President Trump issued a new threat to Harvard University on Tuesday after the federal government froze $2.2 billion in grant funding for the institution, suggesting that the Ivy League school "should lose its tax-exempt status and be taxed as a political entity."

Harvard University has urged researchers whose grants are frozen by the Trump administration to immediately cease hiring, limit spending to “essential needs only.”

The former president broke with his practice of not criticising policies or leaders on social media to praise Harvard's stand