Attorneys Brian Kabateck and Shant Karnikian break down how federal Judge Allison Burroughs delivered a crushing blow to the Trump administration, ruling that freezing $2.2 billion in Harvard research funding violated the First Amendment and federal law. They expose how Trump used antisemitism as a “smokescreen” to wage an ideological attack on universities, demanding sweeping changes to governance, hiring, and DEI programs that had nothing to do with combating hate. The hosts detail how this funding supported critical research into cancer, Alzheimer’s, climate change, and AI ethics—not political indoctrination—making Trump’s cuts particularly destructive to American scientific leadership. When the White House predictably attacked Judge Burroughs as an “activist Obama appointee,” it revealed their authoritarian playbook of undermining any court that dares to check their power, while threatening the very research that keeps America at the forefront of global innovation.