The Rachel Maddow Show
Trump fires 1,300 at Department of Education; programs expected to suffer with staff gutted
Wed, 12 Mar 2025
Plus, House Republicans literally alter time to avoid responsibility for Trump wrecking the economy
Chapter 1: What is the humorous story about Donald Trump from the 1980s?
thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. Really, really, really happy to have you here. Man, there is so much to get to today. It has been such an incredible news day. There's so much to get to, and a lot of it is really terrible. To buoy ourselves for that, to get ourselves ready for that, you want to start with something, Fenny? Let's just do it. Let's start with something funny. Okay.
I know there's a lot of terrible things to talk about. I want to start with something funny from the 80s. So it's 1987. A real estate developer in New York City named Donald Trump takes his first trip to Moscow in what is then the Soviet Union. By all accounts, he kind of falls in love with the place. He decides he wants to build a hotel there or something. Who knows?
The following year, 1988, Donald Trump is back in New York, and the leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, is going to come to New York. He's coming to New York to participate in the United Nations General Assembly. And on the occasion of that visit, Mikhail Gorbachev coming to New York City, Donald Trump decides to invite him over, because he's going to be in town.
You know, even though Mikhail Gorbachev is the leader of the Soviet Union and Donald Trump is real estate guy in New York City, Donald Trump apparently convinces himself that Mikhail Gorbachev is going to do this. They're going to hang out. That, yes, Gorbachev has to go to the United Nations to do head of state things. But also, sure, since he's around, he'll drop by Donald Trump's apartment.
Donald Trump is so convinced of this that when a Mikhail Gorbachev impersonator comes to Trump Tower to make fun of the whole situation, Donald Trump himself comes out of Trump Tower onto the sidewalk and greets the Mikhail Gorbachev impersonator as if he is the real Gorbachev, who's really there to come see him, the real leader of the Soviet Union.
Because sure, yeah, that guy would just pull up outside your apartment and beep, beep, come say hi.
The home of hyperbole and mansion to the master himself, Donald Trump, who made a special effort to whiz down from his penthouse office and greet our guest. Mr. Trump is coming now.
Mr. Trump, how are you? How are you? Great honor.
You've just come down very briefly. We were on our way. You wanted a couple of minutes.
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Chapter 2: How did Trump's tariff policies affect the U.S. economy?
stock markets because of Trump's tariff chaos, today he was not at all chastised by yesterday's market reaction. His pronouncements and mumblings on tariffs got even more chaotic and incoherent, and the Dow dropped yet another 500 points today. And then at the end of the day today, after two days of that, Republicans in Congress did something truly amazing.
Republicans are facing this political situation now, right, where the markets are tanking. Economists are forecasting a Trump recession. Literally, he inherited an economy that was the envy of the world. And in less than two months, Wall Street's in a tailspin, and economists are upping their predictions of a U.S. recession by double digits per day.
So Republicans are facing a political situation in which their party appears to be doing this, right? The U.S. economy looks like it's being destroyed for fun by Donald Trump because someone once told this guy a thing he didn't understand about tariffs. And so now he's doing this and real people are feeling the pain. But here's the thing.
The way Trump is able to put these tariffs on-off, on-off, up-down, postponed exceptions, no exceptions, on-off, on-off, the reason he's able to change these ruinous policies as quickly as he can pronounce them is because he declared an economic emergency that gives him the power to unilaterally declare these tariffs. That kind of emergency, though, it also has kind of an eject button.
When you declare that kind of emergency, Congress also gets the power to call the emergency off to stop the president from doing this. So Congress could just vote and declare this so-called emergency to be over, and then Trump would no longer have the power to single-handedly destroy the U.S. economy in the way that he has been.
So because of that, because Congress has the power to call off the emergency, taking away Trump's tariff power, Democrats in Congress planned to make Congress vote on that exact thing. They planned to force a vote.
So Republicans, who mostly say they don't like tariffs, Republicans would be forced to either go along with the tariffs anyway because Trump is doing them, or they'd cast their vote to stop Trump from doing these tariffs. What would Republicans do confronted with the need to make up their mind on a vote like that, right?
How would they deal with not just the prospect of opposing Trump, which inherently makes them cry and hide immediately, but then on the other side of it, the other side of that vote is this very real pain and loss of money. And, you know, they and their constituents and the businesses in their district are all feeling and facing it's real.
So Republicans in Congress have the power to stop Trump from doing what he's doing on tariffs. What will they do with that power? The Democrats are going to force them to take a vote on this. What are they going to do with that power? Headline. Republicans quietly cede power to cancel Trump's tariffs, avoiding a tough vote. Cede power.
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Chapter 3: Why did Republicans alter congressional procedures regarding tariffs?
I mean, with what Trump is doing right now, whatever happens to the markets and to your retirement account and to prices in the stores and the weakening of the dollar and failing small businesses where you live and failing large businesses the longer this goes on. I mean, just remember, Republican members of Congress had the power very simply to stop him from doing this.
And they explicitly gave that power away so they wouldn't have to do it. One of the places where Trump is getting stopped every day and now with increasing frequency is in the courts. You might remember one of the very first court challenges to Trump that we covered here on this show in recent weeks.
One of the very first people who Trump tried to fire and she challenged it in court saying, you don't have the legal right to fire me. I don't work for you. I'm taking you to court. One of those first challenges. early cases, you might remember from the show, was Gwynne Wilcox. She's a member of the National Labor Relations Board.
And Trump announced right away, as soon as he was sworn in, that he was firing her from the National Labor Relations Board. And she said, oh, no, you aren't. You do not have that right. She immediately took him to court. came to us here on the show to talk about it when she filed that case against him.
Well, that case just a few days ago became one of the many court cases that Donald Trump has lost and that the people challenging him have won. And in the case of Gwynne Wilcox, that led to Gwynne Wilcox going back to work yesterday in Washington at the headquarters of the National Labor Relations Board, where she has been reinstated because she fought him and she won.
And when she got reinstated and she went back to work yesterday, the whole dang office came out to cheer for her and clap and celebrate that she beat Trump and she's therefore back at work and that agency is therefore back at work.
I feel wonderful. This is where I belong. I belong here at the NLRB. I am so happy to be here.
National Labor Relations Board member Gwen Wilcox reinstated at her job at the National Labor Relations Board after she sued Donald Trump and won to challenge her firing and get reinstated. Today was another day of just loss after loss after loss for Donald Trump in court.
Today, one federal judge ruled that Doge, the austerity and government demolition force run by the president's top campaign donor, Doge must disclose its records. They had structured Doge in such a way that they thought they'd be able to keep everything they're doing secret from the public, that no records would have to be shown to the public about their work.
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Chapter 4: What legal challenges is Trump facing in court?
By the vaccine conspiracy theorist who Trump put in as health secretary, is that measles epidemic now is over 250 cases and two deaths? with the increasingly bizarre news of the cuts that they're making to food safety, of all things, under the leadership of Donald Trump Jr.
's hunting buddy, who Donald Trump thought was the best person to put in charge of food safety in this country, with all of these wildly unpopular things that they are doing every single day, even before you get to the president turning the South Lawn of the White House into a used car lot today to try to sell cars for his top campaign donor, I mean, with all of these...
just vile and unpopular and embarrassing things that they are doing. I think it's safe to say that more protesting against Donald Trump is probably to be expected. But you know, I think even if the opposition to Trump keeps growing and spreading and deepening the way it has been, I'm not sure we're gonna see a crowd like this anytime soon. This was the crowd that turned, look at this.
This was the crowd that turned out in Mexico City day before yesterday, on Sunday, to cheer for the president of Mexico, who is experiencing a huge upsurge in popularity in her own country since Trump started attacking Mexico with this tariff stuff and she started standing up to him.
It is making her way more politically powerful than anybody thought she could be at this moment as her country absolutely rallies in her patriotic defense. Similarly, the president of Ukraine is going through a huge boost in his own domestic popularity, his own popularity in Ukraine absolutely spiking as the people of Ukraine consolidate their support for him in the wake of Donald Trump and J.D.
Vance embarrassing themselves by haranguing President Zelensky in the Oval Office. Today there was a monumental, hugely important, just historic meeting of the military chiefs of what are now the most important countries in the West. It was a meeting basically of the army chiefs of the whole free world today. We naturally were not invited. This is the lead from Reuters about that meeting today.
Quote, more than 30 army chiefs among Washington's closest allies met in Paris today without their U.S. counterparts seeking to take on more responsibility over the Ukraine war, given President Donald Trump's unpredictability and rapprochement with Moscow.
The closed-door gathering of 34 army chiefs, including NATO alliance and EU members, as well as Japan and Australia, was a rare and possibly unprecedented convening without the United States. The free world is still standing up for Ukraine. They are just doing it now without us. Today in Saudi Arabia... Trump administration announced a plan for a ceasefire in Russia's war in Ukraine.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio meeting for some reason in Saudi Arabia. I don't know. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this plan is all good to go. As far as he's concerned, he just has to go run it by Russia now. You know, sit tight here for a second. I got to go check with my manager. I'm sure it'll all be fine.
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Chapter 5: How are protests against Trump and his policies spreading?
So I just thought people should hear from a member of Congress, especially if you're about to cut their Medicaid and their food assistance and education funding and parts of the Affordable Care Act. So we organized one at the edge of my district, knowing that across about seven minutes away was a city of 10,000 people in his district.
But Rachel, people from two hours away drove down from La Crosse and Tomah and Potosi and Platteville. People wanted to hear from a member of Congress. And if Derek Van Orden is not going to listen to his constituents, I felt at least I could lend an ear and make sure we're talking about what Derek's voting on. He's voting to cut Medicaid.
That's one out of three kids in Wisconsin, 55 percent of seniors in nursing homes. It's some really bad stuff.
I read some local press accounts of what was discussed at the town hall that you held and what kinds of issues people were raising with you. A lot of people were focusing on fears about those potential Medicaid cuts, given how many people in Wisconsin use Medicaid as their health insurance. And that's kids, that's old people, that's everybody in between.
What would you say emerged as the sort of themes that people were most concerned about and that would have talked to their Republican congressman about had he shown up?
cuts for Medicaid was huge, right? That's health care, long-term care for people in Wisconsin, especially in rural parts of Wisconsin, like the third congressional district that Derek Van Orden supposedly represents is. Also, I think people are really concerned about Veterans Affairs, you know, in the VA hospital.
People, because so many people have been fired who are on probationary employment, that when you call, you can't always get an appointment right now. And that's starting to affect the service of health care. But But one issue that wasn't even part of that Republican budget bill that really rose to the surface was Social Security, Rachel.
The reason it did is you got Elon Musk calling it a Ponzi scheme. You've got them cutting employees at Social Security, making it harder to get your benefits. But during the State of the Union, an awful lot of real estate was used by Donald Trump to repeat lies over and over and over again about people
you know, over 110 years old, up to 360 years old, supposedly getting Social Security when, you know, even by law, they don't write a check to anyone over 115. And it's been disproven by two different inspector generals, everything he said. Well, that tells a lot of people what they're really after is Social Security. And I think the biggest set of questions we had on Saturday was about that.
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Chapter 6: Why is the Department of Education facing mass layoffs?
Employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, same thing, sent a very similar note saying their office would be shut for the following week, just as the White House ordered the entire agency to stop all of its work. And sure enough, tonight, just after the 6 p.m.
deadline for Education Department workers to vacate their offices because of some security concern, Trump Education Secretary, the billionaire pro-wrestling executive Linda McMahon, announced that her department is cutting its workforce in half. They will begin firing more than 1,300 people from the Education Department tonight. And then, of course, she went straight to Fox News.
That was the president's mandate, his directive to me, clearly, is to shut down the Department of Education, which we know we'll have to work with Congress, you know, to get that accomplished. But what we did today was to take the first step of eliminating what I think is bureaucratic bloat.
And that's not to say that a lot of the folks, you know, it's a humanitarian thing to a lot of the folks that are there. You know, they're out of a job. But we wanted to make sure that we kept all of the right people, the good people.
You know, if you find yourself starting to feel a little tug on your heartstrings for those 1,300 people who are out of a job tonight at the Education Department, don't worry. We kept all the good people. We kept all the good people. The 1,300 people who are getting fired tonight, they just aren't—they're not good. They're not good. Who is this for?
The vast majority of the American people do not want this. A poll earlier this month, Reuters-Ipsos, earlier this month found that fully 66% of Americans oppose abolishing the education department. Nearly half of Americans strongly oppose it, while only 16% are strongly in favor of it.
This is not something Americans want, but Donald Trump is trying to do it anyway, apparently starting with firing fully half the people who work at that agency tonight. One of those people fired tonight. A union leader at the Education Department joins us live here next. Stay with us.
This is from NPR on the Trump administration's announcement tonight that they're firing 1,300 people from the U.S. Department of Education. Quote, Minutes later, AFGE Local 252 told NPR that Sharia Smith was laid off, along with all five of the chapter's other union officers. Joining us now is Sharia Smith. She's president of the union, representing 2,800 employees at the Education Department.
She served our country as an attorney for the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights until this evening. Ms. Smith, thank you so much for being here on tonight of all nights. I am sorry for what you're going through.
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Chapter 7: How are international leaders responding to Trump's policies?
Do you believe that your union or that the employees more broadly have recourse to fight these firings and have recourse to fight their efforts to abolish the department?
Well, absolutely, because their efforts are illegal. Again, since the new administration came into office, we have experienced mass terminations and unchecked unprofessionalism. People just not going by the rules, even this layoff, is not something that should have occurred. The layoff was not because of a budget shortfall.
The president can't just lay people off because he does not agree with them or he does not like the color of their skin or their gender. So, certainly, we are availing ourselves for— you know, of all recourse to challenge this and talking with attorneys, and we have been since the first round of layoffs on January 21st.
And so, you know, we'll be fighting, and we hope the American people will fight with us.
You know, Linda McMahon, in explaining what she's doing here, has also said that the American people should expect that there will be no interruption to any of the programs that the Education Department administers. I have to ask you if that is possible with what they're—even just what they're planning tonight, with half the workforce gone overnight.
Absolutely not possible. Since January 21st, our entire agency has been interrupted. We've been told not to work. We've had people who have been forced from working, even though there have been high performers. There's no way—we were already understaffed. There is no way we can continue operations at the levels that we had been when you have half the workforce and you have fired great people.
You have fired high performers. There's no way. If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.
Sharia Smith is the president of the AFGE union that represents Education Department employees. She's an attorney for the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights. She was fired this evening, but as she says, she believes that she and her colleagues have absolute recourse to fight back against these firings as illegal. Ms.
Smith, again, I am sorry for what you and your colleagues are going through tonight. Thank you for taking the time to talk us through it. And please stay in touch with us as this proceeds. I know this won't be the last we'll be hearing from you.
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