Evening Edition: Trump Orders Dismantling Of The Education Department
14:01 Share

Thanks to IP.

Learn more at phrma.org slash ipworkswonders. Can say to my new Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, hey, find a keto-friendly restaurant nearby and text it to Beth and Steve. And it does without me lifting a finger. So I can get in more squats anywhere I can. One, two, three. Will that be cash or credit? Credit.

I'm Rachel Campos-Duffy. I'm Jason Chaffetz. I'm Maria Bartiromo, and this is the Fox News Rundown.

Thursday, March 20th, 2025. I'm John Saucier. President Trump is shaking up the federal government in a big way by signing an executive order that would do away with the Department of Education. The president believes that power should be given to the states as studies show learning levels are not looking very good. But will this move actually get any Democratic support? There is no Democratic support. There's going to be no support from teachers union or teachers groups. No, there's no support whatsoever.

This is the Fox News Rundown, Evening Edition.

♪♪♪

♪♪♪

President Donald Trump taking executive action to abolish the Department of Education ahead of this controversial executive order. The president said Pell grants resources for students with special needs and all Title I funding will be fully preserved. Beyond these core necessities, my administration will take all lawful steps to shut down the department. We're going to shut it down and shut it down as quickly as possible. It's doing us no good. We want to return our

our students to the states. Democrats on Capitol Hill have been outspoken about their opposition to this plan, and they're planning to fight it in court and otherwise. No, he cannot actually do this. It was an act of Congress that created the Department of Education. So it has to be an act of Congress that dissolves the Department of Education. Our guest today is Edward Lawrence, chief White House correspondent for the Fox Business Network.

But what this executive order does do is it is the last step, the final step before dissolving the Department of Education. Now inside the order, it directs the education secretary to facilitate the closure of the department. It actually returns much of the authority for education back to the states

and it orders the uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits while this is all happening. It also prevents programs from receiving federal money to advance DEI or gender ideology. And this is all setting up what President Trump had campaigned on, and now he has done.

is to set the states are the ones that determine how we educate kids. They get all of the money to educate kids and putting it back on the states. There's been a lot of DEI money, Edward, that's been given to the department, gone through the Department of Education, trying to advance those initiatives in schools and in the education program. What's going to happen to those programs under this?

Well, they'll have to change or find funding somewhere else. I mean, you can get private donations to schools. It has happened. But yeah, if a school board wants to keep going with one of those policies, they're going to have to fund it themselves. No government grant money will be involved in that. And in fact, there could be an argument that this stops the money, the current money that the Education Department has just for those programs that

That's what this executive order does. But the president has in the past threatened to withhold all federal money from a district that keeps these programs going. So we'll have to see exactly how that plays out district by district and state by state. The president's argument so far for doing this is that states need to be able to control their own education system because they would do it better than the federal government. Why do you think President Trump believes that?

Yeah, well, the data. And basically the White House, the White House press secretary, Caroline Leavitt, President Donald Trump has come out and said that that's the data. They're looking at how atrociously bad...

And that's my words, but school students in school are doing in general. For example, I give you an example of this. This is what the White House points to. Thirteen year olds math scores nationally are the lowest level in 21 years for that same age group. Thirteen year olds reading scores remain at the lowest level in more than 30 years since the Department of Education was founded. You know, the people that administer the tests even nationally have come out and said that there are no signs of

of improvement over the last couple of years. So this has the White House, or this is the ammunition the White House needed to say, look, we're just going to send the money to the states. We're going to let states deal with the education and try and fix this problem at the state level. Yeah. And the Department of Education had a lot of money, $268 billion annual budget for the 2024 fiscal year. So I can see the argument and I get the strategy as well. Just go ahead and do it and maybe try and sell it to the voters. But what

What is expected to happen after this? And now it seems like this Trump 2.0 administration had this pattern quite a bit where they'll just go ahead and sign an executive order and let the legal process play out. Is there more than that in this instance? Well, no, that's exactly what's going to happen, because the the president of the American Federation of Teachers Union, she she said, quote, in a post on X, quote,

Mr. President, we will see you in court. Educational groups have spoken out against this. The National Education Association president, Becky Pringle, for example, she says, quote, "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 service rights protections. I can tell you the White House pushing back against that statement. White House officials telling me that the Department of Education does not directly educate students. So eliminating this would basically then send it on to the states and push that money directly to the states without that inner middleman, so to speak.

Is it smart to cut out the Department of Education? In his efforts to reduce government spending, President Trump signs an executive order to do away with a department that he doesn't believe America is getting its money's worth with. We're discussing this move today with Fox Business Network Chief White House Correspondent Edward Lawrence, who will educate us much more on this topic straight ahead.

Thousands of U.S. businesses like Fender, Bissell, and Herman Miller are increasing their sales by reaching over 1 billion consumers globally on Alibaba's online marketplace. In just one year alone, American businesses sold billions of dollars worth of goods on Alibaba's e-commerce platforms. More sales mean more American jobs, higher wages, and a stronger U.S. economy. Learn more at alibabapowersbusinesses.com.

Now, and again, this has to play out legally, but say it does stick somehow or Congress moves and makes it so that the education department happens, makes it so the education department is now gone and is transferred to the states. Have we heard anything of what states are planning to do? I mean, they would, I guess, use federal money to make their own education department. Many states already have that sort of thing. Any idea on that? Or are we just way too early to know how this would look at a state level?

Way too early, but I can tell you that the White House press secretary, Caroline Leavitt, has said that they're going to reduce the amount of total spending going to education through this. So there will still be money going to states. There will be extra money that states haven't seen yet.

you know, as of yet, but extra money going to it. But the Department of Education itself will not be funded. So the total money for education will shrink, even though states will see more money coming into them. So I think you have a number of states that are just waiting and seeing how much money they get, how they can use it. Are their strings going to be attached to that money? And that's what they're going to wait for. The onus now is really going to be on Congress in order to take action

and eliminate the Department of Education. And we'll have to see if it makes it into that big, beautiful bill that President Trump has been talking about, or if it's going to be a side bill that gets through. But at this moment, this year, Congress is controlled by Republicans. So we'll see how it plays out. We're speaking today with Edward Lawrence. He's our chief White House correspondent for the Fox Business Network. Edward, where does the actual education secretary, Linda McMahon, stand on all this? Because

It's kind of a strange job. She's almost like the board member who has to liquidate a company or something like that, right? What's she been talking about during this whole process, which now is coming to a head today? She signed up for it. And in fact, last month, she was in the Oval Office on February 2nd with President Trump, where he said basically that we've ranked very badly. He went through it. The states would be better running schools, he believes. They'll be stronger in that. He said...

I want Linda to put herself out of a job. She was standing right there. She's all for it. She believes that this is what needs to happen. And she believes that she should be the last secretary of education in a presidential cabinet. Well, she's just very well, very well, maybe, although they're going to have to overcome a filibuster, possibly in the Senate, if in fact it does get that far. But who knows? I mean,

You look at it kind of on a grand scale, Edward, and you think they've spent so much money and as the results are getting worse, it's kind of that argument of if you continue to do the same thing and it doesn't work, it's lunacy, right? So might as well try something else. But then on the other side, you're saying we're taking money away from education. The kids scores are already so bad. How is that actually going to help?

The Department of Education, since it has been formed in 1979, got $3 trillion from taxpayer money. And you have reading scores for 13-year-olds worse than they were in 1979 nationally. So they've been keeping track of this longer than the department has been active. And, you know, there's been no progress. So is the money well spent? That's a

Probably a pretty good question. Where does it go? What's it do? Could it be used in other places? And if it went to the states, could they do it better? And the president is betting that that's going to be the case. Any sense of any sort of Democratic support for this idea? No, no, there's no. I don't think so.

There is no Democratic support. There's going to be no support from teachers union or teachers groups. No, there's no support whatsoever. But, you know, we'll have to see what the public believes. I mean, the public has so far, you look at the president's poll numbers, he's got he's at the highest rating he's ever had ever.

as president currently. So and he's making these massive changes. So this clearly maybe is an indication. This is what voters wanted. This is what the president's bringing. Now, if it doesn't get results in a year, year and a half, if he doesn't show the results, then I think you might see voters turn against him. But at the moment, they're hopeful for his new ideas, his fresh ideas, which this is that he's a disruptor. He's disrupting, obviously.

So we'll have to see how it works, the effects. Yeah, it's a good point. I guess we'll try it out, possibly, but still a lot has to be played out both in the court and also in the Congress. Edward Lawrence, Chief White House Correspondent for the Fox Business Network. Always love hearing from you. I hear those birds chirping in the lawn there, North Lawn of the White House. Sounds...

Sounds like a pretty nice scene. Hope that grass is green enough. It's a gorgeous day. It's a gorgeous... Spring is here. I'm glad to hear it. Thanks for being with us on the Fox News Rundown Evening Edition podcast. Thanks, Sean.

You've been listening to the Fox News Rundown. And now, stay up to date by subscribing to this podcast at foxnewspodcasts.com. Listen ad-free on Fox News Podcasts Plus on Apple Podcasts. And Prime members can listen to the show ad-free on Amazon Music. And for up-to-the-minute news, go to foxnews.com.

It is time to take the quiz. It's five questions in less than five minutes. We ask people on the streets of New York City to play along. Let's see how you do. Take the quiz every day at the quiz. Fox. Then come back here to see how you did. Thank you for taking the quiz.