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- [00:01]
Advertiser
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- [00:30]
Commentator
Horrible stuff coming out of the White House. Donald Trump just held a bizarre and dangerous press conference where he announced he would be eliminating the Department of Education. He signed an executive order that sets in motion a process to get rid of the Department of Education. Here. Donald Trump says that it sounds strange to say this, but the Department of Education will be gone. Let's play the clip.
- [00:54]
Donald Trump
But I believe we'll get it done. Today we take a very historic action that was 45 years in the making. In a few moments, I will sign an executive order to begin eliminating the federal Department of Education once and for all. And it sounds strange, doesn't it? Department of Education, we're going to eliminate it. And everybody knows it's right. And the Democrats know it's right. And I hope they're going to be voting for it because ultimately it may come before them, but everybody knows it's right.
- [01:36]
Commentator
Now, Donald Trump set up a fake classroom to hold this awful press conference, and he used children as props in this fake classroom where he was gutting the futures of children. Let's play the clip.
- [01:52]
Donald Trump
Should I do this?
- [02:04]
Commentator
Then Donald Trump says that he hopes that Linda McMahon, who was appointed to be the secretary of the Department of Education, will be the last secretary since the department will no longer exist.
- [02:18]
Donald Trump
Let's play the clip 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, it's an interesting opening, right? But it's true. And we people, it's been amazing how popular this has been. I tell people that this is what I'm doing today, and they say, oh, that's, it's about time. Everybody says Republicans and Democrats have said it. They're all saying it. Also with us here.
- [03:01]
Commentator
Let me just share with you another angle. And again, you can see how Donald Trump was using these children as props as he's saying these awful things about the Department of Education. Let's play it. By the way, before showing you more clips, I wanted to share this with you as well. Lots of Trump voters out there saying that they didn't vote to gut the Department of Education, which is actually playing a critical role. And not just blue states, but even a more critical role in red states to help disabled kids, to help poor kids, to help give kids lunch. Here's one such example. Let's play the clip.
- [03:50]
Advertiser
Trump won the state. In Bell County, 84% voted for Trump, yet it deeply relies on federal funding. A CNN analysis found the 15 states that most rely on federal funding for its public schools in 2022 all voted for Trump. And I voted for President Trump. I mean, you're an educator. You didn't vote for Trump eliminating federal funds?
- [04:12]
Commentator
No, I did not vote for that. I voted for President President Trump to make America first. Donald Trump then brags about gutting the government and firing over 50% of people who work in the government. Let's play it.
- [04:27]
Donald Trump
I'm pleased to report that after offering these federal employees two generous buyout options. And they were very generous. They're good people, but they were very generous. My administration has initiated a reduction in force, and we're already cutting numbers that were really surprising to a lot that we were able to do it so successfully. And we've cut the number of bureaucrats in half. 50% have taken office, which is great.
- [05:02]
Commentator
Under then he randomly points to people in the audience and says, these are all people who are interested in education. Let's play this clip very much.
- [05:10]
Donald Trump
Jim and Kim Reynolds. These are all people very interested in education.
- [05:17]
Commentator
And now I had the opportunity and honor to interview Randy Winegarden from the American Federation of Teachers. She leads the American Federation of Teachers, the main teachers union. And she explains that. And I did this interview about two weeks ago. She explains the cruelty of Donald Trump ripping away people's opportunities by gutting the Department of Education, where already states run their own state education system. States run their own curriculum. The Department of Education works with the states to help people with opportunities, but it doesn't set the curriculum. So this is all based on a fugazi to begin with. Let's play the clip.
- [06:03]
Advertiser
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. 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 schmized, 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 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, in, in, in their, 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.
- [07:47]
Commentator
More from Donald Trump on shutting down the Department of Education. He goes, we're shutting it down and we're shutting it down as quickly as possible. Let's play it.
- [07:55]
Donald Trump
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 students to the states where just some of the governors here are so happy about this. They want education to come back to them, to come back to the states and they're going to do a phenomenal job. You know, if you look, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, I have to tell you, I give them a lot of Credit. China's top 10. And so we can't now say that bigness is making it impossible to educate because China is very big. But you have countries that do a very good job in education. And I really believe, like some of the governors here today, from states that run very, very well, including a big state like Texas. But states that run very well are going to have education that will be as good as Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and those top, Finland, those top.
- [08:54]
Commentator
While all of this is going on, what are the priorities of the Trump regime? Well, you had Howard Lutnick, Donald Trump's commerce Secretary, talking about how Americans need to purchase $30,000 robots from Elon Musk. Let's play it.
- [09:10]
Howard Lutnick
Elon Musk is probably the best person to bet on I've ever met. And I think we all know that. I mean, gosh, in the same week that he Saves astronauts with his rockets that he invented. Imagine that. He's building. He's building the coolest robots you've ever seen. Go online and look up Optimus. It is the coolest thing you've ever seen. We're all going to be buying robots. They're going to cost about $30,000. You're going to be buying a Tesla robot. And anybody doesn't buy a Tesla robot is going to be silly. No one's going to be key in anything.
- [09:41]
Commentator
You also then have Howard Lutnick talking about how Americans need to buy Tesla stock.
- [09:46]
Howard Lutnick
Let's play it to build the next generation technology. I think if you want to learn something on this show tonight, buy Tesla. It's unbelievable that this guy's stock is this cheap. It'll never be this cheap again. When people understand the things he's building, the robots he's building, the technology he's building, people are going to be dreaming of today and Jesse Waters and thinking, gosh, I should have bought Elon Musk's stock. I mean, who wouldn't invest in Elon Musk? You got to be kidding.
- [10:16]
Commentator
All right, so you're calling, and then you have Donald Trump bragging, bragging about the trump gold card that he's selling to Russian oligarchs and Chinese oligarchs. Here. Let's play the clip.
- [10:27]
Donald Trump
The graduation, they'll buy these. Why should any American kid become a competitor? And by the way, they're going to call it either the gold card. The problem is there's many gold cards. I will tell you what my people want to call it. It'll drive you crazy. It'll drive the left crazy. They want to call it the trump card because the trump card sells much better than the gold. Everybody has a goal. So you're not worried about any unsavory people coming in and taking. I'm worried about unsavory, in which case we're going to. They're going to be vetted. Give them the money back and they get out. They'll be properly vetted. Are they going to be properly vetted? But you know, when you're talking about a lot of people, I think it's going to be very successful. If somebody's wrong, we get. We actually are very, very nice because it makes it a lot easier legally. We give them their money back and we send them out now.
- [11:14]
Commentator
Horrible stuff. Indeed. And I think it's worth watching when I had the opportunity to interview Senator Bernie Sanders when he talks about the psychological torture that Americans are facing I think about what Donald Trump just did there and using the children as props. Let's play it.
- [11:36]
Bernie Sanders
And here is the reality, which is not talked about very much. The reality is that in America today, our life expectancy is about four years less than other wealthy countries. But even worse is the fact that if you're working class in America, on average, you live seven to eight years shorter life than people who are wealthy. Now why is that? And the answer is not just health care, which is important. Working class people, low income people, do not have access to the kind of health care that the rich do. But it is the stress, the day to day stress that working class people live under. I grew up in a working class home. I know a little bit about what it's like to have a family living paycheck to paycheck on what I did, that was an Altoona, Wisconsin, I said, okay, all right, tell me what it's like to live under economic stress. And people just stood up. And one woman says, you know, it's a question of whether I buy shoes for myself or my kids, whether I can afford eyeglasses, whether I can afford to go to the doctor, whether, you know, I'm going to have the money to prepare a decent meal for my kids, that I live every day not knowing, you know, what to expect, how do I survive? And what that is about, that is the reality that tens of millions of our people are living under. We don't talk about it. And what I have learned over the years, that some of the most important issues are the issues that get least discussion. And one of those issues is not just the working class. People live six years shorter lives, seven years shorter lives than the rich. That's important. Why is that? But what's equally important is 60% of the American people in the richest country on earth live paycheck to paycheck. That means they go to work and if their landlord raises the rent, they don't know how they're going to be able to pay for it. Kid gets sick, don't know how to can afford to send the kid to the doctor. Car breaks down, don't know how to get it fixed, et cetera, et cetera. That is the reality facing tens of millions of Americans in the wealthiest country on earth. And that is the issue that we got to focus on. And that is why we got to transform our economy so it works everybody, not just billionaires.
- [14:05]
Commentator
There you have it, folks. Tell me what you think. A horrible press conference by Donald Trump doing horrible, horrible things right there. We'll keep you posted every step of the way on this. I'm Ben Meisels. This is the Midas Touch Network. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 5 million subscribers. Can't get enough Midas? Check out the Midas plus substack for ad. Free articles, reports, podcasts, daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski and more. Sign up for free now@midasplus.com.