If you watched Wednesday’s broadcast of CNN NewsNight, Ana Navarro and Keith Boykin would have you believe Donald Trump was “extorting” Columbia University and running a “fascist” operation from the White House. But let’s get serious. What actually happened at Columbia was not a criminal shakedown, it’s accountability. Luckily, there were some conservatives at the table to call them out.

When a university accepts billions in federal funding, it has a responsibility to uphold federal law to keep those funds, including the duty to protect students from discrimination. Columbia University failed to do just that. But Boykin and Navarro didn't seem to have a problem with far-left students targeting Jews on campus:

NAVARRO: Look, I think the reason that they're paying the $200 million is that they don't–

BOYKIN: It’s extortion.

NAVARRO: - want to lose billions in grants because they don't want to lose the money that comes in from international students. Like what Trump has done with Harvard, threatened to take away the visas of all of the international students coming to Harvard… That's what he's doing. He's using a very big stick and hitting people over the head with it. And there are people who are allowing themselves to be beat, and others who are standing up on principle, taking the risk.

The Trump administration froze over $400 million in grants earlier this year after Jewish students and faculty reported a surge in harassment amid chaotic, often violent, anti-Israel encampments; so-called “protests” that resembled more closely an attempted coup. After facing the reality of losing that much money, Columbia decided to settle, and in doing so, effectively admitted it had lost control of its campus to rioters masquerading as activists. The university agreed to pay $200 million in direct restitution and an additional $21 million to resolve civil rights investigations into employment discrimination after the Trump administration’s probe into DEI hiring practices, finding it in violation of the Civil Rights Act.

Scott Jennings summed up the situation perfectly: “You don’t pay $200 million just to make something go away. You pay because you got caught red-handed, systematically discriminating against Jewish students.” That’s not spin, that’s simple math. Columbia didn’t cough up that kind of money just to make an issue disappear– if they weren’t obviously in the wrong, they could have proved their innocence in court. Columbia paid because it had a problem and wanted to avoid a deeper reckoning.

Caroline Downey also shut down the “extortion” narrative by turning it on its head. “It’s extortion when student activists take a building on campus hostage and blackmail the administration,” she said.

And she’s right. For months, we watched mobs on elite campuses set up tent cities, shut down Jewish students, and threaten disruption unless universities divested from Israel. In any other context, that would be called coercion. Yet Boykin and Navarro want to act like the real tyrant here was the federal government, all for asking schools not to discriminate.

What Navarro and Boykin failed to acknowledge is that Columbia made a choice, they were not coerced, forced, or made to do anything. The university chose to settle. It chose to eliminate DEI offices. It chose to ban masked protests and accept independent oversight. This wasn’t forced. It hints that the university knew they let something sinister breed for far too long on the campus in the name of liberal ideology, and they reaped what they had sowed. That’s just politics, not fascism as Boykin called it:

This is an embarrassment to the school. It– It weakens the integrity of the institution, not to be independent. And I don't think it, you know, Harvard is fighting back, and a few other schools are fighting back. But we saw when the law firms capitulated that the ones who didn't capitulate, who fought back, they won those cases. And people should stand up against fascism. We don't– we have an opportunity here to use the power of the law to stand up for what is right, not just to defend what Donald Trump wants to– wants this country to be.

Boykin, along with Navarro, peddled a claim that this was somehow a massive censorship tirade by the Trump administration. However, it’s indisputable that Columbia allowed harassment of Jewish students to go unchecked. The federal government was not “fascist” for enforcing institutions that receive taxpayer dollars via grants to not discriminate. It seems like the hosts did not remember that the federal government had to bring in armed guards to force schools to comply with racial integration 60 years ago. Was it also fascism then?

Or maybe the more recent example of Joe Biden enforcing vaccine mandates, threatening to pull federal contracts for many universities if they did not comply. Was that also fascism?

Columbia wasn’t bullied, it got caught. It didn't stand up for students when it counted, and now it’s paying the price. What’s truly fascist is the idea that activist mobs should dictate university policy while silencing dissent.

The entire transcript is below. Click expand to read.

CNN NewsNight with Abby Philip
July 23, 2025
10:37:59 PM ET

ABBY PHILIP: More breaking news tonight. The capitulation tour continues. Columbia University reaching a settlement with the Trump administration for more than $200 million, after threats to its funding over anti-Semitism and DEI. And it comes just a day after the school disciplined more than 70 students for campus protests. But it's not just colleges.

We're learning tonight that there is more to the Paramount deal. In addition to millions of dollars being paid out, Skydance has agreed to eliminate DEI programs and hire someone to police alleged bias. So, as Trump says, he has gotten more and more entities to bend the knee. Whatever he's doing is working. I guess my question is, where does this all end? Does it end?

KEITH BOYKIN: It doesn't end unless we stand up against it. I'm really ashamed that Columbia University. I taught at Columbia University for several years. This is an embarrassment to the school. It– It weakens the integrity of the institution, not to be independent. And I don't think it, you know, Harvard is fighting back, and a few other schools are fighting back. But we saw when the law firms capitulated that the ones who didn't capitulate, who fought back, they won those cases. And people should stand up against fascism. We don't– we have an opportunity here to use the power of the law to stand up for what is right, not just to defend what Donald Trump wants to– wants this country to be.

One– one other– one other point. The reason why they gave for this Columbia– Columbia penalty is because they were– they were anti-Semitic. Donald Trump has dined with Nazi– Nazi sympathizers. He referred to bankers just a few weeks ago as shylocks.

SCOTT JENNINGS: Were they or not? Did they not discriminate against Jewish kids or not?

BOYKIN: Let me just finish–

JENNINGS: Just say yes or no.

BOYKIN: You talk about people–

JENNINGS: You taught there! You taught there–

BOYKIN: You talk about people interrupting you, but you do it all the time.

JENNING: You don’t wanna say it, they systematically discriminated against the Jews. Just go ahead and say it.

BOYKIN: No, no, no. My point is that Donald Trump has a history of engaging in anti-Semitic behavior, of repeating anti-Semitic memes, of– of talking– of hiring people who are anti-Semitic, including people like Elon Musk, who was doing Nazi salutes just a few– a few months ago–

JENNINGS: Slanderous.

BOYKIN: And he was doing that.

JENNINGS: Slanderous.

BOYKIN: And, and and after all that, we talk about, “Well, Columbia University is the one place we're going to draw the line.” If you're going to be consistent, let's be consistent. Anti-Semitism is wrong. Let's stand up for it everywhere, including in the Trump Administration.

JENNINGS: You don't pay $200 million to just “make something go away.” You pay $200 million because, you know, you got caught red handed, systematically discriminating against Jewish students. That's why you pay. That's why you change your policies. If– if elections have consequences. If Trump had not won, they would still be doing it today. Thank God he pushed back on ‘em.

ANA NAVARRO: Look, I think the reason that they're paying the $200 million is that they don't–

BOYKIN: It’s extortion.

NAVARRO: - want to lose billions in grants because they don't want to lose the money that comes in from international students. Like what Trump has done with Harvard, threatened to take away the visas of all of the international students coming to Harvard. I think they don't want to fight the way that Harvard is fighting back.

So you say, you know the things that Trump has done to get them to bend the knee. In the case of CBS and Paramount, they need government approval for the sale and merger. In the case of the law firms, he threatened not to allow any of their lawyers into federal buildings. In the case of the universities, he's taken away billions of grant money to the point where there are scientists from American universities that are being recruited and leaving the country, and now setting up shop in places like Europe and Asia and other places.

And so that's what he's doing. He's using a very big stick and hitting people over the head with it. And there are people who are allowing themselves to be beat, and others who are standing up on principle, taking the risk.

JENNINGS: What principle? What principle?

NAVARRO: The principle that they’re not going to–

JENNINGS: They’re not– they’re not anti-Semitic?

[CROSSTALK]

BOYKIN: Do you have to be a part of every conversation?

JENNINGS: You’re such a whiny brat.

BOYKIN: A whiny what? Say it Scott.

PHILLIP: Guys. Guys. Guys. Hang on a second. Let me let Carline speak.

CAROLINE DOWNEY: I heard you say extortion under your breath, and it made me think. Do you know what extortion is?

BOYKIN: Do you know?

DOWNEY: It’s when student activists take a building on campus hostage, and then they blackmail the administration and say, ‘if you do not divest from Israel, we will lay siege to another building.’ That's extortion. And by the way, it's beyond anti-Semitism.

BOYKIN: You're saying that student activists have the same amount of power as the President of the United States.

DOWNEY: I’m saying that college campuses used to be respected–

BOYKIN: Student activists?

DOWNEY: –as a model of self-governance, and they let discipline go out the window, and they let not only anti-Semitism fester on their campus, but they also allow disruption to take classes–

BOYKIN: If Joe Biden decided that he was going to– Joe– so if Joe Biden decided he was going to punish schools that he didn't like, you would be okay with him doing that?

JENNINGS: What schools?

BOYKIN: Taking away hundreds of millions of dollars?

DOWNEY: If you're masquerading as an activist organization– if you're masquerading as an activist organization, you can do so without half-a-billion dollars of taxpayer money.

(...)