Trump Wants Every School’s Admissions Data. Imagine What Comes Next.

After successfully forcing Columbia and Brown to hand over granular admissions data to the administration, President Donald Trump seems to be taking aim at a bigger target: every university in the United States.

Trump is expected to sign an order Thursday mandating that universities turn over applicant data in order to prove they’re not carrying out affirmative action policies, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on X.

Leavitt’s post gave no further details on how the government would make these determinations, or what consequences the universities would face if they refused to cooperate.

Trump’s battle against the Ivy League appears to have been a slippery slope leading to a grab for total control over higher education. The president has threatened universities with enormous funding cuts if they don’t follow his orders: dismantling anything purportedly related to diversity, equity, and inclusion; harshly punishing pro-Palestinian protesters; and giving the federal government sway over curriculums and entire academic departments in the name of combating antisemitism.

Since the 2023 Supreme Court decision banning affirmative action, universities have already significantly reworked their admissions processes and criteria. This would go even further, ceding enormous control to the state over not only who gets accepted to these schools but what goes on there. There’s nothing stopping the federal government from using and misusing this data as leverage to further sue, threaten, and claw back funds from universities.

Nothing is more important in Donald Trump’s second administration than subservience and loyalty.

FBI Director Kash Patel ordered the ousting of two agents at the bureau Thursday, including Brian Driscoll, who served as the acting director for the agency at the beginning of Trump’s second term.

Driscoll, an 18-year agent, was accidentally appointed acting director of the FBI. But he made a new name for himself in February when he adamantly resisted the president’s early efforts to excise bureau employees.

“Last night I was informed that tomorrow will be my last day in the FBI,” Driscoll wrote in a note to his colleagues, obtained by MSNBC. “I understand that you may have a lot of questions regarding why, for which I currently have no answers. No cause has been articulated at this time.

“Please know that it has been the honor of my life to serve alongside each of you,” Driscoll continued. “Thank you for allowing me to stand on your shoulders throughout it all. Our collective sacrifices for those we serve is, and will always be, worth it. I regret nothing. You are my heroes, and I remain in your debt.”

The Trump administration intended to install Robert Kissane as Christopher Wray’s replacement in January. But a clerical error instead placed Driscoll at the top of the agency, with Kissane acting as his number two—an oversight that wasn’t corrected until the Senate confirmed Patel at the end of February.

The issue came to a head just two weeks after Trump’s inauguration. When the White House demanded the names of the bureau staff who were involved in the January 6 probe, Driscoll refused, sparking accusations from Justice Department official Emil Bove that there was “insubordination” among the FBI’s leadership.

Driscoll’s full-throated defense of his colleagues was well received by the department, turning him into an unexpected champion defending the agency from the Trump administration’s encroachment. Current and former FBI agents circulated memes referring to the 45-year-old as “Saint Driz.”

New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani excoriated Andrew Cuomo’s recent call with President Donald Trump as a “betrayal” to the entire city.

“It is at this very site that we understand the cost of this news, that former Governor Cuomo has been conspiring with President Trump about the fate of this city, about the future of this city, about the facts of this race,” Mamdani said at a Thursday press conference. “It is knowledge that is a betrayal of everything we stand for as New Yorkers. It is knowledge that disappoints us, and yet it does not surprise us. Because it builds on a history that we have seen with this former governor, a history of trying to hide that which he knows is offensive to the values of this city from the people of this city. We see that with this call itself.”

The New York Times reported Wednesday that Cuomo “spoke about the race directly” with the president in recent weeks. Though it’s not clear who initiated the call, or what the two spoke about, Mamdani pointed out that it taking place is enough to condemn Cuomo.

“We know that this former governor has very little regard, whether it be for the Democratic Party, the democratic process, or for Democrats themselves,” Mamdani said. “Because he would rather look past having been beaten by close to 13 points, by a campaign that amassed more votes than any Democratic primary winner in New York City history, to the extent that he would actually have a conversation with the very president who is stealing food from the hungry, who is throwing New Yorkers and Americans from coast to coast off of their health care, and doing so all in service of yet another significant wealth transfer between those who do not have enough in their pocket to those who have more than they know what to do with.”

The Times detailed that Trump and Cuomo’s phone call came as Trump reportedly considers intervening in New York’s mayoral race to help reinforce the anti-Mamdani Wall Street base that has scrambled to get behind either Cuomo or Mayor Eric Adams. Trump has already attacked Mamdani, making unsubstantiated claims about his citizenship and calling him a “communist lunatic.”

It’s clear that Cuomo, who was unable to overcome his sexual harassment and corruption scandals in the primary, is turning back to his true home with the wealthy elites of New York. Trump and Cuomo go way back, as Cuomo’s father, Mario, served as lawyer to the president’s father in the 1980s.

“We know that Andrew Cuomo will sell working people out for his interests, for the interests of the billionaires that supported him, for the interests of Donald Trump. Because all of those interests are lining up as one and the same,” Mamdani continued. “It is time for us to say enough. It is time for us to make clear that what this city deserves is a mayor who when he sees Donald Trump attacking the people of this city, will stand up and fight back against that vision, [and] will not get on the phone with the architect of that vision to speak about a race that we already know should be a referendum on how to make the most expensive city in the United States of America affordable. Not a question of how we can install yet another ambassador for Washington, D.C., in City Hall.”

Unlike Sydney Sweeney, MAGA Representative Mike Collins of Georgia needed AI to generate his great jeans.

Collins shared a cringey AI-generated video on X Wednesday, as a nod to the controversial American Eagle denim campaign that is being fiercely defended by the right, including by President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.

The video made by Brenden Dilley, a far-right podcaster and seemingly self-proclaimed lead of Trump’s “meme team,” showed Collins’s head pasted on a male model’s denim-clad body. The figure brushes his hand through his hair, glowering at the camera before he turns, strutting away as Charlie Boy’s 2009 song “I Look Good” plays in the background.

The onscreen caption reads, “Mike Collins Has Great Jeans,” but the Georgia Republican added his own message in his repost.

“The Georgia cotton industry supports over 53,000 jobs, has a $3 BN economic impact, and makes some of the finest jeans around. I will always fight for our farmers, growers and producers, and Georgia’s rural culture and economy,” he wrote.

Users on X accused Collins of copying former Senator David Perdue, who donned a faded denim jacket in an attempt to appeal to everyday Georgians in his 2014 campaign ad “The Outsider.” The Washington Post even credited the ad with winning Perdue his seat. In 2020, Perdue wore his campaign-winning jacket again—but was defeated by Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff.

Notably, Collins didn’t actually summon up any folksy charm—a computer did it for him.

Collins recently launched his campaign to “take back control” of one of Georgia’s Senate seats from Ossoff with a video that misspelled the name of his own state.

NPR has obtained police bodycam footage of Trump Justice Department official Jared Wise calling on January 6 rioters to kill police officers.

“You guys are disgusting, man. You guys are disgusting,” Wise can be seen and heard saying on the footage. “I’m former law enforcement, you’re disgusting. You are the Nazi, you are the Gestapo, you can’t see it, cuz you’re chasing your pension.”

“Yeah! Fuck them, yeah! Kill ’em, yeah!” he later cheers as rioters push their way forward.

Wise’s incendiary statements, which he admitted to under oath in January, first made headlines in July after he was appointed senior counselor to Ed Martin, who was working to help January 6 rioters fight against “improper investigative tactics and unethical prosecutions.”

Wise defended his speech as a heat of the moment action influenced by what he saw as “police brutality” on the part of the Capitol officers.

“Those are terrible things to say. Of course. I shouldn’t say those things,” he said in court. “I think I was careless and used, like, terrible words when I was angry.”

Wise worked for the FBI from 2004 to 2017 before moving on to the far-right propaganda machine Project Veritas, where he infiltrated teachers’ unions across the Midwest. Wise was charged with two felonies and four misdemeanor counts in 2023, including trespassing and disrupting the orderly conduct of government, for his actions on January 6. All of his charges (and the charges of hundreds of other rioters) were dropped by Trump.

Wise’s pardoning and senior appointment show that Trump truly sees no wrong in what happened on January 6, and he won’t even pretend to. Rather than display any level of accountability, he rewards and uplifts those, like Wise, who called for violence against police and against the country in his name.