Meet the Press NOW – March 20

Welcome to Meet the Press Now. I'm Kristen Welker. We start with breaking news from the White House, where President Trump is about to hold an event from the East Room where he is expected to sign an executive order. The White House saying it's aimed at closing the Department of Education.

We should note, it would take an act of Congress to fully eliminate the department and the administration has already taken a number of steps to dramatically dismantle the department, including cutting half of its staff. The White House is also insisting that while the department will be, quote, greatly minimized, the president's actions today will not affect what it called the department's critical functions. Here's White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt with more. (INAUDIBLE) Any critical functions of the department such as that will remain.

But again, we're greatly reducing the scale and the size of this department. The same answer. Now, the president's push to eliminate the Department of Education is the latest in an escalating series of moves pushing the limits of executive power. While Mr.

Trump assails federal judges who question or challenge the legality of his actions, today the Justice Department submitted answers under seal to a judge who is trying to determine if the White House defied a court order tied to the president's use of a wartime authority to deport alleged gang members to a super prison in El Salvador. The president and his allies continue to call for that judge, who has served for decades on the bench, who was appointed by a Republican to be impeached. In an exclusive interview airing this Sunday on Meet the Press, I asked Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer about the White House's attacks on the judiciary. Here's some of what he told me earlier today.

This week, the president called to impeach a judge who ruled against him on deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members. As you know, Supreme Court Justice John Roberts released a rare statement rebuking the idea of using impeachment to settle judicial disagreements. Some constitutional scholars and fellow Democrats, Leader Schumer say this is a constitutional crisis. Do you agree as the United States in a constitutional crisis?

Yes, I do, Kristen. And democracy is at risk. Look, Donald Trump is a lawless, angry man. He thinks he should be king.

He thinks he should do whatever he wants regardless of the law. And he thinks judges should just listen to him. Now, we have to fight that back in every single way. And we actually have had over 100 cases in the courts where we've had a very good record of success.

So Donald Trump, infuriated by that success, said judges should be impeached. Let me tell Donald Trump and the American people, Democrats in the Senate will not impeach judges, full stop. President Trump said he would not defy a court order. Do you believe him?

I don't trust him. We have to watch him like a hawk. Defying court orders is why our democracy is at risk, and we'll have to do everything to fight back in that regard. You can watch my full interview with Leader Schumer on Sunday on Meet the Press.

And look for the... Yes, join us on Meet the Press. Joining me now is NBC News White House Correspondent Kelly O'Donnell and White House Correspondent Yamiche Alcindor is with us outside the Department of Education. Kelly O, let me start with you.

What can you tell us about this executive order? What are the key takeaways that people need to know? Well, one of the big takeaways is that we are seeing a rare time where the Trump administration is reducing the scope of one of the president's long-talked-about aims. He has campaigned on closing the Department of Education, which at times is a very popular idea in MAGA circles, conservative circles, where the argument is return the power to the states.

Even though the vast majority of funding and responsibility and deciding of curricula is done at the state level. So the president has long talked about wanting to close the Department of Education, told his secretary, Linda McMahon, you're going to have a very short job. She began her post calling it a final mission to unwind the Department of Education. Listening carefully today, when the president actually signs this and holds an event, it's not shuddering the Department of Education, it is significantly shrinking it.

That is still very consequential, but he's not able to fully close it. And today, an acknowledgement from Caroline Leavitt in a clip you played a short time ago that what are considered the critical functions, those are mandated by Congress, that those will stay under the auspices of a smaller Department of Education. And that includes things like civil rights protections, which are for all manner of civil rights issues, disabled students, students who have learning disabilities, issues of race or gender, any of those are handled by the Department of Education, along with special education is a prime area where they support states. And a lot of those critical functions, we are told, will go on in the Department of Education and not be spun off to other departments, which was an earlier idea the administration considered.

And Kelly, so important to point that out again and to reiterate it over and over again, this idea that President Trump cannot unilaterally shutter the Department of Education, that this will be a shrinking of the Department of Education with that. Yamiche, let me go to you. What would the impact of moving or eliminating so many of these services of the Department of Education be on K through 12 education and higher education? Well, Kristen, it's a really key question and it's really confusing because the Department of Education, some of its biggest roles are funding as well as enforcing civil rights law.

And the White House is saying today that those big functions are going to continue to function, albeit with a smaller staff and less budget. So the Department of Education is a number of things that we should walk people through sort of what they are. They provide loans and grants and work study programs. The White House says that's going to continue.

It runs a public student loan program. The White House says that's going to continue. It supports special education programs. That's going to continue.

Enforces civil rights law. Now there have been a lot of offices that have been closed and civil rights attorneys that I've talked to personally who have been laid off, but that's going to, they say, continue. And then the thing that we should underscore and we can't underscore it enough, that the Department of Education is hardly ever in a position where it is telling a school district, here's what you have to teach. And there's a lot of people who are excited about the Department of Education being eliminated, who don't understand that that is something that the Department of Education does not do.

It does not set curriculum that is local school boards. That is local school leaders. That being said, I've been talking to people outside the Department of Education today, students who have been protesting. They say that this really threatens the future of public education because even if the Department of Education says it's going to continue to do things like enforce civil rights law for special needs students or students with disabilities, if they have half a lawyer to do that, there's going to be a backlog that's going to actually mean, in fact, that a lot of students aren't going to get the necessary protections that they are supposed to get, that they're legally required to get.

So there's a real worry here that actual students are going to be harmed. And there's also a worry here that this is sort of just the beginning of the Department of Education being phased out because, again, this is one phase where they're saying these functions are going to continue. But I talked to a number of sources who tell me something like student loan debt. That was supposed to be something that was supposed to transfer over to the Department of Treasury.

It's still a big question, Kristen, of whether or not that's going to happen some way down in the future. Yeah. And Kelly, look, this move is not without political risk. The top 10 states that receive the greatest share of state education funding are all states that voted for President Trump in 2024.

Is the president or his allies concerned at all that this move could ultimately alienate the president's base? Well, that's one of the great contradictions here. There will likely be people who are supporters of the president who will hear today's announcement and hear the Department of Education is being closed. They won't necessarily get the sense of how it's being shrunk.

And that's for a lot of reasons about how this gets communicated and where people get their information and what the sense of the importance of this issue is. It also at times goes against the self-interest of communities. And a lot of the states that you cite there, some of them are rural. They may not have the tax base.

And that's where federal dollars augment what local communities can do to provide education for their students. As Yamiche pointed out, the curriculum is not decided at the national level. That's done by the local school boards and the principals and so forth. The national department, federal activity sometimes does the testing and the analysis of how students are performing.

But there is a risk that people in the states that voted for the president, people in places where they will see an impact here, may feel this. At the same time, making it a smaller reduction in the Department of Education is also going to cause a lot of what Yamiche was talking about, concerns about the backlog of the services they provide, concerns about displaced workers. Roughly half of the workforce at the federal level has been reduced by direct firing and by voluntary buyouts of employees. And they're not all in Washington, D.C.

They're around the country in different offices. And the department has closed about six regional offices from coast to coast. So one of the things we hear from the president often if you look back at his comments in office and on the campaign trail is how many buildings the Department of Education has. Maybe a bit of his real estate background coming back and wanting formalized more traditional way of saying perhaps he didn't have the authority to do this.

That's how they're going about making that argument in court. Yeah, part of the reason why Leader Schumer said today he does believe the country is already in a constitutional crisis. Garrett Graumbach, thank you so much for your great reporting. We really appreciate it.

We know those are fast-moving developments and we will have much more of my Sunday exclusive one-on-one interview with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer only on Meet the Press. Be sure to join us. Coming out, top Democrats on tour. You're looking at live pictures in Las Vegas where Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will be holding town halls as Democrats look to reboot their party and their brand.

We'll bring you there live next. You're watching Meet the Press now. Stay with us. Welcome back as President Trump pushes to the limits of his executive authority.

Democrats are still looking for a coherent message to push back as well as someone to lead the charge. Among them are progressive firebrand Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who are about to speak in Las Vegas as part of a multi-state, multi-day West Coast tour trying to mobilize voters around fighting the, quote, oligarchy as President Trump forges ahead with his second-term agenda. Joining me now is NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Melanie Zanonna, who's at one of those rallies in Las Vegas, Nevada. Mel, thanks so much for joining me.

So what exactly is the strategy here by Senator Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? What are you going to be watching for? Well, the overwhelming thing today is defeating Donald Trump and Trumpism. But AOC and Bernie Sanders are really trying to mobilize the grassroots into getting more involved in the political process.

And the message that we've heard so far from speakers has been a highly populist and progressive one, really geared towards working-class voters. The crowd here breaking out into multiple chants of, tax the rich. And, of course, this rally comes at a time of rising anger inside the Democratic Party, particularly after last week when the Democratic leadership in Washington backed down from a funding fight with President Donald Trump. But AOC and Bernie Sanders have been two Democrats who are stepping up to that fight and taking the charge and leading against Donald Trump.

And so it's no surprise that the crowd today is a huge turnout. In fact, they even had to switch venues because they had so many RSVPs, more than they anticipated. And a lot of people in the crowd have been to some of these Bernie Sanders events in the past. But I also talked to some people who said this is their first time ever coming to an event like this.

And so this is the exact type of voter that AOC and Bernie Sanders are trying to reach as they hope to channel anger into action. And, Mel, you know, there's been so much focus on Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez. There's even some buzz that she should try to primary Leader Schumer. What are you hearing about how she is seen broadly in terms of her future prospects?

Is that picking up some speed there? Yeah, there is no doubt a lot of speculation about AOC's political future. In fact, there were AOC 2028 pins being sold outside the venue. Now, her team insists that she is not plotting a primary against Chuck Schumer.

She's not organizing to run for president. She's not thinking about running for governor in 2026. But they also aren't ruling anything out. And meanwhile, back in Washington, even Democrats who were once skeptical of her now see her as one of their most effective message tools right now, especially as they are desperate for a messenger in the Trump 2.0 era, Kristen.

All right, Melanie Zanonna, thanks so much for that report from the road. We appreciate it. We'll continue to track what is happening there in Las Vegas. Joining me now is the Democratic Congresswoman from Washington and the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Susan DelBene.

Thank you so much for joining me, Congresswoman. Really appreciate it. Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Thank you for being here. Let me ask you about the news that Leader Schumer made with me earlier today before we get to the broader future of the party. He told me when I asked him, he does think the country is in the middle of a constitutional crisis because of this back and forth that we are seeing between President Trump and federal judges. What say you?

Do you think that the country is in a constitutional crisis? Well, you know, we're in a very dangerous place because we have Congress, a co-equal branch of government, not standing up. Republicans and not standing up to President Trump, not doing the job of oversight, even asking basic questions, bringing Elon Musk in and having speak to why he needs to access taxpayer information or Social Security information. Republicans have the Senate and they have the House majorities, but we are a co-equal branch and yet they refuse to stand up.

They seem to think their only job is to work for Donald Trump and not work for the people that they represent. And so that is a dangerous place for us to be, why it's so important that we continue to stand up and why, you know, my job, which is incredibly important, make sure we take back the majority in the House so that we have a part of Congress that's willing to stand up. Leader Schumer said in another interview on MSNBC earlier this week that his strategy is to, quote, keep at it as President Trump's approval ratings are dipping. Do you think that that's the right strategy?

Do you think that Democrats, broadly speaking, need to show more fight and are Senator Sanders and Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez embodying that type of fight right now? Well, we are hearing from folks all across the country, understandably, because people are scared. They're losing their jobs. They're seeing prices go up at the grocery store, at the gas pump, at the pharmacy counter because of the actions this administration has taken.

And stories are incredibly important because when we actually talk to folks about what's happening in our communities, the impact directly in our communities, that means that people are standing up. They're getting engaged and getting involved and speaking out. So we are sharing stories across the country, making sure that people understand the impacts that the decisions this president, Elon Musk and House Republicans have made on how they are impacting them. And it's important that we hold Republicans accountable for these actions.

And we are doing that. We're also recruiting great candidates to run all because one way that we put a tech on this president is to make sure we take back the majority in the House of Representatives. Do you think that Leader Schumer is the right person to be leading Democrats in the Senate right now? You know, we are united to stand up for working families, to stand up for the American people.

We're going to continue to work with Leader Schumer. He is the leader in the Senate. I think our focus needs to be on what Republicans are doing and stand up to the Republican actions. They're kind of shutting down of the government, the dismantling of the government they're putting in place and the dangerous impacts this is having on the American people.

All right. Congresswoman Susan DelBene, we really appreciate your being here. Please stick around if you can. We're going to dip into this event at the White House, which is underway.

If you have to go, no worries. But thank you for that. This is President Trump now expected to sign an executive order to begin the process of shuttering the Department of Education. Let's listen in.

In this country and we haven't for a long time. And we're pleased to be joined today by the woman who I chose because she's an extraordinary person. And hopefully she will be our last Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon. Linda.

Thank you. Thank you very much. That's another interesting statement. This is a very interesting opening, right?

But it's true. And people, you know, it's been amazing how popular this has been. And I tell people that this is what I'm doing today. And they say, oh, that's it's about time.

Everybody says it. Republicans and Democrats have said it. They're all saying it. Also with us are some terrific people.

Governors Greg Abbott. Greg, thank you very much. Governor Ron DeSantis. Thank you very much, Ron.

Mike Braun. Congratulations on your victory, Mike. That was a big one. Mike DeWine.

Thank you very much, Mike. Jeff Landry. Jeff, thank you very much, Jeff. Bill Lee.

Thank you. Governors, all governors. Brad Little. Brad, thank you very much.

Where are you, Brad? Hi, Brad. Jim Pylan. Thank you very much, Jim.

And Kim Reynolds. These are all people very interested in education. And I even see Dan Patrick over there. My friend, Dan Patrick.

We're joined also by Representatives Tim Walberg and Virginia Fox, Rick Allen, Michael Ruhle. And again, Dan Patrick. Thank you very much, Dan. You've been a great friend of ours.

And State Attorney General Ken Paxton. Ken, I see you there. Andrew Bailey. Andrew, what a job you've done, Andrew.

You've got some good cases going. You've done a great job. Thank you very much. And co-founder of Moms for Liberty, Tiffany Justice.

She's been a hard worker. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Tiffany.

When President Carter created the Federal Education Department in 1979, it was opposed by members of his own cabinet, as well as the American Federation of Teachers, the New York Times editorial board, and the famed Democrat Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. History has proven them right. Absolutely right. After 45 years, the United States spends more money on education by far than any other country and spends likewise And we're going to make them -- they'll do a job.

I think they'll do a job. And they'll go to sections of the state. For instance, New York, you'll have a Manhattan, and you'll have a Suffolk County, and you'll have a Nassau County, and you'll have Westchester County. You'll do four or five or six of them.

You have upstate New York and those counties, I think, are going to do very well. And I think, ultimately, Manhattan should do very well. But we'll break it down into sections. And I think it'll be really, really good.

And they're going to be probably the tougher ones. But I think they have a chance to do really well. But we're going to be returning education, very simply, back to the states where it belongs. And this is a very popular thing to do, but much more importantly, it's a common-sense thing to do, and it's going to work.

Absolutely, it's going to work. And I can tell you from dealing with the governors and others in the state, they want it so badly. They want to take their children back and really teach their children individually. Probably the cost will be half, and the education will be maybe many, many times better.

So we look forward to this. I want to just make one little personal statement. Teachers to me are among the most important people in this country. And we're going to take care of our teachers.

And I don't care if they're in the union or not in the union. That doesn't matter. But we're going to take care of our teachers. And I believe, I believe the states will take actually better care of them than they're taking care of right now.

And they'll work all sorts of systems and even merit systems. Those great teachers are going to be maybe a little bit better rewarded, and maybe that's the way it should be. But the states are going to make that decision. But we're going to love and cherish our teachers along with our children.

And they're going to work with the parents, and they're going to work with everybody else. And it's going to be an amazing thing to watch, and it's really going to be something special. And Linda, you're presiding over something that is so important, and you're going to do a fantastic job. Just like you have your whole life.

I know your whole life I've been watching you. I've been watching you for a long time. She's had nothing but success. So it's tremendous to have you.

And hopefully you won't be there too long, but we're going to find something else for you, Linda. Okay? So this will conclude what we are talking about with respect to our most cherished group of people, and that's our children. We want to have our children well-educated, and we want them to love going to school.

We have examples of it. Look at those beautiful, bright-eyed faces. They are so smart. They're so smart.

And with that, I'm going to come down and we're going to sign a very important document, and we're going to be on our way. People have wanted to do this for many, many years, for many, many decades. And I don't know, no president ever got around to doing it, but I'm getting around to doing it. So thank you very much.

And we can listen to President Trump's event at the White House, where he just signed that executive order to begin the process of dismantling the Department of Education. Important to note, he cannot unilaterally dismantle the department. He would need Congress's approval to do that. The president saying that U.S.

students are at the bottom of the list when it comes to their school readiness. He talked about the fact that the budget had exploded by 600%. He says we'll take a look at that number. He said that he's restoring education back to the states.

It's worth noting that the Department of Education already allows states to handle much of a student's education, from establishing schools and colleges to developing curricula, setting graduation requirements, determining state education standards and testing whether states are meeting education standards. You saw him there with the Education Secretary Linda McMahon, the president saying he hopes she will be the last secretary of education, saying we'll find something else for you once she is finished overseeing the dismantling of this agency. We now want to bring in former Secretary of Education and chancellor of the State University of New York, John King Jr. Thank you so much for joining me.

I really appreciate it. Thank you. Let me just get your reaction to this announcement by President Trump again signing that executive order aimed at beginning the process of dismantling the Department of Education. What do you think the biggest impact will be?

Well, as you point out, he actually can't unilaterally dismantle the Education Department. He can only do that with Congress. And I think what you're going to see is bipartisan support in Congress for maintaining the vital functions of the department, directing resources to vulnerable students, low-income students, students with disabilities, funding the Pell Grant program and the student loan program that makes it possible for Americans to access higher education, and civil rights enforcement, which has been the historical role of the department, the critical role ensuring that states and districts do right by all of their students. It's a protection against discrimination based on race or disability or gender.

Let me follow up with you on that point, because Caroline Levitt, the press secretary, said, look, the president was vowing that the critical functions of the department will be retained. Is that possible if you move to start the process of dismantling the Department of Education? Simply put, no. I mean, it's a disingenuous claim.

We already saw that playing out in this past week. They announced layoffs of a significant number of employees. They've laid off more than 1,300 people, including people who work on the free application for federal student aid, the doorway, if you will, into the federal student loan program. That FAFSA broke last week.

And the reason that happened is because there wasn't the right team in place to keep it going. And then when it broke, it took them longer than it should have to fix because they reached out to people who would ordinarily fix it, and they weren't there anymore because they were laid off. So it's already proving false that you can preserve the functions of the department without the people who work at the department. You heard the president there say that the discretionary budget had, quote, exploded by 600%.

It's my understanding the Department of Education accounts for about four percent of the federal budget, a very small amount. Can you give us your sense? Is that accurate that the discretionary budget has, quote, unquote, exploded by 600 percent? Has it become too expensive?

I'm not exactly sure what the president was referring to there. What is clear is a program like the Pell Grant program, it has grown over time as the cost of higher education has increased. But the Pell Grant program is making it possible for low income and middle income Americans to access college. And it's good for the country.

It's good for the economy. It's good for our national security. The program for students with disabilities, yes, it's grown over time as we have gotten better as a country at meeting the needs of students with disabilities. We want students to get the speech language therapy that they need to get the supports they need if they're on the autism spectrum and they need help in order to access quality education.

These are investments that are about the long term health of the country. So talk to parents, because I have to tell you, the conversations that I have with parents are expressing concerns about the students that you were talking about, students with special needs, a wide range of special needs. Do you think there is a way to start to cut back on this agency and also make sure that those functions for students with special needs remain intact? I think the reality is no.

I mean, look, are there ways to make the activities of the department more efficient? Sure. But one of the things they did last week was to lay off the people who work for the Office for Civil Rights. Well, that's where you go if you have a complaint because your child isn't getting the services they're entitled to.

Last year, that office got more than 20,000 complaints. Who will handle those complaints without the people at the department whose job it is to protect those students? You know, the Trump administration has said, and you just heard the president reiterate, that this is about restoring education to the states. As I pointed out, there are a range of functions that the state is already in charge of.

When you hear that, what does that mean to you? You know, it's a rhetorical move. The reality is most decision making about education happens at the state and local level. But there is a crucial federal role that goes back to the civil rights movement.

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, the Higher Education Act of 1965. These laws were put in place because we needed the federal government to step in to make sure that students weren't discriminated against. And that role continues. We need the federal government to say to the state, you can't ignore the needs of your English learners, to say to a district, you can't leave black students or Latino students out of access to advanced placement classes or extracurricular activities at your school.

That civil rights role has to be protected. And in the end, I think there will be bipartisan support in Congress for protecting that role. You know, Secretary King, what is also true is that students' test scores hit an all-time low last year. Why do you think that is and what do you think should be done to improve that?

Look, we are still struggling with the impact of COVID. So many students' lives were disrupted in dramatic ways by the COVID crisis. Our performance as a country is below where it was before COVID. We ought to be having a conversation about what we do about that.

We know, for example, that intensive tutoring can help And we're just doing it at the last minute. I started again, actually, way ahead and started giving public speeches about it, going on television to talk about it and twisting arms within our caucus. Obviously, Chuck Schumer and I got along great. I got Chuck Schumer's law.

The panel is here, Molly Ball, senior political correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Joe Crowley, former Democratic congressman from New York, and Michael Dubke, former White House communications director in President Trump's first term. Thanks to all of you for being here. A lot to cover. Molly, let me start with you.

I had an opportunity to speak with Leader Schumer earlier today. And part of my conversation was asking him about this back and forth between President Trump and the courts. He says he thinks we're in a constitutional crisis right now, really came out swinging against President Trump. What do you make of that answer and the moment that he finds himself in now?

Well, the moment that he finds himself in is on the hot seat. You know, he's under a lot of pressure, both from his constituents in the Senate Democratic Caucus and the broader constituency of the Democratic base. There's a lot of anger at him from both groups. And the message that they are both sending to him is that they want to see more fight out of him.

They don't want to see this treated as a normal political moment where you can just make arguments about Social Security and Medicare and everybody, you know, casts their votes and goes home. You know, right or wrong, the Democratic base sees this as a much more existential moment than that. And that answer that Schumer gave you indicates to me that he is belatedly starting to hear that message. It comes from Crowley.

I mean, I think Molly hits on one of the central arguments that this moment requires something different, that you got to throw out the old playbook and write it anew and really have a different type of political battle in this moment. Do you think Leader Schumer survives this moment? Well, I think, first of all, it was a very, very difficult position that he was in. It's more like a Sophie's choice.

Damn if you do, damn if you don't. And I think he came to the realization, what damage could Trump and Musk do in a collapse of government, in closing the government entirely? We've seen what they've done with open government. What could they do in closed government?

Irreparable damage. And so I think heavy the mantle of leadership. I experienced this myself when I was in the House leadership running for reelection the last time. And AOC, my opponent, came out in favor of defunding ICE.

I couldn't in good conscience do that because one, I didn't think it was the right thing to do. I didn't like what they were doing. But I knew that as a leader, what I said would be used against other Democrats in difficult seats in Texas and elsewhere. I think Schumer understands that as well, that, you know, he has to protect his members within his caucus as well in difficult races coming up.

Well, you lead me perfectly to my question to Mike about AOC, not your party, and Senator Sanders out on the road talking about the oligarchy. And Senator Sanders saying Democrats should shed their D and they should be running as independents and they should be really trying to win over those voters who are in the middle. So I assume AOC is going to run as an independent now? I don't know about that.

I don't know if she's saying that in the same state within the Democratic Party. Look, timing is everything in politics. I think Schumer really, I'll get back to that question, but I think Schumer really missed the mark last week with going with it's taking for a full week this whole thing of whether we're going to shut down the government. He should be afraid of Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

What could he have done differently? He could have just said, you know what, we're gonna keep the government open because exactly what you said. I'm more afraid of what will happen in a closed session than I am in open government with Donald Trump in the White House. And then kept talking about tariffs.

Now that Democrats want to hear from a Republican on what they should have done, but he absolutely missed the boat on this. And now you see these organized opposition retreats to Vegas with AOC and Bernie Sanders. You're seeing it in districts all over the country. This is theatrics by the Democrats because they're not getting leadership from their senators and reps in Washington.

Molly, going out and standing in front of a big crowd in Las Vegas to some extent is not the Sophie's choice that Congressman Crowley is talking about that Leader Schumer was faced with. And yet there are these growing calls for AOC to potentially primary Leader Schumer. What are you hearing and what do you think about her political future in this moment? Well, Chuck Schumer is not up for reelection for four more years, which is an eternity in politics.

And at that point, he'll be, I believe, 78 years old. So it's not even really worth discussing what's going to happen four years down the road from now. AOC had an opportunity to primary him two years ago. A lot of people wanted her to do it at that time, and she declined.

So whatever her political future holds, any primary to Schumer would be a long way off. So it's less about Schumer's political electoral prospects. It's more about the disunity within the Senate Democratic caucus, Democrats being divided at a time that they really feel they need to be united to take the fight to the other side. When the base is full of this rage, when they are so angry and scared about what is happening in Washington, Democrats, I think, to Mike's point, had an opportunity to capitalize on that.

Whenever you have emotion out there in the electorate, that's an opportunity. But instead, it's been directed inward. And it very much reminds me of, you know, the last 15 years of the Republican Civil War when, you know, instead of fighting the other side, they're fighting each other and dividing their own party. Congressmen pick up on that point.

What do you think the strategy should be moving forward? Do you think anyone's captured the right way to go about this moment? Yeah, I think this has been very difficult for our party. No question about it.

I think it definitely needs to be more communication. Look, I understand how Hakeem Jeffries could be angry about that as well. It could have been caught off guard a little bit in terms of what Senator Schumer ultimately did. I think they do need to be talking and acting in more unison.

That hasn't really happened as yet. But that's a must going forward. Mike, let's talk about what we saw at the White House today. President Trump signing an executive order aimed at dismantling the Department of Education, which former President Jimmy Carter, of course, started.

He said this move is about returning control to the states. I have to say over and over again, he can't unilaterally get rid of the Department of Education. Only Congress can do that. He can gut it, though, quite significantly.

This is a politically risky move. There are a number of states that voted for him who are some of the biggest states that benefit from the Department of Education. What do you make of this? Well, I still think they're going to get their block grants of money.

And that's really at the end of the day, I think that's where Trump is figuring that this is going to be a success for him. That money going to local control is going to be more important than having it funneled through Washington. I did a quick kind of math on the Department of Education when it was formed under Jimmy Carter. $14 billion.

That's $54 billion in 2025 dollars. The 2022 budget was $637 billion. Where's that money go? I think that's a fair question that Trump's asking the American people are asking.

It would be better spent in the states than down the block. I don't necessarily disagree with that point. If there's waste, fraud and abuse, find out by simply collapsing it and doing away with it. For Jimmy Carter.

I mean, we're finally appreciating his presidency and now we're taking away the Department of Education. We're going to get the Panama Canal back. What did he do in Greenland? That's actually a very good.

President Carter was skeptical of the Department of Education. No, I'm serious. What do you make of this? What we're seeing, of course, with Trump and Musk, this attempt to gut these federal agencies.

And Molly, it's not without risk. Right. I mean, all of these moves, you know, the question is, will education standards remain the same? Will national security still remain intact?

I mean, there are some risks associated with some of these moves. Well, the question is, if you listen between the lines of what Mike was saying, he's saying as long as everybody still gets their money, they don't mind. They don't care what the structure is or whether the department exists or doesn't. But there are a lot of people in a lot of red states whose kids are at Title One schools, whose kids benefit from, you know, IEPs and the IDEA special ed grants.

If the government keeps doing all the same things and they change the nameplates, no one's going to mind if they actually cut back on the things that government does that affects people. That's when you have a political problem. And this is the dance that we've been seeing with Doge is they say that they're cutting all these things. If it's a cut in name only, if it's cosmetic, that's one thing.

When it's when people start to feel it, that's when you have a political problem. All right, guys. Great conversation. Thank you so much for being here.

Come back soon for another conversation