CNBC’s Joe Kernen Grills Trump’s Education Secretary Over Crackdown on Foreign Students
CNBC’s Joe Kernen pressed Secretary of Education Linda McMahon on the current clampdown on foreign students, asking whether she seriously believes every such student needs their social media vetted by the government.
“If I had to sum it up, you’ve got to break a few eggs to make an omelet, but we’re certainly breaking a few eggs,” Kernen told McMahon in a Wednesday interview.
The Squawk Box co-host said he’s concerned recent actions against Harvard by the administration feel “punitive.” He admitted the school is “kind of an easy target in a lot of parts of the country.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem recently terminated Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, accusing the school of “fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party.” The school announced a lawsuit not long after, resulting in a federal judge stepping in and issuing a temporary restraining order in the matter.
President Donald Trump defended the ban and suggested many foreign students attending Harvard can’t do basic math. He referred to a remedial math program started at Harvard to make up for a gap in algebra and more with students sparked by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“How can somebody that can’t and has very basic skills, how do they get into Harvard? Why are they there? And then you see those same people picketing and screaming at the United States and screaming that they’re antisemitic or they’re something. We don’t want troublemakers here, but how do people that can’t — when Harvard comes out with a statement that they’re gonna teach some of their students remedial math, that’s basic math, that’s not the deal,” he said at the White House.
As McMahon defended the administration’s moves on Wednesday, Kernen pressed her on whether she truly believes the government should be involved in such vetting of students.
Kernen asked:
I know that everything’s in negotiation. I think with President Trump, and I think he stakes out some positions that maybe he would soften if he saw some movement on the other side, but do you believe that every foreign student that comes, that the government needs to look at their social media accounts to see if they’re suitable? That’s the kind of stuff that it looks like. I know companies can do that. They can hire whomever they want. They can look at social media, history, et cetera. But is that really what we want the government involved with in whether a foreign student is able to attend an American university?
McMahon admitted she doesn’t know what the “criteria” would be for vetting foreign students in the future.
“I don’t know what the criteria are that the State Department or the Secretary of Homeland Security are setting up in terms of vetting students, but I think the president certainly had great concerns that there are foreign students, not everyone, but there are foreign student who come to this country, I do believe, who help create this unrest,” she said.
McMahon suggested that the backgrounds of both students and professors coming from overseas should be looked at while accusing Harvard of ignoring discrimination on their campus.
“I don’t know what the criteria that the State Department is looking at, I’ll leave that up to them, but certainly having an understanding of what students are coming into our country, what professors are being hired, what their backgrounds or ideologies might be, I think is a fair assessment,” she said.
Watch above via CNBC.
