President Donald Trump told staffers that he wanted even more punitive measures against top universities, according to newly revealed communications.
NOTUS reviewed a March 18 email chain titled “Funding yanked from San Jose State + UPenn” that included high-ranking White House officials. It surfaced in court documents as part of a case challenging Elon Musk’s funding freezes, and the messages show how senior officials coordinated with DOGE teams and Fox News to carry out the president’s wishes.
“POTUS wants to see more action against universities,” wrote senior policy strategist May Mailman, and officials then scurried to make that happen.
The emails show a previously unreported effort by the administration to target San Joe State before a Title XI investigation into transgender athletes had concluded, but officials were concerned about how the punitive funding cuts would look if they touched on national security or public health.
“If you all deem we should turn this back on, we can do that immediately given criticality- it’s just a simple email given we didn’t terminate,” wrote federal acquisition service commissioner Josh Gruenbaum.
However, those concerns were outweighed by the White House’s desire to punish the schools – and quickly.
“Today, we have paused ALL grant awards to San Jose State which continued to play a male athlete on the female volleyball team, including access to intimate, overnight spaces,” read the first draft that Mailman sent to the White House communications team.
Trump had taken an interest in San Jose State during the 2024 campaign after an online publication outed volleyball player Blaire Fleming as trans, and Mailman – who works closely with White House deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller – pushed other officials to quickly identify sweeping cuts to that university and Penn, which the administration targeted for in the past allowing a trans athlete to compete on the women’s swimming team.
“Josh,” Mailman wrote back, “per Stephen, we need to get this on social media TODAY. Please no more piecemeal emails. Just one with clear bullet points on what’s being frozen/paused and from which agency. THANK YOU!!!”
The following morning Fox Business flashed a breaking news alert and reported on the threatened cuts to the university using language that mirrored the communications team’s draft statement.
“President Trump has promised to protect female athletes, he has threatened to rip federal funding away from any university that defies his executive order banning biological males from infiltrating women’s sports, and he is doing it,” said Fox Business host Hillary Vaughn, reading from her phone live on air. “We are the first to report President Trump has paused $175 million in federal funding from the University of Pennsylvania over its controversial policies.”