Randi Weingarten
Appearances
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2138 - Tulsi CONFIRMED, Trump Pushes UKRAINE DEAL
I should talk about widespread fraud and abuse. Oh, yeah.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2138 - Tulsi CONFIRMED, Trump Pushes UKRAINE DEAL
The irony here is at the same exact time as Elon Musk and his coders have information across basically that affects all Americans, he refuses to disclose his interests as someone who is a government contractor. who gets probably millions, if not billions of dollars in his own companies in terms of all of this. So number one is to try to stop the data breach. That's number one.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2138 - Tulsi CONFIRMED, Trump Pushes UKRAINE DEAL
And number two is to try to actually get Congress to do the kind of accountability on all of this. But that's why we're going to the courts to try to get the courts to interpret the law and stop this invasion of privacy.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Holds Disaster Presser for Unthinkable Order
So when you get to education, it's like the epitome of taking away opportunity. As you said, the states run schools right now. Localities run schools right now. The federal government, the law that we did in a bipartisan way that we helped shepherd through in the last days of the Obama administration, says that the Department of Education can't do curriculum.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Holds Disaster Presser for Unthinkable Order
It can't be the human resource officer of schools. It basically is there to fill in opportunity gaps and to ensure that a kid who feels schmiced, a kid who feels like there's an anti-Semitic incident that happened, a kid who is disabled or a kid with disabilities who's not getting the services, they can go to the Department of Education and say, help me.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Holds Disaster Presser for Unthinkable Order
And the funding, and this will be my last point, the funding is for poor kids. The funding is for kids with disabilities. The funding is for career tech ed pathways. The funding is for kids who are trying to become English proficient. The funding is for rural kids.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Holds Disaster Presser for Unthinkable Order
The funding is for kids who are going to college as the first one in their families, the first generation to go to college, and they're trying to make it work and have a little scholarship. That's why you saw that kids are basically saying, I'm having none of this because they see their futures being snatched.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
We may not believe a word that he's saying, but he's a master salesman. So our job is to actually really fight for and lift up who are the champions of the working class and how do we actually, and I'll use a teacher, I'll use something I learned as a school teacher. It's not, you meet people where they are and it's frankly not what you say, it's what people hear.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
And so a lot of folks, you know, they are fighting for, every single day to get better wages, decent conditions for their members. And they see this strategy that they're using as a more efficacious one. And my job is to actually not be oppositional every single day to Donald Trump. I mean, I've said to Linda McMahon publicly that we could do work together on issues like career tech ed.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
We shouldn't have college, we shouldn't have high school be only about college prep. High school should be about opening the aperture to do different kind of pathways. And if she's interested in that, she should be working with us on that. So I think that the real issue becomes what is the value system and what are the values that we believe in?
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
And if we believe in our democracy and we believe in voice for people and we believe in fairness for people and we believe in opportunity for people, that is what I am driving to. And then you see whose side is Sue on. I don't think Donald Trump is on the side of workers. I think that's become more and more obvious every single day.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
And I think you're seeing that in the polling that we just saw that you put up in terms of kids. But we have to prove that to people. People are cynical, and that's part of our job.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
Well, first, let me just say thank you for doing all this and thank you for putting the truth out. But when I see video clips like this, I want to go, ah! Because, you know, what the department, what people did not vote, for making their lives worse. They felt that the country is really divided. I mean, you guys know that better than anyone.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
But if you look at the small slice of the electorate that actually made the decision that put Trump over the top in the different states, as well as in the popular vote, you heard overwhelmingly My life and my family's life has gotten harder. I want to get ahead. I want the American dream.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
I don't want to have my income go all for egg prices or for childcare or, you know, the cost of a home if I can get it or the cost of a car. People want to have a better life. And what you see over and over again in his first actions, it's not just the cruelty. It's not just the chaos. It's not just the confusion.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
It's that all of these actions individually and taken together are going to make it harder for Americans. It's going to make it harder for rural Americans or poor Americans or working class Americans to get the education their kids deserve. It's going to make it harder to actually get Social Security. It's going to make it harder to actually work.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
have a good job with decent benefits when, you know, the bottom is being pulled out of both Social Security as well as Medicare and Medicaid. So when you get to education, it's like the epitome of taking away opportunity. As you said, The states run schools right now. Localities run schools right now.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
The federal government, the law that we did in a bipartisan way that we helped shepherd through in the last days of the Obama administration... says that the Department of Education can't do curriculum. It can't be the human resource officer of schools.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
It basically is there to fill in opportunity gaps and to ensure that a kid who feels schmiced, a kid who feels like there's an anti-Semitic incident that happened, a kid who is disabled or a kid with disabilities who's not getting the services, they can go to the Department of Education and say, help me. And the funding, and this will be my last point, the funding, the funding is for poor kids.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
The funding is for kids with disabilities. The funding is for career tech ed pathways. The funding is for kids who are trying to become English proficient. The funding is for rural kids. The funding is for kids who are going to college as the first one in their families, the first generation to go to college, and they're trying to make it work and have a little scholarship. That's why
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
you saw that kids are basically saying, I'm having none of this because they see their futures being snatched.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
When they say abolish, so there's three things. Essentially, when they say abolish the Department of Education, I'm a civics teacher, AP Gov, Clara Barton High School, Brooklyn, New York. If you look at the Constitution, it's the Congress who appropriates. It's a Congress that makes laws. The president signs it and executes the law.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
But it's really only the Congress that can abolish the Department of Education. So but what the president can do and what they're doing and you see it in all of the, you know, with with the chainsaw that Elon Musk used, you know, over and over again in these last month or so, they can make government basically ineffective, not work by a thousand cuts. And that's what they're doing.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
So if you essentially fire Trump. the entire staff or 80% of the staff of Social Security, and somebody needs to get their Social Security card, they're not going to be able to get it in a timely way. If you fire everybody who's doing Hurricane Watch, you're not going to have Hurricane Watch. If you fire everybody at USAID, the farmers...
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
who are basically selling their foodstuffs to USAID because they don't have a market in the United States, they're not going to be able to do that. And the same is true in terms of education. If you fire everybody or you make it non-feasible for it to work, then none of the laws that are supposed to be affected or effectuated by the department will work. So
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
If Title I is supposed to go to like Truman High School or to a high school in Staten Island, and there's supposed to be $5 million that goes there, and all of a sudden it doesn't, and they don't have the money, then that means the programs go away.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
So that means the reading programs, the computer programs, the after-school programs, all the programs that are funded by Title I, and every school teacher in America understands what that means. They go away. The same in terms of the programs for kids with disabilities under IDEA.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
If a school system or a school, because these things go directly to schools, if the funding goes away, a kid doesn't get physical therapy or occupational therapy. And to your point about red states versus blue states, more of this money goes to red states. So I've said to our folks in red states in particular, go to your school board because states and localities run schools.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
Go to your school board. Ask them what's going to happen. How much money are we going to lose if we don't have Title I? If we don't have IDEA and how is that money going to be replaced? Is it going to be property taxes raised in Jackson, Mississippi? Is it going to be property taxes raised in Montgomery, Alabama? How are we going to have that funding that helps kids in schools?
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
Well, number one, the... We've been filing lawsuits on a timely basis when we see an action that we think we can, that we need to raise ruckus about. And so... It's it's both the court, but it's the court of public opinion that is as I mean, the courts are important. You and I are both lawyers. The courts are really important. The rule of law is really important.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
And and and we have an obligation to actually make sure that democracy, that that we don't lose the republic. Sorry for being so. you know, for being so emotional about this. So the courts are really important because they basically are the umpire. They call balls and strikes. But it's a court of public opinion, as well as the Congress, that we have to work with as well.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
They are the checks and balances of a government run amok, a government not doing what the people want. So
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
For example, number one, when we saw that Elon Musk was stealing, appropriating, taking, whatever word you want to use, jeopardizing private information of individuals, whether it was social security information, whether it was taxes, or whether it was in the Department of Education, when parents filed
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
for financial aid for their kids, when you file for a student loan, all that information goes to the Department of Education. Now it's all in Doge's hands. Nobody put that information out to give it to the government to weaponize it. So we filed a lawsuit saying, stop. And we got a temporary restraining order against Doge to stop giving them that financial and personal information.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
That was number one. Number two, we filed a lawsuit when we saw that February 14th Dear Colleague letter, which essentially said, it's like they have weaponized the words diversity, inclusion, equity, to essentially say you can't teach any of the history of the United States of America if that history is about discrimination. So you can't teach Jim Crow.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
You can't teach the effects of the Civil War. Now, how do you not teach that if you are a history teacher, about America? And how do you not teach about American exceptionalism in terms of how we change that? So we filed and said, no, how do you put teachers in this situation, history teachers in this situation, that we're going to get in trouble if we actually teach honest history?
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
So we've been filing based upon... the issues and the things that really affect people as opposed to waiting for the big headlines.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
Well, let me say this. And I've been a Democrat all my life, and I've had the honor for 25 years between a local leadership and now a national leadership to be the elected leader who champions educational opportunity and economic opportunity, equal opportunity, all every single day. All of us, we're not monolithic. We have
The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
a responsibility as labor leaders to serve our members and to help them get the best life they can get. And I would argue to help our communities have that as well. That's our job. And so there's a lot of people we all represent who are allured by and who like Trump's passion. They think it's, you know, they think he's authentic and he's a master salesman.