The MeidasTouch Podcast
AFT President Randi Weingarten on Trump Threats to Gut the Department of Education
Sat, 08 Mar 2025
MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on young voters turning against Trump as he destroys their educational opportunities including gutting the Department of Education and Meiselas speaks with AFT President Randi Weingarten about how massive education cuts by Trump are hurting red states and blue states alike. Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: Why are young voters turning against Trump?
Some new data out, young voters are one of the largest groups turning against Donald Trump. Almost a 70% disapproval rating for Donald Trump among young voters. And maybe it's because Donald Trump is stealing their hopes, dreams, aspirations, future. Education. I mean, Donald Trump's out there every day attacking education.
This was him recently in the Oval Office saying Linda McMahon, who has recently been confirmed as secretary of education, should use her job to get rid of her job and to gut and destroy and abolish the Department of Education. Here's Trump saying it.
Why nominate Linda McMahon to be the Education Department Secretary if you're going to get rid of the Education Department Secretary?
Because I told Linda, Linda, I hope you do a great job and put yourself out of a job. I want her to put herself out of a job, Education Department. So we're ranked number 40 out of 40 schools, right? We're ranked number one in cost per pupil. So we spend more per pupil than any other country in the world. And we're ranked at the bottom of the list. We're ranked very badly.
And what I want to do is let the states run schools. I believe strongly in school choice. But in addition to that, I want the states to run schools. And I want Linda to put herself out of a job.
Fact check, states already run schools. Donald Trump has no clue what the Department of Education does. Here was Linda McMahon earlier saying that she does intend to abolish her own department. Let's show you that.
So we've heard that he could be signing this executive order today to abolish the Department of Education. Is that coming today?
I don't know. I don't want to get ahead of the president. I think you'd have to check with the White House. I think he certainly intends to sign the order, and we've talked about it. He's made it crystal clear since the time he was running for president that this is his intent.
You know, look, and she's talking about the draft executive order to abolish the Department of Education that the Wall Street Journal got their hands on. There's also just a cruelty element. They're like enjoying taking away billions of dollars of educational resources that help people and lunch programs and things like that. Like this is MAGA Republican Senator Kennedy saying, you know,
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Chapter 2: What are Trump's plans for 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
you saw that kids are basically saying, I'm having none of this because they see their futures being snatched.
No, I teach a law class to undergrads in Southern California. And one of the topics we were discussing was a topic involving Title IX. And I got a question that was very different from questions in any other year that I taught, which is, well, what happens if the Department of Education is abolished?
And what's the point of everything you're teaching us about this and any other aspect about what the Department of Education does? So I don't necessarily want to focus this interview on the title.
aspect but just generally when we hear them talking about though abolishing the department of education you talked about some of those programs there what does it mean not just for blue states but for red states and all americans like you saw that clip there the lady from the red state in kentucky who said i didn't realize this was going to happen to me what's going to happen so essentially um
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.
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.
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...
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
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