THE MISEDUCATION OF DONALD TRUMP

Donald Trump’s autocratic crackdown on college activists is spreading anxiety on campus — while legal experts fret over the courts’ power to stop him.

• Columbia University grad student Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian activist, became the face of collegiate resistance to the Trump administration after ICE agents barged into his apartment earlier this month. Khalil says that he wasn’t told, at first, why he was being arrested, and that he was handcuffed and forced into an unmarked car, before eventually arriving in a detention center in Louisiana. President Donald Trump wants Khalil deported, even though he’s a green card holder and legal U.S. resident. Today, a federal judge moved his case to New Jersey, a more favorable venue for Khalil than western Louisiana (which is overseen by a notably conservative appeals court).

• The vibes around Columbia’s campus are bleak. Students at the school — especially Muslim, Arab and transgender ones — don’t feel comfortable on campus because “we’ve been told that plainclothes ICE officers nearby are looking for different students,” one graduate student told What A Day. She knows several students who have refused to attend class out of fear. One professor told her that faculty emails are being monitored, as Columbia cooperates with the Trump administration.

• “The only way this sort of like democratic backsliding stops is if large institutions take a stand for norms that have been established. Right now, Columbia just isn’t doing that,” the student told me. “I don’t think cooperating with the Trump administration is going to stop the bleeding, and I know that the student body, including myself, are pretty upset about it.”

• Trump hardly looks likely to stop with Columbia. More than 500 schools in the U.S. have held pro-Palestinian rallies since October 2023, and there were encampments at 130 schools. He’s also aiming to root out other ideologies: The Trump administration froze $175 million in federal funding to UPenn today because it allows transgender athletes to participate in women’s sports.

Judges keep smacking down Trump’s most extreme orders. But concerns are rising over his commitment to obeying the courts — and what might happen if he doesn’t.

• The Trump administration flouted a judge’s order not to deport a group of Venezuelan men over the weekend, sending planes to El Salvador despite a clear instruction to turn them back. Trump and his lawyers insist they followed the rules — in effect, raising the legal equivalent of asking: “Who you gunna believe? Me, or your lyin’ eyes!?”

• “I think it’s more useful to say that this is moving us into a completely different kind of constitutional order, one that’s no longer characterized by laws that bind officials and that can be enforced,” Aziz Huq, law professor at UChicago, told the New York Times. “The law, in other words, becomes a tool to harm enemies, but not to bind those who govern. That is a quite different constitutional order from the one that we’ve had for a long time.”

• A simpler view of what’s going on: “The president is asserting dictatorial power and ‘constitutional crisis’ doesn’t capture the gravity of the situation,” Jamal Greene, a law professor at Columbia, also told the outlet.

Do you or anyone you know have green cards or visas? Here’s a helpful guide on everything you need to know right now.

NEWS NEWS NEWS

People will no longer be able to file for Social Security benefits over the phone starting March 31. It’s a massive change that’s expected to strain the agency’s workforce, and could cause delays to this ridiculously important program. I would really like to know how Elon Musk defines the word “efficiency.”

The Defense Department deleted the story about baseball legend Jackie Robinson’s career in the Army from a website. It’s yet another example of the Trump administration’s diversity, equity and inclusion crackdown — which apparently means “anyone who isn’t white” doesn’t deserve to be celebrated or recognized.

The White House is preparing to slap massive new tariffs on most global imports in a major escalation of trade hostilities that Donald Trump officials have dubbed “Liberation Day.” It’s freaking out economists and some GOP lawmakers, after the president’s tariffs have pushed the stock market lower and raised fears of a recession.

Ukrainian President Voloydmyr Zelenskyy agreed to a 30-day partial ceasefire on “energy and other civilian infrastructure” with Russia after a call with Trump today. A real ceasefire would be significant progress toward peace… but Russia and Ukraine accused each other of launching massive attacks overnight, so expectations are low.

On that note, the Trump administration has withdrawn from programs and groups that investigate Russian war crimes in Ukraine. Huh, I wonder who’d want Trump to do that!

More than 150 extreme climate disasters occurred around the world last year, according to a United Nations analysis. It was also the hottest year on record, and more than 800,000 people were displaced.

The Trump administration released the highly-anticipated classified files about former President John F. Kennedy’s assassination… and there’s not much there. The documents reveal some information about covert CIA operations and communications between world leaders, but conspiracy theorists won’t find anything shocking. Okay, do the Epstein Files next! Or is Trump afraid of something?

Trump’s tax cuts passed in the stopgap funding bill will disproportionately benefit — get a load of this! — very rich people, according to a new Yale Budget Lab analysis. What does that look like? Well, the top 0.1 percent would gain an estimated $180,910… while the bottom 20 percent would lose $1,125. The only thing “trickling down” will be my tears.

Ben & Jerry’s accused Unilever, its parent company, of ousting the ice cream company’s CEO because of his progressive views, which would breach its merger agreement. Unilever has barred the company from posts about abortion, climate change, universal healthcare, Black History Month, and even Mahmoud Khalil’s case, Ben & Jerry’s has alleged in lawsuits. I really don’t need another reason to go buy ice cream these days… but I just found one.

What started as a study to improve the health of aging Navy dolphins resulted in the discovery of a critical nutrient, called C15:0, which has been used by nature for thousands of years to extend mammalian longevity.

C15:0 (pentadecanoic acid) is the first essential fatty acid to be discovered in over 90 years, and it supports both healthspan and lifespan by strengthening cell membranes against age-driving lipid peroxidation. In collaboration with the Navy, doctors spent a decade developing fatty15 as a pure, bioavailable, science-backed, patented, and award-winning C15:0 supplement that slows aging to meaningfully protect our long-term health, including metabolic, heart, and liver health.

While we can’t control chronological time, it is now well understood that we can slow our biological aging. Fatty15 contains pure and patented C15:0, an optimized nutrient essential to protecting our long-term health. Fatty15’s pure C15:0 ingredient is clinically proven to raise C15:0 levels, resulting in supported cholesterol, gut, liver and red blood cell health. 72% of customers report feeling or seeing benefits within 16 weeks.

Give your body a longevity boost with fatty15 by going to fatty15.com/CROOKED for an additional 15% off!