Trump Cut State School Funds After Dem. Governor Dared Challenge Him

In his latest attack on education and transgender rights, Trump is punishing the University of Maine System, the state’s largest educational organization, which spans seven universities, after the Democratic governor refused to ban trans athletes from participating in women’s sports.

According to an email Monday obtained by Bangor Daily News, the Department of Agriculture has frozen millions of dollars in funding to UMS and has been directed to “no longer issue any payments or any other releases of funding” to the University of Maine System or Columbia University.

“This pause is temporary in nature while USDA evaluates if it should take any follow-on actions related to prospective Title VI or Title IX violations,” the email reads, referring to Trump’s executive order banning trans women athletes from participating in women’s sports. “Please take any necessary actions to effectuate this direction from leadership. This pause will remain in effect until further notice.”

Last month, following outrage over a transgender athlete who won a statewide high school pole vault event, Trump singled out Maine Governor Janet Mills at an address to the nation’s governors and told her to comply with the executive order … or else.

“You better do it, because you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t,” Trump threatened Mills at the time.

“See you in court,” Mills replied, refusing to legitimize gender discrimination.

In the following days, Trump unleashed an assault on Maine’s education system. The Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services targeted the state’s Education Department, and the USDA launched an investigation into the University of Maine.

“President Trump has made it abundantly clear: taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars will not support institutions that discriminate against women,” USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins said in a statement on February 21. “USDA is committed to upholding the President’s executive order, meaning any institution that chooses to disregard it can count on losing future funding.”

As a land-grant university, UMS receives more than $100 million in funding from the USDA. Last year, the school received nearly $30 million to support research that benefited farmers and fishermen, a UMS spokesperson said in an email response to the USDA, the Bangor Daily News reported.

UMS is the second university to be punished in Trump’s war on dissent. Last month, he froze $400 million in contracts to Columbia University for failing to address antisemitism on campus, despite the school having expelled two students who took part in protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.

At least nine other schools, including New York University and Harvard University, could be next.

Greenland’s parliamentary election results have thrown a massive wrench in Donald Trump’s fantasies of acquiring the mineral-rich territory.

The center-right, pro-business party Demokraatit won nearly 30 percent of the vote on Tuesday, and the party seemed less than open to Trump’s wild dreams of annexation.

“We don’t want to be Americans. No, we don’t want to be Danes. We want to be Greenlanders. And we want our own independence in the future. And we want to build our own country by ourselves, not with his hope,” party leader Jens-Friederik Nielsen told SkyNews on the eve of the election.

Nielsen has previously called Trump’s unwanted advances onto Greenland “a threat to our political independence.”

In general, Demokraatit prefers a slower route to independence.

“People want change.… We want more business to finance our welfare,” Nielsen said, after the results. “We don’t want independence tomorrow, we want a good foundation.”

This approach, which flies in the face of Trump’s pleas to have Denmark cede the island territory, certainly seems to be gaining popularity among the 56,000 Greenlanders—or at least the ones who voted Tuesday. Demokraatit won only 9 percent of the vote four years ago, according to the Greenlandic Broadcasting Corporation, or KNR TV.

Naleraq, the most aggressively pro-independence party, came in second in the election with almost 25 percent of the vote, up from 12 percent four years ago.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mute Bourup Egede’s left-wing party, Inuit Ataqatigiit, or United Inuit, won only 21 percent of the vote, down from the winningest 36 percent four years ago. Egede had called for the election in February, citing a “serious time” in Greenland.

The election was called amid ongoing threats from Trump that he would levy tariffs to squeeze Denmark into relinquishing the territory, which the president has said has great geopolitical significance to the United States, as well as massive mineral resources.

During an address to Congress last month, Trump claimed to “strongly support” Greenland’s right to self-determination, while also promising that the territory would be his. “We need it really for international world security. And I think we’re going to get it. One way or the other, we’re going to get it,” Trump said.

Trump’s rhetoric about making the territory the “fifty-second state” reportedly electrified the independence movement in Greenland—but evidently not enough to make way for a government that’s willing to play ball with his outrageous demands.

In his congratulation to the Demokraatit Party, Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said that the government would likely continue to to “deal with massive pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump.”

He warned that “it’s not the case that you can just take part of the Danish Realm—the future of Greenland is based on what the Greenlandic people and government want.”

Canada is responding to President Trump’s tariffs against steel and aluminum with $20.7 billion in tariffs against U.S. goods.

A senior Canadian government official told the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity about the plan Wednesday. The move follows Trump claiming victory for getting Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s decision to back off tariffs on electricity the province provides to select U.S. states, after Trump threatened to double the metal tariffs from 25 percent to 50 percent.

Canada’s fresh round of sanctions is in response to Trump’s decision to plow ahead with 25 percent tariffs on metal imports. The country is the largest foreign supplier of steel and aluminum to the U.S.

The European Union also hit back against Trump’s tariffs Wednesday with its own tariffs of $28 billion of U.S. goods including steel and aluminum, textiles, home goods, agricultural products, motorcycles, alcohol, and even jeans, with a focus on Republican-led states. Meanwhile, Trump’s incoherent economic measures are causing consternation within the Republican Party and even among Trump’s own staff.

It seems that the U.S. is waging a full-fledged trade war on multiple fronts with the EU, Mexico, China, and Canada, punctuated by Trump’s wild idea that America’s northern neighbor should be the fifty-first state. Trump claims that this is all necessary to change the U.S. economy, regardless of the negative effects on American consumers. Meanwhile, the stock market has continued to drop as a result of the chaos.

On Tuesday, Trump’s press secretary struggled to explain how tariffs would save the U.S. economy, lashing out at Associated Press reporter Josh Boak, saying it’s “insulting you’re trying to test my knowledge of economics and the decisions this president has made.” As Trump stubbornly continues to double down on tariffs without a real plan, regular people across the world will end up paying higher prices in an unstable economy.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick had a mask-off moment while bending over backward to defend President Trump’s destructive tariffs.

“Will these policies be worth it if they lead to a recession? Even a short-term recession?” Nancy Cordes asked Lutnick on CBS Evening News on Tuesday.

“These policies are the most important thing America has ever had,” Lutnick responded dramatically.

“So it is worth it?”

“It is worth it.… The only reason there could possibly be a recession is because of the Biden nonsense that we had to live with. These policies produce revenues.”

“So you’re saying when it looks chaotic and unpredictable from the outside, that there actually is a master plan when it comes to these tariffs?” Cordes asked.

“It is not chaotic. And the only one who thinks it’s chaotic is someone who’s being silly. He said reciprocal tariffs.”

“Nobody expected him to announce 50 percent tariffs this morning!” Cordes pushed back, referencing Trump’s short-lived announcement of tariffs on Canada.

“He needed to break some guy in Ontario who said he was gonna tax American energy 25 percent,” Lutnick declared, referring to Ontario Premier Doug Ford. “The president of the United States and the White House says, ‘Oh no you won’t’ and breaks him. Breaks him. In what? By a tweet and a Truth. And you think that’s chaotic?”

The Trump administration seems determined to throw the country into a recession after its spiteful tariffs on Canada, Mexico, China, and the European Union have caused the stock market to plummet, badly damaging investor confidence.

One Republican lawmaker isn’t backing down to Donald Trump, and it’s sending the president for a spiral.

Representative Thomas Massie was the only House Republican to vote against passing a stopgap measure Tuesday to keep the Trump administration funded through September. The budget bill narrowly passed 217–213, with one Democrat—Representative Jared Golden—voting for the measure.

“So Massie can vote for Debt Ceiling AND Budget to be put into the Trump Administration, making them both the Republicans problem and responsibility, but can’t give us a simple Continuing Resolution vote allowing us the time necessary to come up with a ‘GREAT, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL???’” Trump posted on Truth Social early Wednesday morning. “Republicans only ‘NO’ Vote. GRANDSTANDER!”

The Senate now has until Friday to pass the legislation and avert a government shutdown.

Massie has been Trump’s go-to target this week after the Kentucky Republican made it clear Monday he would vote against the bill. The president took to his usual tactic: threatening party members on social media until they cave.

“Congressman Thomas Massie, of beautiful Kentucky, is an automatic ‘NO’ vote on just about everything, despite the fact that he has always voted for Continuing Resolutions in the past. HE SHOULD BE PRIMARIED, and I will lead the charge against him,” Trump posted on Truth Social Monday night.

But this time, it didn’t work. Instead of cowering to the GOP’s autocrat like many of his colleagues have done before him, Massie responded to the president’s threat with humor and a smile.

“He’s going after Canada and me today. The difference is Canada will eventually cave,” Massie told reporters Tuesday, Politico reported.

In his 15 years in the House, Massie has had no problem breaking from his colleagues. In fact he’s voted against so many bills that it earned him the nickname “Mr. No.”

The 54-year-old is well-versed in responding to Trump’s empty threats too. In 2020, after Massie forced the House to vote in person on a Covid-19 response bill, the president called him a “third-rate-grandstander” and threatened to boot him from the GOP.

But Massie’s still here, and he will no doubt continue to vote according to his own hawkish budgetary principles.