Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) joined CNN on Tuesday to react to Harvard's rejection of President Trump's demands.
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00:00So, Kate, I applaud Harvard's decision not to give in to bullying from the Trump administration.
00:07You know, Donald Trump believes in First Amendment rights for himself, but apparently for nobody else.
00:13Others, they will punish when there's an exercise of First Amendment rights.
00:17I would also point out, Kate, that yesterday The Washington Post just broke a story in the case of Ms. Oztork, right?
00:24She was the Fulbright fellow at Tufts.
00:27And an internal State Department memo conceded that there was absolutely no basis to claim that she was engaged in anti-Semitic activities.
00:38So what you see the Trump administration doing is trying to use this argument that these students are violating American foreign policy, that they're engaged in these acts to undermine U.S. foreign policy,
00:54when, in many cases, what they've been doing is protesting the actions of the U.S. government and the Netanyahu government with respect to Gaza.
01:04So, look, you can agree or disagree with the students, but what the purpose of the First Amendment is,
01:12is that you don't have the government dictating speech as the Trump administration is trying to do.
01:19So I'm glad Harvard is standing up here.