'Extortionist!' Columnist flags Trump move 'deserving of an exclamation point'

President Donald Trump's dealings with everything from Ukraine to Ivy League universities amount to blatant extortion, Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker wrote Friday.

"Trump isn’t a dealmaker; he is closer to an extortionist," Parker wrote. "At least he meets the definition of the term: someone who uses coercion or punishment to get what he wants."

Parker explained how Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's "first lesson in the art of the deal" came in 2019, "when Trump essentially threatened to withhold $400 million in military aid if Zelensky didn’t investigate — or at least say he was investigating — Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine."

Zelensky's second lesson came, according to Parker, when President Trump demanded Ukraine's mineral rights, as well as hundreds of billions of dollars, in exchange for continued U.S. military aid.

Parker noted that Trump has since moved on to higher education, where he is demanding an end to academic freedom in exchange for billions in federal funding.

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"In addition to requiring the elimination of diversity, equity and inclusion programs, Trump wants universities to ban masks at protests and ensure merit-based hiring practices. As though Trump can claim bragging rights on the latter," Parker wrote.

She added, "He also wants to audit student and faculty viewpoints (if there were ever a sentence deserving of an exclamation point)! Is Trump, the nonreader, going to start reviewing term papers and dissertations? I’d like to watch."

Next up, China, which Parker argued, "like Harvard, has a healthy endowment — a $17.8 trillion gross domestic product — and leverage resulting from the decline in the United States’ value to China’s export economy."

She concluded, "Our extortionist, winning-obsessed president could lose — bigly — to China’s superior position and the patience of ancients. It seems unpatriotic to pull for the 'enemy,' but this time the greater danger lies within."

Read The Washington Post opinion piece here.