 "According to presidential biographer Michael Wolff, Trump’s anger toward Harvard University does not stem from Barron’s rejection, but from the fact that Trump himself never made it to Harvard. Representational image")
Earlier this week, rumours lit up social media claiming that US President Donald Trump was going after Harvard University because his youngest son, Barron Trump, had been rejected by the Ivy League school.
But the speculation was quickly put to rest by First Lady Melania Trump, who clarified that Barron never applied to Harvard in the first place.
Now, a new theory has surfaced, this time from Michael Wolff, the President’s biographer, suggesting that Trump’s grudge against the university might be more personal than anyone thought.
According to him, Trump’s anger does not stem from Barron’s non-existent rejection, but from the fact that Trump himself never made it to Harvard.
So, is Trump’s feud with the elite institution actually about his own past? What exactly did Wolff say? And how is the White House responding to these claims? Here’s a closer look.
Trump has a ‘grudge’ against the Ivy League?
During a recent episode of The Daily Beast podcast hosted by Joanna Coles, the conversation turned to Trump’s apparent hostility toward elite universities. Coles noted how many in Trump’s circle are Ivy League alumni.
“It’s also odd because so many of the people around Donald Trump went to Ivy League universities. Several of them went to Harvard Business School,” she said. “Obviously, JD Vance proudly went to Yale. So it does seem particularly odd, but perhaps he’s also trying to stuff it to them.”
In response, Michael Wolff, who has authored several books on Trump, including ‘Fire and Fury, Siege: Trump Under Fire’, and the latest ‘All or Nothing’, suggested there may be a more personal reason behind Trump’s disdain for the Ivy League.
“It’s important not to lend too much calculation and planning to anything he does,” Wolff said. “But the other thing is that, by the way, he didn’t get into Harvard. So one of the Trump things is always holding a grudge against the Ivy Leagues.”
While there’s no official record confirming whether Trump ever applied to Harvard, let alone if he was rejected, Wolff’s remark adds to the theory that the president’s Ivy League animosity may be rooted in his own academic history.
Trump began his college education at Fordham University in 1964 after four years at the New York Military Academy. Two years later, he transferred to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics.
But Trump’s academic credibility has long been under scrutiny. In 2020, The Washington Post revealed audio recordings made by Mary Trump, the president’s niece, in which Trump’s sister, the late federal judge Maryanne Trump Barry, made some startling claims.
“I drove him around New York City to try to get him into college,” Trump Barry said in the 2018–19 recordings. She added, “He went to Fordham for one year and then he got into the University of Pennsylvania because he had somebody take the exams.”
The White House swiftly dismissed the claims at the time, saying it was “false” that anyone else had taken Trump’s SATs.
When asked by The Post to respond to the recordings, Trump simply said: “Who cares?”
According to The New York Times reporters Ross Buettner and Susanne Craig, in their 2024 book ‘Lucky Loser, Trump’ was a mediocre student at Fordham. He didn’t even make the dean’s list in his first year, which only required a GPA of 3.5, equivalent to a B+.
And while much speculation continues to swirl around his Harvard rejection, what is known, though, is that as a young man, Trump had dreams of going to film school at the University of Southern California (USC). Ironically, USC, too, has now become a target of his ire.
After the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights said USC failed to meet its Title VI obligations under the Civil Rights Act to protect Jewish students, Trump cut federal research funding, causing the institution to lose $17.5 million.
‘The Trump show’
Wolff claimed that apart from “holding the grudge”, Trump’s “TV star instincts as a producer” play a key role in his legal battle against Ivy League universities, particularly Harvard. According to him, Trump “needs an enemy”.
“That’s what makes the show great, the Trump show. He picks fantastic enemies. And Harvard, for all it represents, fits right into the Trump show. The president loves the drama,” he told The Daily Beast.
“He’s done what he set out to do - dominate the headline. What do you do? You go after Harvard in a way that is draconian, dramatic, and existential. It’s threatening Harvard on that level,” he added_._
For Trump, Wolff added, Harvard becomes just another character in the unfolding drama that is the “Trump show”.
In recent weeks, that drama has escalated. The Trump-led administration moved to revoke Harvard University’s ability to enrol new international students, a policy that has since been temporarily blocked by a US judge.
Before that, the White House had also placed a $2.2 billion freeze on federal funding to the university. Trump reportedly offered to lift the funding ban but only under certain conditions that Harvard refused to accept.
Throughout, Trump has doubled down on his criticism, accusing Harvard and other elite universities of promoting progressive ideologies and nurturing a so-called “woke” campus culture.
The White House reacts to Wolff’s claims
Unsurprisingly, the White House didn’t take Wolff’s latest remarks lightly.
Taylor Rogers, a spokesperson for the administration, pushed back hard against both Wolff and The Daily Beast, dismissing their reporting entirely.
“They both peddle fake news for clickbait in a hopeless attempt to amount to something more than lying losers,” Rogers said. “The President didn’t need to apply to an overrated, corrupt institution like Harvard to become a successful businessman and the most transformative President in history.”
The White House has previously shot down another claim the author made that Melania Trump had “separated” from her husband and that their marriage was no longer traditional. The White House fired back, calling Wolff “a blithering idiot.”
With input from agencies