On this episode of Start Making Sense, Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan, talks about refusing to submit to the president, and Adam Hochschild explains Woodrow Wilson’s attacks on his critics.
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after signing a proclamation in the Oval Office at the White House on April 17, 2025, in Washington, DC.(Win McNamee / Getty Images)
JD Vance said it most clearly: For the Trump people, “The universities are the enemy.” That’s why Trump is cutting billions of federal funding and making impossible demands that threaten dozens of universities. But universities have begun to resist. Michael Roth comments—he’s the president of Wesleyan, and was the first university president to speak out against Trump’s attacks.
Also on this episode: Trump is not the worst president when it comes to constitutional rights and civil liberties; Woodrow Wilson was worse. Adam Hochschild explains why—starting with his jailing thousands of people whose only crime was speaking out against the president. Adam’s most recent book is American Midnight: The Great War, A Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis.
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The primary force behind the settlement that will allow Trump’s allies at Paramount to take over Warners-Discovery and CNN was Gavin Newsom, who pressured California Attorney General Rob Bonta to end the anti-trust fight defending media independence. Norm Eisen explains – he’s co-founder and executive chair of the Democracy Defenders Fund and Democracy Defenders Action, and, the New York Times reported, “the leader of a coalition of entertainment and news industry professionals who opposed the deal.”
Also: After Trump banned CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House newsroom, the TV networks united in refusing coverage of his events – including Fox News. John Nichols has our analysis.
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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.