from washington tonight. thank you as always for being with us. university of destruction. that's the focus of tonight's angle not colleges and universities raising money work to appeal to the donors, to the alums and the perspective students by talking about their mission and their core values. >> for me, they're our commitments to excellence, to opportunity, and to impact. those three together are really the ones that propel us into the future. >> laura: a commitment to excellence? literally, no one who saw her testify last week, who has watched what happened at harvard over the past 20 plus years can say that excellence conveys objective merit and we all see that the best often loses out to the mediocre and harvard at elsewhere because the best isn't diverse enough. ♪ internally to our own community, i see my role as being the person who is always looking beyond the horizon to what's coming but also what can be. and then figuring out how to ready the campus and the campus community for that future. >> laura: by the way doing this doesn't make it any less administrative gibberish. this means nothing. it's the kind of milk toast language written by consultants and the fact is ms. gay didn't think for a millisecond that her own obsession with diversity, equity and inclusion is antithetical to her stated mission of excellence. of course, it doesn't prepare people for the real world either. instead dei fosters a sense of resentment that makes harvard students less likely to succeed or even to be happy. no one ever presses her on these obvious concerns. now, given these facts, it's not surprising that the woman who clearly position on calls for genocide last week that she believes she's entitled to remain as president. now, why should she think otherwise? after all, she has been rewarded for thinking this way her entire career. and for as much as ms. gay professes to love and respect harvard university. she refuses to do the honorable thing, which the upenn president liz magill did do on saturday by resigning. now, with each passing day, that ms. gay remains in office, the reputation and credibility of harvard is damaged. donors are less likely to contribute and harvard degrees will have less credibility. she doesn't care. she effectively is daring the border of overseers to fire her. but they shouldn't have to. for her entire career ms. gay has been bubble wrapped in her own racial privilege privilege as she focused on the supposed racial privilege of others and because jewish americans are part of the group that the left believes are an integral aspect of the corrupt white power structure in america, ms. gay didn't think that equivocating on genocide would be a problem. meanwhile, more than 700 faculty members have decided to rally around ms. gay and urged board of overseers not to fire her. my goodness these people aren't that smart. one can hardly blame ms. gay for feeling personal special and protected after all she has glided through her career without the rigorous accountability that we should expect of anyone at the top of the academic world. and that's why she was able to get away with sloppy scholarship and why we are now only hearing about charges that she borrowed liberally from others without attribution in her dissertation and other published papers. that's according to documents obtained by chris rufo. she felt untouchable which is why she felt no hesitation in helping take down a brilliant young harvard economist rolland fryer who dared to challenge the mantra of systemic racism rolland's work represent as mortality threat to some of the most powerful people at harvard. consider claudine gay, she is a silky smooth operator. her signature is harvard inequality initiative. >> the world is awake to inequality and systemic racism and antiblack racism in particular like never before. >> clawed dean gay asked the president to revoke rolland's tenure that has not happened in the last 100 years. this punishment is career death. >> laura: now, libertarian writer andrew sullivan offers more insights into how ms. gay enforces the social justice orthodoxy writing this is the same president who watched a brilliant popular professor carol hooven be effectively hounded out of her profession after a public shaming campaign because she dared to state on television that biological sex is binary. the very existence were threats to the left and especially to claudine gay do down she knows she doesn't deserve the title she has. anyone right now who tries to minimize this which is academic wrought at its core, at any of our most elite institutions they ever only going to be swept up in firestorm. the pressure on universities is not evading. anyone who supports this nonsense will simply join the masses of overpaid and underperforming academics and administrators who should lose their jobs. the only way is to tell ms. gay to resign and tell the mit president sally kornbluth to do the same. if they don't resign, fire them. and eliminate the position of every administrator and faculty member employed to continue the race and gender hustle. cnn freed is a kariya fairly liberal himself and fairly bright and graduate of yale university -- when that still meant something by the way, made a strong case over the weekend we have to understand the broad shift taken place at elite universities which have gone from being centers of excellence to institutions pushing political agendas. american universities have been neglecting a core focus on excellence in order to pursue a variety of agendas many around diversity and inclusion. >> laura: it would have been nice if he said that over the last 30 years but we will take it. it would be a mistake would be a mistake if their big endowments and they are huge weather the storm. they cannot. none of it will effect their recruiting they will say. we will still get the best and brightest. remember, that's what the u.s. military thought before it went woke and then began to see a huge drop in recruitment when these young people graduate and have to convince their employers that they learned something despite the fact that everyone at harvard as basically the same gpa what's the average like 3.8? they are going to wish that they had let these women go look don't get me wrong the longer the academic activists and that's what they are stay in power. good for us. cable news helping lead the way on this. think of the angle given in politics just recently. we told them to get rid of biden but they dug in. he is getting creamed in states like michigan and georgia and even losing in pennsylvania. we told them to stop the madness in ukraine they dug in. each our pentagon knows that ukraine is headed for a disappointment. we told them to enforce the border. they dug. in and now the public is enraged and our cities are being destroyed. we told them to stop using the government to harass political opponents and call a detente on these political prosecutions but they dug in. and it's only made trump stronger and further harm the reputation of the doj and the fbi. but now, we're telling them to excise the cancer that is dea in all aspects of university hiring and admissions. or they will continue to see their prestige and their influence suffer. well, will they have the brains or the courage to do the right thing and end, again, what andrew sullivan described as the hard bigotry of no expectations? some have suggested that liberals are sleep walking into disaster. but that's not true. they are running toward disaster as fast as they can. and that is the angle. ♪ >> laura: joining me now is victor davis hanson senior fellow at the hoover institution. victor, i don't want to see these institutions fail. it would be great if they could sort of see the folly of their ways and obnoxious nature of what ms. gay has done to terrifically talented academics at harvard. but can they be saved, given how pervasive this wrought is? >> [no audio] >> laura: i think we lost victor. we will try to get him back. but just back to this point here. i don't want people to think that okay, laura, you went to the ivy league, now you are saying you want the ivy league. that's not what i'm saying. what i'm saying is these are really important institutions. we want an establishment that is actually competent. we want an establishment that's talented. we want an establishment that people can look up to. not just their academic credentials but their character. but right now, across the board, our establishment has failed us. now, as i mentioned in the angle, out of the three university presidents who testified last week, two are still clinging to their titles they have yet to resign. obviously they haven't been fired. in fact, mit quickly whipped out a statement supporting its president. sally kornbluth after her depends on the context comment. joining me now is talia khan mit grad student and jonathan frieden law student. you will have to step in for victor davis hanson. that's not easy. is firing the mit president enough to get at what is really going on at the university? >> absolutely not. i mean, i will start with saying from a student preserve, my objective is just that the school enforces its own rules and stops blatant anti-semitic calls to violence on campus. the way this needs to happen is to get rid of the members of the mit corporation who endorsed president kornbluth and said her comments commenting anti-semitism were quote, unquote excellent. senior administration who is also supported and a toxic dei infrastructure which you were just speaking about who continue to gaslight us and tell us that everything is okay and disciplinary procedures are moving forward even whether we know that they're not. you know, then so be it. if all these people need to go, then that's what needs to happen? that's what needs to happen. >> laura: sorry to interrupt. i thought the fact that 700 harvard professors rallied to kellyaclaudine gay. perhaps a worse indictment to harvard than her original comments. it's mind blowing. unfortunately we saw the that i am thing at mit. we got a letter supporting sally kornbluth and mit corporation who, again, continue to gaslight us. >> laura: jonathan, they know they are all on the chopping block if this thing goes the way it should go. because then the blush is off the -- or the bloom is off the rose. and you kind of -- everyone kind of sees what this is. not that there aren't really smart and talented people at all these institutions. of course there are. there are some great students. but this dei thing has morphed into all these other subgenres of activism a ache at this anti. your reaction to the rallying around the presidents here. >> yes. so, first of all, thank you so much for having me. and i think that the -- the issue is a bit more complex but unfortunately, the university is still not actually apologized for what is underlying -- what underlied their testimony in congress. and so they are standing by and all these professors are standing behind free speech. you as many of the listeners believe that free speech is critical critical to the united states and also might be critical for america. but, that being said in the university has a standard free speech. if the university doesn't endorse conduct. some things happening that are conduct, they are not speech. if you are tearing down posters. if you are surrounding students and chanting shame in their faces and restricting their movement, that is conduct. okay? that's not speech. there is also potential title 6 violations and the university isn't using their own speech until they are on the hot seat. and so i fully agree, freedom of speech and freedom of expression is important and it's important on college campuses. but that's not a defense here and that's what is really unfortunate at least for me is really upsetting. >> laura: i mean, you guys, mit and harvard. i went to dartmouth, okay? back in the 1980s this was starting to bubble up at dartmouth. conservative students editing a newspaper back then they were persona non-grata i didn't care even when i was 19 i didn't care. it was a battleground back then. every decade it's gotten worse and worse and worse. the idea there is free speech for people on campus. there is no free speech on campus. everyone is self-censoring, afraid to speak the o. mit, harvard, dartmouth, all these places it's the same thing across the board. any student that i have talked to any senses the same thing. we will get back to you. victor davis hanson has his audio back. victor, i thought you were saying something so air you indict i couldn't hear it was so brilliant good to see you back. the rfts is trying to cloak itself free defenders in all of this. how does that hold up they have no free speech, they call any free expression hate speech. you substitute the word gay or latino or black for jewish and i guarantee you those three presidents that testified would have expelled those students immediately for what they had done. but for jews conflated in this new cultural matrix white oppressors and israel in particular. and they feel they have a free hand we used to have trust in them they were the enforcers of the ebb lightenment they can't do what they were told to do and that is provide a general civic education for the population. can you leave harvard or yale or stanford and know little more or less than when you entered because of these studies therapeutic courses. when you let somebody in on criteria other than merit, that's note the end. that's the very beginning. you have to inflate rage. you have got to change courses. >> laura: which they're doing. >> if you don't, these people that you saw testify, will go after you systematically racist dei. we have leverage over them. we can tax the endowment. we can make their tax deductions questionable for donors. we can get the government out of the loan business. we don't have to give them hundreds of billions of dollars in research moneys if they don't follow the constitution or provide basic civility and protection for students on their own campuses. we have a lot of power. i just don't think we have exercised it. those three presidents poked the dragon. >> laura: mitt romney has a theory about all of this. hold on. watch. >> creating law but by creating example. and recognize that the people we choose as our leaders are not just going to write law and effectuate policy. they are also setting the character of the country. it's one of the reasons i have such concern about president trump which he has affected the character of america. >> laura: now, very quickly, is donald trump the cause of what we are seeing on college campuses today? is trump the real reason this is happening? >> absolutely not it. predates trump by 30 years. they know it. they have to weigh in on every political issue they tonight have any business doing that they got caught and trying to blame donald trump. donald trump is the book boogie man. anything that goes wrong they cite. they did it to themselves. they know it. they're embarrassed and afraid of the public. they will reach for any excuse they can because they are trapped by their own behavior and words. we know them by what they say. >> laura: victor, talia and jonathan, we will have you back. this is not going away, unfortunately. special counsel jack smith made an extraordinary request to the supreme court today on the issue of donald trump's perspective immunity or lack therefore regarding the 2020 election. we just got breaking news on this. we will bring it to you in moments. ♪ you buy at a store. it's about something so much greater. it is the day we celebrate the incredible truth that god so loved the world that he gave his only son. it's not about presents. it's about jesus. join me this advent in praying every day on hallow. cut through the noise and find god's peace. i'll be home for christmas. you can count on me. please have snow and mistletoe. and presents under the tree. right now, all over the country, kids at shriners hospitals for children® are able to go home and be with their families for the holidays. and it's only possible because of the monthly support of people just like you. thanks to a generous donor. every dollar you give can help twice as many kids like me and have double the impact. with your gift of just $19 a month, only $0.63 a day, we'll send you this adorable love to the rescue® blanket as a thank you. and a reminder of the care you'll be providing so kids can be with their families. thanks to a generous donor, your gift will go twice as far and help more kids like me. your call is the best gift of all. thank you for giving! please call the number on your screen or go online right now with your monthly gift. and when you do, your gift will have two times the impact. rain shower lawyer nine days. that's how long donald trump has to respond to a new motion filed by special counsel jack smith earlier today. smith is asking the supreme court for expedited ruling on whether trump has presidential immunity for his actions related to his objections to the rules of the 2020 election. of course, all the usual suspects say it's all about making sure the trains run on time. >> i do think it's a smart move, jake. i think it's a necessary move, in fact ivelgt this is as a practical matter the only real way jack smith can hold on to current trial date which is march 4th, 2024. his only chance of keeping this case on track. >> laura: now, that's a load of bunk. it's notable, write in his request jack smith said it's important to quickly but no reason why. only information filed this request he wants trump tried convicted and sentenced before the 2024 election. chris has argued before the court several times and also clerked for justices thomas and scalia. chris, explain this for us. >> all right. well, it's good to be here, laura. the special counsel filed two motions today. one was an extraordinary motion to have the supreme court decide this important immunity issue before the court of appeals. i mean, the district court. we have three levels in our system, district court, court of appeals, supreme court. the normal path is for the case to go to the court of appeals. jack smith wants the supreme court to basically take that case before the court of appeals has even decided it why? , the mask is coming off, laura. this is about election interference as you just said this is all about the timetable that they want to get trump convicted before the 2024 election. >> so you have to speed it up. this is highly quliewcial. >> you have to speed it up. they brought incredibly unprecedented case never before in american history has anything like this come up through the legal system obviously trump has legal defenses like i was president then and there is vo tricky immunity cases. okay. instead of having the legal process play itself out like it usually does. they are insisting this there is imperative public importance in this trial. >> laura: public importance that biden is down in five, six, seven swing states. >> laura, it is one of the most. >> laura: it's so sawed. >> as an american to see that we are really in a banana republic where this is again, there is no way to explain this other than election interference. they want a d.c. jury to essentially decide the 2024 election by having this jurisdiction whereby the way in the last election biden got 92% of the vote and trump five. so they want to tell the rest of the country, oh, no, trump was criminally convicted in d.c. are you going to vote for a convicted felon? i mean, this is all a set-up. and, again, the legal system, whoever is right or wrong on some of these legal issues. we have a process. and i think it is particularly important in an election case like this to make sure that the special counsel crosses his ts and dots his is,. >> laura: why