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Florida Senator Rick Scott defended the Trump administration’s campaign against Harvard and questioned the University’s tax-exempt status at an Institute of Politics forum Wednesday evening.
Two days after Harvard sued the White House for multibillion dollar cuts to research funding, Scott — sitting before an audience of Harvard affiliates — took the Trump administration’s side.
The Florida Republican, who has called for dramatic reductions in federal spending, said that Harvard must comply with all federal laws if the University wants to receive any money from the government.
“You can’t discriminate. It’s federal law. You can’t be antisemitic,” Scott said. “If you have students here that are violating their visas, you gotta comply with the law.”
Federal Republicans have accused Harvard of being a hotbed of antisemitism, and the Trump administration has signaled that it considers universities’ diversity programming to be illegal racial discrimination.
But in its Monday lawsuit, Harvard claimed that the Trump administration was using antisemitism as a pretext to hobble the University, writing that the funding freeze “has nothing at all to do with antisemitism and Title VI compliance.”
Scott also seemed to endorse a plan floated by the Internal Revenue Service — and championed by President Donald Trump — to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status.
“I don’t actually personally understand why higher ed doesn’t pay taxes,” Scott said. “If they make an income, they should have to pay income taxes. We all should be in that together.”
Scott compared the University’s legal obligations to that of any business.
“When I was in business, there’s laws that I didn’t like,” Scott said. “But I complied with all of them.”
Scott, a U.S. Navy veteran turned healthcare executive, has touted his record as a businessman — but he is no stranger to legal controversy. Scott left his for-profit hospital chain Columbia/HCA amid a federal investigation into allegations that Columbia/HCA defrauded Medicare. Columbia/HCA eventually settled the $1.7 billion lawsuit — at the time, the largest health care fraud fine in American history.
Scott, in conversation with Harvard economics professor Jason Furman ’92, addressed a variety of hot-button economic questions in Wednesday’s forum — including the Trump administration’s tariff policies.
Most recently, the White House implemented a near-universal 10 percent tariff on foreign imports and hiked tariffs on China to 145 percent. Scott defended the tariffs as a negotiation tactic to incentivize foreign nations to drop their own trade restrictions.
“My standard is, I want the American workers to sell their stuff. Don't put any barriers on us. We won't put any barriers on your country's workers,” Scott said.
Furman pushed back against Scott’s solution, contending that it was possible to reduce trade barriers “without $6 trillion being wiped off the stock market and every forecaster saying that unemployment is going to go up.”
Scott stood by the tariffs in the forum, but the White House may be backing down in response to those dismal economic forecasts. Earlier in the day, President Trump announced plans to reduce the 145 percent tariffs on China — a move that could foreshadow further concessions.
Scott, however, said he would move in the opposite direction and instead stop all trade with China to boycott the “despicable government.”
“My belief is we should do no trade with China,” Scott said. “I think the only way we don't go to war with China is if their economy is demolished.”
“Every time you buy anything from China, you're helping their government build their military to take away your freedoms,” Scott added.
—Staff writer Elise A. Spenner can be reached at elise.spenner@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X at @EliseSpenner.
—Staff writer Tanya J. Vidhun can be reached at tanya.vidhun@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @tanyavidhun.
