Trump is in a good mood. What’s up?

 The President is usually set on “winning,” but he has settled this week for a draw. Columbia University and the administration reached a settlement yesterday that, in theory, brings a months-long battle between the academics and politicos to an end.

On the face of it, Columbia has still pulled the short straw. The university will pay a $200 million fine over three years to address the allegations that it was in breach of anti-discrimination laws, specifically in regards to the safety of Jewish students on campus.

Moreover, Columbia has agreed to a “jointly selected independent monitor” that will watch over the university’s actions as it implements new student assessments and hiring policies. This is a de-escalation from Donald Trump’s suggestion that the federal government should be actively involved in choosing who is and who is not admitted to the university. But it’s an infantilizing outcome, nonetheless, as Columbia’s reputation for losing control of its campus only solidifies around this settlement.

What would compel Columbia to take this deal? Money, of course. While the university will be paying out the fine over three years, Trump in turn is restoring the staggering $400 million of federal research grants he had threatened to take off the table completely. For Columbia, this deal is the smaller price to pay.

Trump appears to be in a rather conciliatory mood at the moment. While he couldn’t help but rub in the terms and conditions of the settlement (“Columbia has also committed to ending their ridiculous DEI policies, admitting students based ONLY on MERIT,” he wrote on Truth Social yesterday), he also had some positive reflections to share. “I look forward to watching them have a great future in our Country, maybe greater than ever before!”

Less than 12 hours later, he is sharing some surprisingly kind words for his former pal Elon Musk. “Everyone is stating that I will destroy Elon’s companies by taking away some, if not all, of the large-scale subsidies he receives from the US Government. This is not so! I want Elon, and all businesses within our Country, to THRIVE, in fact, THRIVE like never before! The better they do, the better the USA does, and that’s good for all of us.”

Quite the change in tone from just weeks ago, when the pair were threatening to take each other apart. Perhaps Trump is feeling emboldened by his string of trade deals this week, reached with the Philippines, Indonesia and Japan, ahead of his August 1 deadline to implement “reciprocal tariffs.” The deals are not American business friendly – as other countries opt to drop their trade barriers and allow goods to be imported from America at lower costs, it’s US businesses that are going to have to navigate the bulk of tax hikes. But markets are celebrating that the bare minimum is being negotiated, and may continue to for some time, as the impact of the tariffs slowly takes its toll.
 
The President’s biggest frustration at the moment, it seems, is that not enough attention is being paid to these “big wins.” Rather, the focus, especially from his base, remains on the alleged Jeffrey Epstein files. As Douglas Murray says in his column this week, it’s unlikely Trump is going to be able to shake this off as easily as he would like to, not only because of the promises he made on the campaign trail to release them, but because in the age of conspiracy theories, this story is too “perfect,” too enticing for MAGA to simply drop it.

No doubt if Epstein remains the focus of the public and the press’s queries, Trump’s good mood could wane. But for now, the President remains in seemingly jolly spirit. Good news for Harvard, which will be squaring off with the administration in court next week over similar gripes about federal research funding.

This article first appeared in the Spectator’s Americano e-mail, which you can sign up for here. Freddy Gray is away.