it is not, in any real sense, about Columbia. Neither is it about antisemitism or free speech. It is not even at its root about education.

“It is, rather, about the exercise of raw power to intimidate, enforce obedience and silence dissent. This is how authoritarian regimes work and—as a template for the federal government’s approach to journalism, business and pretty much every sphere of life—it should matter even to those who are indifferent to the fate of Columbia or higher education,” Rosenberg wrote. “Other institutions and organizations, inside and outside higher education, might want to think carefully about their stance of self-protective silence in the face of a government that covets the unchecked power of authoritarianism.”

What the right is saying.

• The right mostly supports Khalil’s arrest, arguing that his actions merited deportation.
• Some say the funding cuts are a necessary check on colleges that have strayed from their purpose. 
• Others say the cuts are defensible, but Khalil’s arrest seems illegal. 

The New York Post editorial board said “Team Trump’s crackdown on campus hate is a defense of decency and a push against perverted privilege.”

“With the reported arrest and likely deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, a noncitizen ringleader of antisemitic protests at Columbia and Barnard, ICE has put fresh teeth on President Donald Trump’s crackdown on campus hate,” the board wrote. “This movement was never merely about protest: Ever since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks, it has sought to intimidate America with passion and force — occupying campus quads, blockading and/or rampaging through libraries, harassing and assaulting visible Jews. Nor is it truly a student movement: As arrest records show, even actions on campus include gobs of older ‘career’ radicals.”

“Yet far too many campus authorities have done as little as possible to stop it, hiding behind ‘free speech’ concerns that plainly don’t cover this behavior… Now the Trump administration has begun to hold academia to account for its failings, as well as acting directly against those like Mahmoud Khalil who abuse America’s welcome to foster violent hate,” the board said. “This is both a defense of decency and a push against the perversion of privilege, and we look forward to seeing a lot more of it.”

In Fox News, Aarti Tikoo Singh wrote “as a Columbia alum, I support President Trump's move to pull federal funds.”

“President Donald Trump’s decision to cancel $400 million in federal grants from Columbia University for its culture of antisemitism should be a moment of self-reflection for leftists and liberals worldwide,” Singh said. “As a student at Columbia in the late 2000s, it was evident to me that many academics and student groups sympathized more with perpetrators of terror than victims. In 2007, they hosted then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, not Iranian women subjected to enforced hijab. The next year, they were silent when militants trained in Pakistan attacked India on Nov. 26, 2008.”

“Though the signs were there, I never imagined the leftist-Islamist nexus at Columbia would push the campus into a spiral of violence, reminiscent of developing countries. I never thought Ivy League campuses would exhibit scenes of violent threats by Islamists,” Singh wrote. “President Donald Trump's decision to cancel $400 million in federal funding to Columbia is a good start. Next, his government must prosecute individuals and organizations involved in weaponizing antisemitic sentiments.”

In The Washington Examiner, Tom Rogan explored “protect[ing] Jewish civil rights and the First Amendment at Columbia.”

“Where Jewish students are targeted with threats of antisemitic violence or willful intimidation, any students engaged who are responsible should face swift sanction from the college in question. Too few students have been expelled for such activity,” Rogan said. “Where colleges fail to protect civil rights, the suspension of federal grants is a reasonable recourse. Still, it is concerning and un-American for the federal government to deport students or otherwise seek to intimidate American students into silence simply because they offer pro-Palestinian or anti-Israeli sentiments. Both things are happening at Columbia University.”

“It’s one thing to strip financial aid in response to an institution’s failure to protect civil rights. It’s a very different thing to arrest students simply because they have said things that the government of the day and its supporters dislike,” Rogan wrote. “This arrest is plainly contradictory to the interest of vigorous public debate on a matter of public interest. It will surely deter American students who do not support Hamas but oppose Israeli foreign policy from speaking their minds. That is incompatible with the founders’ intent in their construction of the First Amendment.”

My take.

Reminder: "My take" is a section where I give myself space to share my own personal opinion. If you have feedback, criticism or compliments, don't unsubscribe. Write in by replying to this email, or leave a comment.

• I have a mixed view of campus protestors, but I am deeply opposed to Khalil’s arrest.
• Khalil is a U.S. resident who has not been accused of a crime, and his detainment is disturbing.
• Anyone who cares about free speech should be concerned.

Let me state a few things about my views up front: I believe protestors have a right to demonstrate, and that many activists protesting for Palestinians have been driven by the horrifying images of the war in Gaza. I also believe that protests sometimes leave the realm of civil disobedience and move into criminal actions, and that legitimately scary things have happened on college campuses across the country over the past year. Lastly, I believe that colleges and police are perfectly within their rights to maintain order, and that in many cases — including at Columbia — universities were very slow to respond.

Additionally, I’ve argued that protesters aren’t always right, have written about how protests can be counter-productive, and repeatedly made the case that college protests were taking up way too much oxygen relative to the actions of the U.S. government, Hamas, and Israel. Last spring, I went to Penn’s campus to talk to students in the encampments. It was clear to me that most protesters were well intentioned if not misinformed; I also learned that a lot of the “students” occupying space on campus were not students but professional organizers, and — given that — left feeling the university had the right to clear out the encampments (which they did the following day).

I say all this to remind you that my views on student protests have some nuance but are far from innately positive. I hope that gives my statement more weight when I say that the arrest of Khalil is one of the most chilling acts by the Trump administration yet. Given that, I’m going to focus my take mostly on his arrest (for what it’s worth, my basic take on the funding threats to Columbia is that Trump can pull funding to universities — but only if he can prove they are really failing to protect the rights of its students). 

Most importantly, President Trump is infringing not just on the inalienable right of free speech, but the fundamental ethic of it. On Truth Social, he warned that any student who engaged in “anti-American activity” would be apprehended and deported. That’s quite the net to cast — and a decidedly malleable definition that could be used to justify arresting and deporting people for all manner of constitutionally protected speech. Will students qualify as “anti-American” if they criticize Trump?

Some prominent conservative legal minds whom I genuinely admire, like Ilya Shapiro, appear so blinded by their hatred for these movements that they’ve tied themselves into knots to justify the decree. Shapiro argued that Trump’s actions are a basic application of the law, saying the Immigration and Naturalization Act allows the government to pull visas from people who are members (or supporters) of terrorist organizations. This law, according to Shapiro, legally justifies revoking green cards from U.S. residents like Khalil who “engaged in pro-Hamas disruptions.”

The problem with Shapiro’s position is that it’s based on a series of questionable assumptions. Critically, Khalil has not been charged with any crime. As far as we can tell, he has not gotten a hearing or gone through a removal proceeding — both of which are his rights. ICE agents who entered his apartment said they were revoking his student visa based on State Department orders. When they were informed by his lawyer that he had a green card, which his wife presented to them, they said that they were actually revoking his green card. 

Khalil’s arrest is not “a basic application of U.S. immigration law,” as Shapiro claims. If it were, then Trump’s actions wouldn’t be so unprecedented. No due process or legal standard has been applied here — the administration has not justified or presented proof of anything, just broadly worded and unsubstantiated claims that he is a terrorist supporter or was paid by a terrorist organization. 

On X, the Columbia Jewish Alumni Association insisted nobody should have sympathy for Khalil, given what he’s done. The organization accuses Khalil (note: accuses) of disrupting learning, helping protesters take over campuses, and intimidating Jewish students. Even if true, those claims fall pretty far short of “providing material support for terrorism.” Threads that are supposed to be damning indictments of Khalil show him calmly giving interviews to the press, peacefully standing in a drum circle, or making the case that he’s participating in an anti-war movement.

By most accounts, Khalil was in a leadership role during the protests, working to mediate a resolution with the university. Again, he has not been charged with any crime — there’s no evidence I could find that he took part in any kind of violence or vandalism, or even the incitement thereof. If the administration does charge him with a crime, my position could change. However the evidence I’ve seen so far indicates the Trump administration is attempting to arrest and deport someone for peacefully saying a bunch of things they didn’t like.

Of course, for many Americans, “deporting non-citizens supportive of terrorist organizations” is a very popular position, and I imagine Khalil’s arrest will play well with a lot of people. Let me be clear: I do not believe this framing describes the situation accurately. Khalil is a Palestinian who clearly had a vested interest in objecting to a war that was killing his people, and like many Palestinians (especially those in America) I sincerely doubt the assumption that he is a full-fledged supporter of Hamas. 

There are legitimate debates to have about immigration and the commitment to the American project we may ask of those here on student visas or green cards, but there should be no debate about their rights to free speech and due process. Were these takeovers and encampments the kind of thing I wish college campuses did a better job policing during the protests? Absolutely. But are they so insidious as to justify Khalil’s arrest and deportation? 

C’mon.

This saga reduces the administration’s claim to be bastions and warriors for free speech to absurdity. The entire point of advocating for free speech is to defend the principle even when you abhor the speech. I’m certain that Khalil and the organizations he affiliates with hold views I find abhorrent, and even if he publicly expresses them on a regular basis, I — along with anyone with real free-speech principles — should still defend his right to speak his views without fear of government reprisal. Kudos to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), who took a stand demanding answers about his arrest. 

Even Ann Coulter — Ann Coulter — took to X to say “There’s almost no one I don’t want to deport, but, unless they’ve committed a crime, isn’t this a violation of the first amendment?” The ADL, shamefully, found themselves on the other side of the issue. 

I really don’t know where we go from here. The Trump administration promised it would focus its deportation efforts on the “worst of the worst,” but instead are bringing the force of the state down on a Columbia University alumnus with no criminal record, who just got his master’s degree in international affairs, and whose wife is an American citizen and eight months pregnant. No matter how you feel about Khalil, his movement, the students at Columbia, or anything else; if you value civil liberties, due process and free speech, you should find this development deeply disturbing. 

Take the survey: What do you think of Columbia’s funding cut and Khalil’s arrest? Let us know!

Disagree? That's okay. My opinion is just one of many. Write in and let us know why, and we'll consider publishing your feedback.

Help share Tangle.

I'm a firm believer that our politics would be a little bit better if everyone were reading balanced news that allows room for debate, disagreement, and multiple perspectives. If you can take 15 seconds to share Tangle with a few friends I'd really appreciate it — just click the button below and pick some people to email it to!

• Email Tangle to a friend by clicking here.
• Share Tangle on X/Twitter by clicking here.
• Share Tangle on Facebook by clicking here.

Your questions, answered.

Q: Can we/you name the things as what they are? For example, in Wednesday’s “My take” on Trump’s speech you call things that he says nonsense or misinformation. Which it is. But above all it is a lie. If Trump or any other politician claims something that is false and he or she can and should and probably does know that it is a lie! 

— Greg from the Netherlands

Tangle: Hello Greg, and hello to all our new Dutch readers who have joined us following a recent profile of Isaac in de Volkskrant! 

We’re pretty careful about the use of the “L-word” around here, just because of the high level of confidence about the speaker’s motivation required to use that word. The Oxford English Dictionary, Tangle’s dictionary of choice, defines “lie” as “a false statement made with intent to deceive.” The key phrase there is “intent to deceive” — that’s very hard to know. We care a lot about language and word choice, and even though our editorial section allows us (and usually Isaac) to be more expressive with language, we only claim a politician is “lying” when they’re contradicting something they’ve already said or information they have proven that they know to be true.

Since you’re talking about President Trump here, let’s take two examples. First, and perhaps most eye-catchingly, the 2020 election. Trump maintains former President Joe Biden only won because of widespread fraud. We know this is false, but we don’t know that the president doesn’t truly believe it. Indeed, that was part of the legal defense from Trump’s team in the court cases against him. This same test applies to people like Candace Owens or Rachel Maddow — we can’t know what information they are working off of, so we can only accurately describe the content of their speech. We don’t always hit the mark with this standard, and at times have claimed a mistruth is a lie in our editorial writing without providing full justification for saying so, but it is the standard we try to meet.

In contrast, we confidently assert that President Trump lied about having classified documents. We know that he had the documents at Mar-a-Lago, and that he knew that he had them (based on detailed reports from the Justice Department). Therefore, we say that Trump lied about not having the documents and then lied about returning them (and yes, we have said Joe Biden has lied, too). 

Regarding Trump’s speech, we just don’t know what he knew. Specifically, we called his claims about Social Security fraud “nonsense,” but if he’s getting unchecked information from Elon Musk, then he’s just repeating poor information. Worthy of criticism? Definitely. An outright lie? That’s harder to say.

Want to have a question answered in the newsletter? You can reply to this email (it goes straight to our inbox) or fill out this form.

Under the radar.

At least 624 members of Syria’s Alawite minority group have been killed in the past week, as fighting escalates between Syrian government forces and loyalists of ousted President Bashar al-Assad. The killings, documented by the Syrian Network for Human Rights, have been concentrated in Syria’s coastal provinces and appear to be led by Sunni militants. Since Assad’s fall in December, the new government has sought to establish stability after 14 years of civil war. However, the past week’s violence raises concerns about the government’s ability to manage the various armed groups that remain active in the country. The Washington Post has the story.

Numbers.

• $14.8 billion. The value of Columbia University’s endowment in fiscal year 2024.
• $6.6 billion. Columbia’s operating revenue in FY 2024. 
• $1.3 billion. The amount of Columbia’s operating revenue coming from government grants and contracts in FY 2024.
• $747 million. The amount of federal research money given to Columbia in 2023 from the National Institutes of Health. 
• 43%. The percentage of U.S. adults who support deporting international students in the U.S. accused of antisemitic behaviors in connection with protests over the war in Gaza, according to a February 2025 Economist/YouGov poll. 
• 35%. The percentage of U.S. adults who oppose deporting international students in the U.S. accused of antisemitic behaviors in connection with protests over the war in Gaza. 
• 25%. The percentage of U.S. adults who approved of pro-Palestinian campus protests in May 2024, according to a Yahoo! News poll. 
• 50%. The percentage of U.S. adults who opposed pro-Palestinian campus protests in May 2024. 

The extras.

• One year ago today we wrote about President Biden’s State of the Union.
• The most clicked link in yesterday’s newsletter was shrekdotorg.neocities.org.
• Nothing to do with politics: How chain restaurants get all their food to taste the same.
• Yesterday's survey: 2,992 readers answered our survey on the Department of Education with 30% supporting removing the department and delegating its functions. “I wanted to keep as is till I read your take, now it seems more reasonable to re-distribute. They've made an absolute mess of student loans, letting big colleges play them for fools where they're taking the extra money then increasing tuition to still rake it in,” one respondent said.

Have a nice day.

Many hospital rooms are windowless, leaving patients with anxiety without much reprieve. Artist Colleen Wall had an idea: Bring the outside world in. Creating what she calls “LandEscapes,” Wall paints murals that depict the view outside an open window. “I want them… to have that minute, that maybe one of the windows reminds them of a place that they went to in their lifetime or that they dreamed about going to,” Wall said. “And they can get into their imagination and go to that place.” Nice News has the story, and you can see Wall’s art here.

Don't forget...

📣 Share Tangle on Twitter here, Facebook here, or LinkedIn here.

🎧 We have a podcast you can listen to here.

🎥 Follow us on Instagram here or subscribe to our YouTube channel here

💵 If you like our newsletter, drop some love in our tip jar.

🎉 Want to reach 340,000+ people? Fill out this form to advertise with us.

📫 Forward this to a friend and tell them to subscribe (hint: it's here).

🛍 Love clothes, stickers and mugs? Go to our merch store!