On this episode of Start Making Sense, David Cole finds the unifying thread in Trump's threatened funding cuts, and David Myers comments on “protecting Jewish students” as a rationale for deporting Palestinian student activists.
Protestors gather to demand the release of Mahmoud Khalil at Foley Square on March 10, 2025, in New York City.(David Dee Delgado / Getty Images)
Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.
A key source of opposition to authoritarian regimes in recent history has come from universities and colleges. Trump has been attacking the independence of American universities, demanding they submit to his requirements and using massive funding cuts as his weapon. David Cole, formerly National Legal Director of the ACLU, has our analysis.
Also: Mahmoud Khalil is the Palestinian student activist at Columbia arrested and jailed by ICE. The Trump administration intends to revoke his status as a permanent resident—a green-card holder–and deport him — they say, to protect Jewish students on campus. That’s clearly a violation of freedom of speech. But is deporting Palestinian student activists a good way to protect Jewish students? David Myers comments–he teaches Jewish history at UCLA.
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A key source of opposition to authoritarian regimes in recent history has come from universities and colleges. Trump has been attacking the independence of American universities, demanding they submit to his requirements and using massive funding cuts as his weapon. David Cole, formerly national legal director of the ACLU, has our analysis.
Also on this episode: Mahmoud Khalil is the Palestinian student activist at Columbia arrested and jailed by ICE. The Trump administration intends to revoke his status as a permanent resident, a green-card holder, and deport him—they say, to protect Jewish students on campus. That’s clearly a violation of freedom of speech. But is deporting Palestinian student activists a good way to protect Jewish students on campus? For comment we turn to David Myers—he teaches Jewish history at UCLA.Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe.
Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.
Zorhan Mamdani takes office in four weeks as the first socialist mayor of New York City. How should we understand the constraints he faces, without accepting those constraints? Bhaskar Sunkara has our analysis; he’s president of The Nation and author of ‘The Socialist Manifesto.’
Plus: Sports Talk on The Nation podcast! Of course Thanksgiving was a big weekend for football on TV – a weekend where millions of viewers got to see a festival of brain injuries — concussions after receiving blows to the head. Dave Zirin will comment – he's the long-time sports editor of The Nation and host of the Edge of Sports podcast.
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Jon WienerTwitterJon Wiener is a contributing editor of The Nation and co-author (with Mike Davis) of Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties.