Pence Warns of ‘Slippery Slope’ in Revoking Harvard’s Nonprofit Status—But Is All for Yanking Federal Funds

‘I strongly support the withholding of federal funds until there are steps taken,’ the former vice president said in an interview with Free Beacon editor in chief Eliana Johnson

Former vice president Mike Pence offered a qualified defense on Thursday of the Trump administration’s assault on Harvard University, endorsing the decision to freeze federal aid but warning that revoking the school’s tax-exempt status could be a “slippery slope.”

In an interview with Washington Free Beacon editor in chief Eliana Johnson, Pence said it was legitimate for the government to cut funds to universities that do not take steps to confront anti-Semitism.

“I strongly support the withholding of federal funds until there are steps taken,” Pence said in the interview, which was hosted by Yale University’s William F. Buckley Program. “I give President Trump and the new administration all the credit in the world for saying there is no place for anti-Semitism.”

Pence added, however, that he had “concerns” about Trump’s vow to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status, calling it a “slippery slope” that could lead to the persecution of conservative institutions under a Democratic presidency.

The interview, which took place in New York City as part of the Buckley Program’s annual “Disinvitation Dinner,” which honors figures whose invitations to speak at colleges and universities have been canceled due to left-wing protest, offered a window into Pence’s thinking on the first 100 days of the second Trump administration, which has pushed the limits of executive power far more aggressively than the first.

Pence was not shy about criticizing his former running mate—especially over his pardons of the Jan. 6 defendants—in an interview with CNN this week. He repeated many of those criticisms on Thursday but also drew a distinction between the president and those around him, arguing that Trump often has better instincts than the populist aides in his cabinet.

On Ukraine, for example, Pence blamed the White House’s isolationism on “voices inside … the party that would have us walk away” and said that Trump’s nature is not “one of retreat.”

“I don’t believe that’s ultimately his core,” Pence said. “But he has voices around him that are making that case.”

Without downplaying the riot on Jan. 6, Pence also seemed relatively sanguine about the state of American democracy—and skeptical that Trump posed a mortal threat to it.

“A day of tragedy became a triumph of freedom, because our institutions held,” he said of Jan. 6. “Members of both parties reconvened and completed our work under the constitution of the United States of America.”

Asked whether the United States would have a peaceful transfer of power in 2028, Pence replied: “I’m very confident we will.”