On Trump's Order, Education Dept Grabbed Off Street, Sold Into Salvadoran Supermax
Administration denies knowledge. You know, in general.
Donald Trump yesterday signed an executive order aimed at shutting down the US Department of Education. For once, Trump actually acknowledged that only Congress can actually eliminate a Cabinet department that it created, so the order actually tells Education Secretary Linda McMahon to wreck as much of the agency as she can get away with while waiting on Congress to finish the job. It’s not clear that any such bill can actually pass — and it’s even possible Democrats could, conceivably, actually filibuster it. McMahon earlier this month shitcanned about 1,300 staff at the department, which combined with earlier firings and buyouts reduced its employees by half.
In a particularly gross bit of theater, Trump signed the order in the East Room of the White House flanked by two rows of children sitting at school desks, isn’t that adorable? It was a remarkably ethnically diverse group of kids, so we can only assume that the White House staff responsible are now under investigation for promoting DEI.
Trump said, as he prepared to delight the children,
“It sounds strange, doesn’t it? Department of Education. We’re going to eliminate it.” […] Before he signed the order, Trump turned to the children and asked, “Should I do this?”
Introducing McMahon, Trump said that “hopefully she will be our last secretary of education.” He vowed “to find something else for you, Linda.”
All very merry and delightful, like getting a super deluxe train set for Christmas and immediately smashing it with a sledgehammer.
Trump lied that even “the Democrats know it’s right, and I hope they’re going to be voting for it, because ultimately it may come before them.” That’s one of his favorite weird little rhetorical habits; not even he believes it, but someone must have told him he can alter reality by insisting people “know” his dumb opinions are the truth. But it’s irritating enough that we remarked on it, so now he’s controlling your mind, dear readers.
Following the signing ceremony, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), who chairs the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, hurried to Twitter so he could promise he’d introduce a bill to kill the department “as soon as possible.” Any such bill would need at least seven Democrats to avoid a filibuster, or Senate leadership would have to do away with the legislative filibuster.
Goopers might also try to kill the Education Department as part of their planned Great Big Tax Cuts reconciliation bill, which can pass on a simple majority, but since that would be a policy matter going far beyond taxing and spending, it shouldn’t qualify for reconciliation. Not that we’re terribly confident Republicans will worry about such procedural niceties.
But red states still have public schools, many of which depend on the roughly 10 percent of funding schools get from the federal government, especially in rural areas. And the student loan program is administered by the Education Department too, so GOP lawmakers will definitely be hearing from superintendents and from college presidents urging them not to eliminate the department. Apart from the fundagelical crazies who make up much of the GOP base, parents of all political stripes also broadly support public schools, so there will be enormous pushback on legislators who are already being flooded with angry feedback from constituents.
As the AP details, a range of recent polling shows that most Americans oppose dismantling the Education Department, although the opposition is strongest among Democrats and independents, while Republicans, the only Americans whose opinion sometimes matters to Trump, are generally in favor.
White House Minister of Lies Karoline Leavitt explained to reporters that the department’s
“critical functions” would continue, including the enforcement of civil rights laws and oversight of student loans and Pell grants.
“The Department of Education will be much smaller than it is today,” Leavitt said, adding that the order directed McMahon “to greatly minimize the agency. So when it comes to student loans and Pell grants, those will still be run out of the Department of Education.”
A “senior administration official” assured NBC News that the EO won’t affect Title I grants to schools with a large percentage of low-income students — that’s frequently rural schools, despite GOP blather about Failing Urban Schools (and here is where your editrix inserts her usual plea to help fund her children’s very Title 1 Detroit Public Urban School through the magic of pizza) — or the department’s mandate to ensure that students with disabilities receive a “free appropriate public education” as required by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
Some 7.5 million kids with physical and learning disabilities are helped by the Education Department’s assistance with special education and individualized education plans (IEPs), but if Trump and the Project 2025 crew have their way, that could change drastically. Project 2025 called for special education funding to shift to HHS, which has already been cut dramatically, and for most funding for both Title I and special education to be converted to block grants, which generally allow more fuckery by states that might choose to divert the money to other things, like perhaps a nice no-show speech by Brett Favre.
Worse, IDEA’s requirement that students with disabilities receive an equal education is already not being met or funded in most states, and it only applies to public schools. Trump is all in on the “school choice” scam, which shifts public education funding to pay for private school tuition — mostly subsidizing tuition already being paid by well-off families, not helping mythical poor parents who seek to escape those allegedly failing public schools.
As we mention, private schools don’t have to educate any students with disabilities at all, so when federal education dollars are block granted and then shifted to “school choice,” the already inadequate support for kids with disabilities will be chopped even further. That’s going to hurt parents in red states too, since disabilities are not merely a liberal affectation.
But while that’ll certainly matter to millions of parents, it isn’t a concern for Trump and his fascist allies, and those allies are becoming increasingly open about their love of eugenics. Consider this clip from Fox News this week, where Greg Gutfeld gave the game away and laughed about it:
JESSICA TARLOV: When I hear Republicans out there talking about their plan for education in America, I don't hear them talking about making sure disabled kids have access to a public education. I don't hear them talking about empowering
GREG GUTFELD (interrupting): —Because we're against it.
TARLOV: I know you are. Thank you for admitting it in such a public forum.
GUTFELD: (very pleased-with-himself laughter)
The contempt is right in the open now, and it’s of a piece with Trump’s belief that some people with disabilities, including children, should just die and save the rest of us a lot of money and trouble.
[NBC News / AP / New Yorker / Nikki McCann Ramirez on Bluesky]
Yr Wonkette is funded entirely by reader donations. If you can, please become a paid subscriber, or if a one-time donation works better for you, we’d love that too!
It’s always guys like Gutfeld, who looks like he was born from the union of his dad and the sock he jerked off in, that are big on eugenics.
I am physically disabled but academically advanced.
Fuck Rethuglicons.