hello, welcome back to the context with me, caitriona perry in washington. and me, annita mcveigh in london, where we're looking at donald trump's second presidency. donald trump and the california governor gavin newsom's war of words escalates as the president threatens to cut off federal funding to the entire state of california in row over trans athletes. we've spoken a lot on this programme about the trump administration's clampdown on certain universities,

and on foreign students, studying in the us on various types of visas. today, a new development. the state department has instructed its embassies and consular departments not to schedule any more interviews for students seeking to come to the us on f, m and j visas. in a cable sent to embassies, and seen by our partners at cbs news, no new interviews are to be held for student or exchange visas, pending further guidance on social media vetting. this pause could have a dramatic impact on the more than 1.1 million foreign students who come to the us each year, not just to undertake long-term study, but also those doing semester abroad exchange programmes, or the summer working j1 programme. it is not clear just what the required 'social media vetting' would involve. state department spokeswoman tammy bruce explained the reports a litte earlier. every sovereign country

has a right to know who is trying to come in, why they want to come in, who they are, what they've been doing and at least hopefully within that framework, determine what they will be doing while they're here. so we... that's nothing new, and we will continue to use every tool we can to assess who it is that's coming here, whether they are students or otherwise. at the same time, president trump has continued his assault on harvard university. a new general services administration letter outlines a plan for the federal government to axe up to $100 million from around 30 contracts it has with the university. president trump said in a post on truth social on monday that he was considering cutting $3 billion in grant money to what he called "a very anti-semitic" harvard and that he would give those funds to trade schools instead.

joining me now is a harvard international student from sweden, leo gerden. thanks for joining us here on bbc news. first of all, what is your own situation as you are aware of it at this point in terms of your visa or your status here, have you had any information? it's all going back and forth. to be honest, for a couple of hours i didn't know if i was an illegal undocumented immigrant in this country. right now, harvard's status post of international students is in place but we're going to see, we have a court hearing two days from now and overall there is so much uncertainty around the situation right now. my friends who travelled home for the summer don't know whether they will be able to come back or not. as you may see, it's around the time of commencement. i can see you there in your cap and gown all right. are you set to graduate

this week? yeah, exactly, but i might leave a place that is going to look very different starting from next semester, because without international students, harvard is not harvard any more. this place thrives on the fact that it can bring the best and the brightest from around the world, but if trump follows through on this, that will not be possible any more and all the uncertainty, it deters people from coming to america overall, not just harvard. and what is the sense amongst the student body there? you've mentioned uncertainty but is there a sense that everyone is in this together, that you have support from harvard itself? indefinitely, and that is why we have a protest in less than an hour from now, we're all going to under the umbrella of harvard students united, what donald trump is trying to do right now is trying to divide us, we want us to point fingers

and say will give you the name of a few students we can keep the rest, but donald trump is a pretty bad poker player, he is going to demand 100 more names next week, this fight is over the independence of this institution but it's also about something bigger, it's about democracy in this country and that is something all students here are truly feeling. now, president trump has posted on his true social that he is called harvard "very anti-semitic". have you seen evidence of that? you know, i've talked to so many jewish friends, friends from israel, ever since i would say october 7 and they all say the same thing. of course they are problems on campus, especially with the pro-palestine movement, but nothing donald trump can do will affect that.

and the rally we are having in about an hour we will have the former president of harvard hello, the jewish... on campus, as a way of porting his friends. i know you're dashing off to go to that protest, so i will let you go but thank you so much for joining us on bbc news and bringing us the view from massachusetts, thank you very much. let's bring in the panel - jeanette hoffman, republican strategist and ivo daalder, former us ambassador to nato. what do you think lies at the heart of what is going on between the us have ministration, between president trump and harvard university as we've explained he is accusing the university of anti-semitism. critics of his approach talk about for example thought control. i mean this

issue is very personal for me, i arrived in cambridge, massachusetts not to go to harvard but to mit on a j one visa. as a former dutch citizen and remained in the country and have been able to serve the country and there was a great honour to do so. and i think that gets you to a larger issue. i think what the president is trying to do, his administration is trying to do, is to basically try to uniform eyes how civil society should look at politics and governance. and that you are either with him or you are against him and if you are against him there is going to be a price to pay and he will use all the powers and more of the presidency and the executive branch to try to bring others to heal. the problem in doing so is he is fundamentally changing the

nature of this country and he is weakening it in a dramatic, to a dramatic extent. it is the openness to international immigrants that has made this country what it is today, it is, after all, a nation of immigrants. it has particularly made it a country what it is today when you think about the scientific and technological innovations that have been brought about by people who came to this country, either on as students or later in life, or earlier in life with the immigrant families. who are running these businesses, who are responsible for nobel prizes and so much more. and so i think we are in a very fundamental way, confronting a reality of what kind of america do we want to be? is it an america that is decided where

ideas and thoughts and concepts are decided at the centre by the president of the united states and those around him, or is it a country which believes in its motto, out of many, one. and the greater the many are, the greater the... is, the stronger the one. in a larger sensitive debate about the future of our nation as a democratic multiethnic and multinational country. thank you. and to apologise to her viewers, there was an expletive in the live interview with our student a little while ago, but you can see how high emotions were there. but our apologies for

the expletive there. particularly students and growing together the amount melting pot of cultures and everything are, what do you think of what president trump seems to be doing? president trump knows and a lot of americans agree that harvard also has a huge problem in the fact that after october 7, there was a very hostile environment on the campus and at many ivy league campuses for jewish american students, and harvard because macon task force revealed that. there were a lot of problems that were just completely underdressed and a lot of it was foreign students who over to were involved in anti-semitic protests who allowed jewish students to be bullied, they were engaged in a very hostile environment, harvard did not address that. and while that is true, harvard should be penalised and two things can be true at the same time. president trump is really

overreaching here and using harvard as an example for all of these other elite universities, because he knows the american people, the voters, they will not feel sorry for harvard, harvard has a $53 billion endowment. president trump feels he can comfortably go after harvard and all these elite universities because he feels like they are part of this leftist ideology that does not agree with him, that does not agree with the majority of working-class americans and he can crackdown on immigration through this, what he's doing right now and not allowing foreign students to come into harvard, which i believe is about one third to one quarter of harvard's student population. while harvard, yes, they are guilty of a lot of anti-semitic actions and not reporting and allowing use to feel intimidated. -- allowing dues

harvard isn't the only institution receiving threats to its federal funding by the trump administration. california's governing body for high school sport announced today that it will be changing its eligibility rules. the changes come after president trump threatened to withhold "large scale" federal funding from the state if a transgender athlete was allowed to compete in a high school track and field state championship event. in a statement to fox news digital, the organisation says the championship will now include biologically female athletes that missed out on qualifying for the competition and may have placed higher were it not for a transgender athlete participating in the event. it also claims the changes were

made before the president's threats, where earlier today he said on truth social - "this is not fair, and totally demeaning to women and girls. please be hereby advised that large scale federal funding will be held back, maybe permanently, if the executive order on this subject matter is not adhered to." the president also added he plans to have a phone call with california's governor gavin newsom sometime today back in feburary, president trump signed today. back in feburary, president trump signed an excutive order that restricted transgender athletes from competing in women's sports or else risk losing federal funding. we are now joined by alexei koseff, capitol reporter at calmatters. good to have you with us. and do we know, has that phone call taken place yet, any details of it? it's still unclear if they have spoken. i reached both to the governor's office and to the white house and everyone is pretty tight-lipped about what is going on there. unclear whether this is something that the president just wants to happen, or if it's actually in

the works. and obviously this issue of transgender participation in sport has been one that present trump has been one that present trump 's return to again and again. but, you know, i wonder in terms of this call that is happening between him and gavin newsom, to alpha males locking horns, really, presidential contender, he's governor of a state that is an economic powerhouse, according to the imf, the fourth largest economy in the world, so how much of it is about a beef between president trump the governor of california? ironically on a personal level they actually get along pretty well. every time that they end up meeting or speaking, they both have high praise for each other, even though ideologically they are in completely opposite sides and in these constant political battles. i think this is another one of those situations where there is something in the news that caught the president's attention, he is lashing out

and now governor newsom is going to have to do damage control or california is going to face consequences. briefly, given california's wealth, how consequential could that be if there were cuts to federal funding? co., a enormous. the state is already facing economic downturn and a likely budget deficit from a lot of issues that are going on including the tariffs that the president has been considering over the past few months. so these threats of federal funding cuts, whether they be the ones that were announced today or others in recent weeks and months, such as potential cuts to health care funding in the budget bill that republicans in congress are considering, all of that is going to hit california really hard and governor newsom and other california leaders are scrambling to try and minimise the potential cuts, and

potential consequences to california because about a third of the budget is dependent on federal funding. thank you very much, alexi. let's bring in the panel - jeanette hoffman, republican strategist and ivo daalder, former let's bring in the panel - jeanette hoffman, republican strategist and ivo daalder, former us ambassador to nato. is what we are seeing in california and extension of what we were talking about earlier? he is using federal funding which is of course appropriated by congress for things that they are not supposed to be used for and he is using them as bribes and blackmail. to get people to do what he wants them to do. it's not how our government is supposed to work. and it's deeply unfortunate that we are not finding a way, either in congress or indeed in the courts, to hold what clearly are illegal if not unconstitutional efforts to get the country to do what he wants rather than to have him do what the country wants. and, jeanette, he says he's using

federal funding to create bribes and blackmail to the get the country to do what he wants, your thoughts on that,? we saw on day one with the flurry of executive orders, he's trying to create america in his own vision, in this golden error that has and shaping the morals and values of the country through either executive orders, clawing back funding, that is just one more example of that. whether or not his constitutional remains to be seen, in some cases courts have said no, you can't do that, and they have clawed back the funding, we'll see. i'm almost positive that governor newsom will challenge this in court. we are at the end of our show for today, as always our thanks to our panelists, thank you for bringing us all of those perspectives as we put it in context, all of what president trump is doing on a daily basis. we have plenty more still to come here on the bbc news jenna, i'll be back in just a moment with world news america and we will have more of the news of the day. so do

stay with us here on bbc news.