The comments are the latest volley in an escalating battle between the White House and one of the nation's most prestigious colleges.

Harvard acknowledged that it received an “updated and expanded list of demands” from the Trump administration, asking it to comply if it intended to maintain its funding.

President Trump threatened Harvard University’s tax-exempt status on Tuesday after the school rebuffed the administration’s demands ostensibly aimed at purging “woke” ideology from America’s college campuses. The changes, Harvard officials said, required severe restrictions, including to freedom of expression, that they could not accept.