Trump Orders Dismantling of Education Department
Happy Thursday! On this date in 1854, the Republican Party was founded as an anti-slavery party by citizens who gathered at a schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin. Today, what was once the party of Lincoln is indisputably the party of Donald J. Trump, and the president on Thursday continued his effort to remake the country by signing an executive order to gut the Department of Education.
We've got details on that and more.
Trump Orders Dismantling of Education Department
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday authorizing a radical reduction in the Department of Education, partially fulfilling a long-standing conservative goal.
Flanked by schoolchildren sitting at desks in the White House's East Room, Trump signed the order to the applause of officials and supporters including Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Republican governors and members of Congress, conservative organizations and teachers.
Trump said his action will end the Department of Education "once and for all." In the order itself, Trump directs McMahon to "take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely."
The president blamed the department for the poor performance of American students on tests and in international rankings. "Unfortunately, the experiment of controlling American education through Federal programs and dollars -- and the unaccountable bureaucracy those programs and dollars support -- has plainly failed our children, our teachers, and our families," the executive order says.
Trump also criticized the department's management of its $1.6 student loan portfolio, which he said should be run by a bank, and the fact that the department maintains a public relations office with more than 80 employees, at a cost of $10 million.
"We're going to eliminate it, and everybody knows it's right," Trump said. "We're not doing well with the world of education in this country, and we haven't for a long time."
Shrinking but not eliminating: Conservatives have been gunning for the Department of Education since its founding by President Jimmy Carter in 1979, and the Trump administration has already taken steps to reduce its workforce of 4,133 by nearly 50%.
However, closing the department completely and permanently would require an act of Congress. Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy said Thursday that he would submit legislation to do that, though passage would likely be difficult. In the meantime, it's not clear if Trump's executive order will result in new reductions in staffing or function at the department, beyond what has already been announced.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters earlier in the day that the Department of Education will be downsized rather than shut down, with some critical programs remaining in place. "The Department of Education will be much smaller than it is today," Leavitt said. "When it comes to student loans and Pell grants, those will still be run out of the Department of Education."
Still, Trump said he wants to end the department for good, telling McMahon that "hopefully she will be the last secretary of education."
Critics take aim: Democratic lawmakers and educational professionals reacted harshly to the executive order.
"More bullshit," Sen. Tina Smith said on social media. "@realDonaldTrump, you can't shut down the Department of Education - and you know it. Fox News even knows it. So stop it."
Smith noted that "hundreds of thousands of people" have contacted her office to express their concern, which is consistent with recent polling that shows that roughly two-thirds of Americans oppose the idea of shutting the department down.
National Education Association President Becky Pringle linked Trump's order to the broader effort led by Elon Musk to eviscerate the federal government, as well as to Republican tax policies. "Donald Trump and Elon Musk have aimed their wrecking ball at public schools and the futures of the 50 million students in rural, suburban, and urban communities across America, by dismantling public education to pay for tax handouts for billionaires," she said in a statement. "If successful, Trump's continued actions will hurt all students by sending class sizes soaring, cutting job training programs, making higher education more expensive and out of reach for middle class families, taking away special education services for students with disabilities, and gutting student civil rights protections."
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said she is concerned that cuts will harm programs like special education funding and aid for impoverished students. "I have no confidence that those services will not be affected," she said, per Politico. "If nobody's there to answer the phone, or if no department exists to make sure that Truman High School in New York City gets the funding it's supposed to get and that Mayor [Eric] Adams doesn't put it somewhere else - who is going to do that?"
What comes next: We'll have to wait and see how the dismantling of the department actually plays out. Meanwhile, the fury on the left could help Democrats as they attempt to push back against Trump.
Celebrating their victory, the conservatives gathered at the White House on Thursday also struck a cautious note. "It seems very likely in races this fall that Democrats will cut ads with Elon Musk waving that chainsaw, and then you'll see some mom talking about how her child with special needs can't get the support they used to get," Frederick Hess, education director at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, told Politico. "The old adage of Colin Powell was, 'You break it, you buy it'."
Key Republicans Warn Against Trump's Potential Military Changes
The Republican chairs of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees pushed back publicly Wednesday on potential Trump administration plans for the military.
In a joint statement, Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama said they are "very concerned" about a report detailing Defense Department changes that may be in the works, including a reduction in forces stationed abroad; changes to the combatant command structure, giving up the role of NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, which oversees all NATO military operations in Europe; and cancelation of modernization efforts for forces in Japan.
"We support President Trump's efforts to ensure our allies and partners increase their contributions to strengthen our alliance structure, and we support continuing America's leadership abroad," they wrote. "As such, we will not accept significant changes to our warfighting structure that are made without a rigorous interagency process, coordination with combatant commanders and the Joint Staff, and collaboration with Congress. Such moves risk undermining American deterrence around the globe and detracting from our negotiating positions with America's adversaries."
Why it matters: The Trump administration has set a goal of cutting as many as 60,000 civilian Defense Department jobs, but the possible restructuring of combatant commands and withdrawal from the NATO role represent a broader reorganization that worries some experts.
"It would be a political mistake of epic proportion, and once we give it up, they are not going to give it back," retired Adm. James Stavridis, who served as NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe and head of European Command from 2009 to 2013, said in an email to NBC News, which first reported the potential plans. "We would lose an enormous amount of influence within NATO, and this would be seen, correctly, as probably the first step toward leaving the Alliance altogether."
Republican lawmakers haven't stood in the way of many Trump administration changes to the government, so the pushback from Wicker and Rogers stands out as an area where the administration may encounter a GOP challenge.
Quote of the Day
"The approps members always got on together and protected the power of the purse from all interference. The trifecta [of Republican control in Washington] changed all that."
− An unnamed "former Republican appropriator" quoted in a Politico article describing the reduced role - and plunging morale - of congressional appropriators who saw their influence over spending decisions undercut by the Trump White House.
"With President Donald Trump giving Department of Government Efficiency chief Elon Musk and White House budget director Russ Vought unprecedented latitude over the federal purse strings, the leaders of the spending panels were ultimately sidelined by the executive branch and their own party leaders," Politico's Katherine Tully-McManus writes.
Tully-McManus notes that appropriators "fully intend to regain their relevance," with Republicans insisting that they will return to "regular order" in passing all 12 annual spending bills for the coming fiscal year. At the same time, GOP leaders will want future funding plans to reflect the cuts made by Elon Musk's DOGE team - "another sign," Tully-McManus says, "that the appropriations process could soon be further hijacked by the executive branch."
Fiscal News Roundup
- What to Know About Trump's Plan to Abolish the Education Department – Washington Post
- Trump Defends His Education Overhaul With a Shield of GOP Governors - and Kids – Politico
- Dismantling Education Department Would Put Many Students at Risk, Top Democrat Says – The Hill
- Trump Says the Fed Should Cut Rates to Ease the Economy's Transition to His Tariffs – CNBC
- Europe Delays Tariffs on U.S. Whiskey to Make Time to Negotiate – New York Times
- GOP Chairs 'Very Concerned' Over Report of Trump Changing Military Commands – The Hill
- Judge Bars Musk's DOGE Team From Social Security Records in Scathing Ruling – CNBC
- Republicans Want Musk to Shut Up About Social Security – The Hill
- Social Security to Require Millions to Make Claims in Person Rather Than by Phone – Washington Post
- A List of the Social Security Offices Across the US Expected to Close This Year – Associated Press
- As Trump and Musk Loom, Congressional Spending Leaders' Morale Hits Rock Bottom – Politico
- Trump Administration Tells Amtrak CEO to Resign Amid Talk of Cuts – Washington Post
- California Has a $6.2 Billion Medicaid Funding Gap Partly Due to Expanding Immigrant Coverage – Associated Press
- Dems Expected to Skewer GOP Cuts at Town Halls. Instead They Faced Angry Constituents – Politico
- With Orders, Investigations and Innuendo, Trump and G.O.P. Aim to Cripple the Left – Washington Post
Views and Analysis
- USAID Ruling May Be Beginning of the End for Musk – Noah Feldman, Bloomberg
- More Than a Dozen Judges Have Said Trump and Co. Probably Broke the Law – Aaron Blake, Washington Post
- Trump Officials Justify the Threat of a Recession - but They'd Feel the Pain, Too – Zachary Wolf, CNN
- So, What Is Stagflation, Anyway, and Why Is It So Scary? – Elisabeth Buchwald, CNN
- Trump's Move to Fire Democrats Puts FTC's Independence in Doubt – Julian Mark and Will Oremus, Washington Post
- Fear, Chaos and Missing Paperwork: DOGE Stories From Federal Workers – Michelle Singletary, Washington Post
- Why Washington and the Business World Are Freaking Out About Trump's FTC Firings – Nate Robson, Politico
- If Trump's Serious About Greenland, Then Here's a Serious Offer – Washington Post
- Democrats Want to Revolt. Here's What Not to Do – Ramesh Ponnuru, Washington Post
- Move Fast and Break the Mortgage Market – David Dayen, American Prospect
- 'This Is Worse': Trump's Judicial Defiance Veers Beyond the Autocrat Playbook – Amanda Taub, New York Times