'Taste for revenge': Columnist thinks little-known 1970s feud fueled Trump's Harvard hate

A special correspondent with The Daily Beast connected President Donald Trump's first New York real-estate deal in the 1970s to his desire to punish Harvard University today for defying his authority.

According to writer Michael Daly, the common link between the two episodes is the billionaire Pritzker family; Jay Pritzker ran afoul of Trump when the two entered into an ill-fated partnership to manage New York's Hyatt Hotel in 1975, while niece Penny Pritzker currently serves as Harvard's most senior member on its board of governors.

Trump vowed revenge on the Pritzkers for asking him to pay his part to upgrade the hotel "at a time when [Trump's] dependence on junk bonds and outsized sense of his own brilliance in other projects had left him at the brink of ruin," Daly wrote. "He narrowly escaped and revealed a taste for revenge that has become familiar to many of us in recent days."

Trump finally settled two lawsuits with the Pritzkers and sold his share of the hotel to the family for $140 million in October 1996.

“They attacked me when I was down,” Daly quoted Trump as saying. “Now I’m doing great again and it’s my turn. I always said, the first time I got back on my feet, the Pritzkers would be the first people I’d go after.”

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Fast-forward to 2025 and Trump's beef with Harvard University. His administration sent what Daly called an "extortion letter" this week to Penny Pritzker, representing Harvard's board, as well as to Harvard's president, demanding that the university do away with its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs or forfeit billions in federal funds.

"Harvard responded in a letter from its lawyers, but... [Penny] Pritzker joined the university’s president in refusing to submit to shameless threats," Daly wrote.

As he is wont to do, Trump typed out his outrage on Truth Social this week, writing, "Harvard is a JOKE, teaches Hate and Stupidity, and should no longer receive Federal Funds."

Penny Pritzker has not commented about Harvard's decision, but the war of words continues through Penny's brother, Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL), who has compared Trump to Hitler and declared, “We don’t have kings in America.”

Read The Daily Beast article here.