Department of Education’s 'final mission' starts with laying off nearly half its workforce, secretary says
“As part of the Department of Education’s final mission,” the new education secretary, Linda McMahon, announced on Tuesday evening, “the Department today initiated a reduction in force (RIF) impacting nearly 50% of the Department’s workforce.”
On social media, McMahon, the former chief executive officer of World Wrestling Entertainment, shared posts praising the move, including one by a founder of Moms for Liberty, a conservative activist group that has called for the banning of books it calls pornographic, curtailing the teaching of LGBTQ+ experiences and restricting discussions of race in schools.
After Tuesday’s layoffs of about 1,300 workers, the department’s staff will be roughly half of its previous 4,100, the agency said in a statement. According to the department, another 572 employees had already accepted “voluntary resignation opportunities and retirement” over the last seven weeks. The newly laid-off employees will be placed on administrative leave at the end of next week.
The department is also terminating leases on buildings in cities including New York, Boston, Chicago and Cleveland, officials said.
Department officials said the agency would continue to oversee the distribution of federal aid to schools, student loan management and oversight of Pell grants.
Trump campaigned on a promise to close the department, claiming it had been overtaken by “radicals, zealots and Marxists”. At McMahon’s confirmation hearing, she acknowledged that only Congress has the power to abolish the agency but said it might be due for cuts and a reorganization.
On Monday, McMahon wrote to 60 universities to warn them that they were under investigation for supposed violations of the Civil Rights Act because of protests against Israel’s war on Gaza that the Trump administration defines as “antisemitic harassment and discrimination” of Jewish students.
As the department pushes ahead with cuts, a federal judge in Boston blocked the Trump administration’s plan to cut hundreds of millions of dollars for teacher training, finding that cuts were already affecting training programs aimed at addressing a nationwide teacher shortage.
The US district judge Myong Joun sided with eight states that had requested a temporary restraining order. The states argued the cuts were likely driven by Trump’s drive to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs, which the president seems to believe is a form of racism against white Americans.
We are wrapping up our live coverage for the day, but will return to chronicle the second Trump administration on Wednesday. Here are some of the day’s developments:
Donald Trump’s trade warkicks into a higher gear at midnight, as 25% tariffs on all imported steel and aluminum are scheduled to begin. There was widespread confusion about whether the tariffs would be delayed, or increased, amid conflicting statements from the president and his chief trade adviser, but the White House said that the previously delayed tariffs would begin, even as the stock marker plunges.
The detained Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident, remains in federal custody, despite being charged with no crime. Khalil’s wife said in a statement before a hearing on Wednesday in Manhattan that he was forced into an unmarked car by immigration officers who refused to show a warrant.
The Department of Education’s “final mission” starts with laying off nearly half its workforce, its new secretary said. About 1,300 federal education workers received notices of lay-offs on Tuesday.
The Republican-controlled US House of Representatives passed a stopgap funding bill, which would avert a government shutdown if it also passed the Senate before midnight on Friday.
Ukraine agreed to accept a US proposal for an immediate 30-day ceasefire and to take steps toward restoring a durable peace after Russia’s invasion, according to a joint statement by American and Ukrainian delegations meeting in Saudi Arabia. Russia has not commented.
Canada’s prime minister-designate Mark Carney said he would not lift retaliatory tariffs on American goods until Washington does the same.
At Tuesday’s promotional event for Elon Musk’s line of Tesla electric vehicles at the White House, Trump refused to drive one of the cars, and scoffed at the idea that his predecessor, Joe Biden, had done so at a similar event. There is video of Biden doing so, in August 2021, at an event to promote electric vehicles that Musk reportedly was angry at being excluded from over anti-union policies.
Mahmoud Khalil’s wife says he was forced into an unmarked car by immigration officers
Ahead of a hearing at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse in Lower Manhattan on Wednesday, the wife of Mahmoud Khalil has released the following statement:
My husband, Mahmoud Khalil, is my rock. He is my home and he is my happy place. I am currently 8 months pregnant, and I could not imagine a better father for my child. We’ve been excitedly preparing to welcome our baby, and now Mahmoud has been ripped away from me for no reason at all.
I am pleading with the world to continue to speak up against his unjust and horrific detention by the Trump administration.
This last week has been a nightmare: Six days ago, an intense and targeted doxxing campaign against Mahmoud began. Anti-Palestinian organizations were spreading false claims about my husband that were simply not based in reality. They were making threats against Mahmoud and he was so concerned about his safety that he emailed Columbia University on March 7th. In his email, he begged the university for legal support, “I haven’t been able to sleep, fearing that ICE or a dangerous individual might come to my home. I urgently need legal support and I urge you to intervene,” he said in his email.
Columbia University never responded to that email.
Instead, on March 8th, at around 8:30 pm, as we were returning home from an Iftar dinner, an ICE officer followed us into our building and asked, “Are you Mahmoud Khalil?”
Mahmoud stated, “Yes.”
The officer then proceeded to say, “We are with the police, you have to come with us.”
The officer told Mahmoud to give me the apartment keys and that I could go upstairs. When I refused, afraid to leave my husband, the officer stated, “I will arrest you too.”
The officers later barricaded Mahmoud from me. We were not shown any warrant and the ICE officers hung up the phone on our lawyer. When my husband attempted to give me his phone so I could speak with our lawyer, the officers got increasingly aggressive, despite Mahmoud being fully cooperative.
Everyone who knows Mahmoud knows him to be level-headed even in the most stressful situations. And even in this terrifying situation, he was calm.
Within minutes, they had handcuffed Mahmoud, took him out into the street and forced him into an unmarked car. Watching this play out in front of me was traumatizing: It felt like a scene from a movie I never signed up to watch.
I was born and raised in the Midwest. My parents came here from Syria, carrying their stories of the oppressive regime there that made life unlivable. They believed living in the US would bring a sense of safety and stability. But here I am, 40 years after my parents immigrated here, and just weeks before I’m due to give birth to our first child, and I feel more unsafe and unstable than I have in my entire life.
US immigration ripped my soul from me when they handcuffed my husband and forced him into an unmarked vehicle. Instead of putting together our nursery and washing baby clothes in anticipation of our first child, I am left sitting in our apartment, wondering when Mahmoud will get a chance to call me from a detention center.
I demand the US government release him, reinstate his Green Card, and bring him home.
Perkins Coie,a prominent law firm Donald Trump is seeking to punish with an executive order, sued the Trump administration in federal court on Tuesday, saying the firm “cannot allow its clients to be bullied”.
The 6 March executive order stripped the firm’s lawyers of security clearances and access to federal buildings, and said the government would review contracts with any of the firm’s clients. The order cited the firm’s work representing Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016 and its hiring of a firm that created a dossier on Trump’s connections to Russia.
The order raised deep concerns about the rule of law in the United States and underscored the way Trump is using the power of the presidency to punish his political enemies.
The suit, filed in federal court in Washington DC on Tuesday, says the purpose of Trump’s executive order “is intentionally obvious to the general public and the press because the very goal is to chill future lawyers from representing particular clients” Major law firms have been more reluctant to take on Trump in his second administration, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The lawyers asked the court to block the order, citing violations of the US constitution’s first amendment, as well as the fifth amendment, which guarantees due process of law, and the sixth amendment, which guarantees the right to be represented by a lawyer.
The Trump administration has also targeted another firm, Covington & Burling, over its connection to Jack Smith, the former justice department special counsel who prosecuted Trump.
Unlike Biden, Trump invited Musk to show off electric vehicles at the White House, but declined to drive one
At Tuesday’s promotional event for Elon Musk’s line of Tesla electric vehicles at the White House, when a reporter asked Donald Trump whether he would take one for a spin, he goaded the president by mentioning he had seen his predecessor, Joe Biden, do so at a similar event.
Trump, who claimed he was “not allowed to drive”, scoffed at the idea and suggested the reporter must have been “the only one” who had seen Biden drive an EV.
In fact, there is plenty of video of Biden taking an electric Jeep for a test drive in the same location in August 2021.
In 2021, Joe Biden took an electric Jeep for a test drive at the White House after he signed an executive order to promote electric vehicle sales.
What makes the contrast between the two events to promote electric vehicles on the south lawn of the White House even more stark is the fact that Musk, who was excluded from Biden’s event, played such a central role in Trump’s.
With Trump now ensconced in the White House, but Tesla’s stock sinking due to Musk’s leading role in the destruction of federal agencies, the Tesla chief executive seemed delighted by the president’s personal effort to boost his sales on Tuesday.
A close-up look at the notes President Donald Trump held as he joined Elon Musk to pitch Tesla cars at the White House on Tuesday. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
When Trump got into the driver’s seat of a Tesla Model S, Musk hopped in to the passenger seat to explain to him just how easy it is to drive. “It’s like driving a golf cart, basically,” Musk said. “It’s literally like a golf cart that goes really fast.”
After Trump decided not to drive in front of the assembled cameras, he got out, cracking: “You think Biden could get into that car?”
Trump was then asked by Brian Glenn, a favored correspondent for the far-right news channel Real America’s Voice, to comment on anti-Tesla protests, as well as vandalism at some dealerships.
“Some say they should be labeled domestic terrorists,” Glenn commented.
“I will do that,” Trump replied. “I’m going to stop them.”
Trump says he will label violence against Tesla dealers domestic terrorism – video
Glenn said later that he had asked the question because the anti-Tesla protests were “no different from what we saw antifa do”.
When another reporter asked whether the point of the product placement at the White House was to “boost Tesla sales and boost their stock”, Trump replied: “Well, I hope it does.”
Department of Education’s 'final mission' starts with laying off nearly half its workforce, secretary says
“As part of the Department of Education’s final mission,” the new education secretary, Linda McMahon, announced on Tuesday evening, “the Department today initiated a reduction in force (RIF) impacting nearly 50% of the Department’s workforce.”
On social media, McMahon, the former chief executive officer of World Wrestling Entertainment, shared posts praising the move, including one by a founder of Moms for Liberty, a conservative activist group that has called for the banning of books it calls pornographic, curtailing the teaching of LGBTQ+ experiences and restricting discussions of race in schools.
After Tuesday’s layoffs of about 1,300 workers, the department’s staff will be roughly half of its previous 4,100, the agency said in a statement. According to the department, another 572 employees had already accepted “voluntary resignation opportunities and retirement” over the last seven weeks. The newly laid-off employees will be placed on administrative leave at the end of next week.
The department is also terminating leases on buildings in cities including New York, Boston, Chicago and Cleveland, officials said.
Department officials said the agency would continue to oversee the distribution of federal aid to schools, student loan management and oversight of Pell grants.
Trump campaigned on a promise to close the department, claiming it had been overtaken by “radicals, zealots and Marxists”. At McMahon’s confirmation hearing, she acknowledged that only Congress has the power to abolish the agency but said it might be due for cuts and a reorganization.
On Monday, McMahon wrote to 60 universities to warn them that they were under investigation for supposed violations of the Civil Rights Act because of protests against Israel’s war on Gaza that the Trump administration defines as “antisemitic harassment and discrimination” of Jewish students.
As the department pushes ahead with cuts, a federal judge in Boston blocked the Trump administration’s plan to cut hundreds of millions of dollars for teacher training, finding that cuts were already affecting training programs aimed at addressing a nationwide teacher shortage.
The US district judge Myong Joun sided with eight states that had requested a temporary restraining order. The states argued the cuts were likely driven by Trump’s drive to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs, which the president seems to believe is a form of racism against white Americans.
White House confirms 25% tariff on steel and aluminum 'with no exceptions' starts at midnight
Following widespread confusion as to whether or not Trump would make good on his threat to impose 50% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Canada, the White House released a statement to clarify that the president had withdrawn that proposal, but would press ahead with blanket 25% tariffs on all imports of steel and aluminum from US trading partners, including Canada, starting at midnight.
Here is the full statement from a White House deputy press secretary, Kush Desai, who got his start as a “fact check reporter” for the Daily Caller, a publication co-founded by Tucker Carlson, who is not known for his rigorous adherence to the facts:
After President Trump threatened to use his executive powers to retaliate with a colossal 50 percent tariff against Canada, Ontario Premier Doug Ford spoke with Secretary Lutnick to convey that he is backing down on implementing a 25 percent charge on electricity exports to the United States. President Trump has once again used the leverage of the American economy, which is the best and biggest in the world, to deliver a win for the American people. Pursuant to his previous executive orders, a 25 percent tariff on steel and aluminum with no exceptions or exemptions will go into effect for Canada and all of our other trading partners at midnight, March 12th.
The uncertainty about tariffs has helped drive the stock market sharply down this week.
A chart showing the decline in the S&P 500 this week, amid uncertainty about US trade policy.
House narrowly passes stopgap funding bill as government shutdown looms
The Republican-controlled US House of Representatives passed a stopgap funding bill, which would avert a government shutdown if it also passed the Senate before midnight on Friday.
The measure would extend government funding largely at current levels through the end of September, but includes cuts in funding, including for veterans’ healthcare, infrastructure investments, and nutrition and rent assistance for families in need. It passed by a vote of 217-213, with one Republican voting against it, Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, and one Democrat voting for it, Representative Jared Golden of Maine.
Democrats in the Senate could block the bill from becoming law, since it requires 60 votes there, and Republicans hold only 53 seats. One Republican senator, Rand Paul, has come out strongly against the bill, writing: “Count me as a hell no!” on X. One Democratic senator, John Fetterman, said he would support the Republican bill, telling a HuffPost reporter: “I’m not going to vote to shut the government down.”
In remarks to reporters outside the White House on Tuesday, Donald Trump defended the decision to detain the former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil, saying that he would like to see the measure, which has triggered widespread condemnation and protests, be expanded to attempt to deport more students from the US.
Trump was asked how many arrests would be necessary and answered: “I think we ought to get them all out of the country,”, adding: “They’re troublemakers, they’re agitators, they don’t love our country.” Trump claimed to have watched tapes of Khalil making statements that he described as “plenty bad”.
Donald Trump says he would like to see student deportations expanded – video
Up to half of the Department of Education’s 4,400 employees could be laid off on Tuesday evening, sources tell CNN.
The news was echoed by a report from Fox that employees could receive “reduction in force” notices ahead of sweeping layoffs.
The new education secretary, Linda McMahon, said in a video posted on X on Tuesday that Trump would be making good on one of his campaign promises by “sending education back to the states”.
Trump could still make good on a pledge to eliminate the education department entirely, which Republicans have been discussing for more than a decade. In 2011, when the governor of Texas, Rick Perry, had a brain freeze on naming all three of the departments he would cut, one of the two he named was education.
In 2011, Rick Perry promised that if he was elected president, he would eliminate the departments of commerce, education and, um… something else.
In the meantime, however, the department is being used to pursue other priorities of the Trump administration.
On Monday, the department announced that it had “sent letters to 60 institutions of higher education warning them of potential enforcement actions if they do not fulfill their obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to protect Jewish students on campus, including uninterrupted access to campus facilities and educational opportunities.”
New tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum will be 25% not 50%, White House says
Peter Navarro, a senior aide to Donald Trump on trade, told CNBC that the president had reversed his decision, announced this morning, to double planned tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum to 50%.
New tariffs of 25% on all imported steel and aluminum are still scheduled take effect at midnight on Wednesday, including against allies and top US suppliers Canada and Mexico, the White House confirmed to Reuters after Navarro’s interview.
Trump had earlier signaled to reporters outside the White House that he was rethinking his decision to double tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum imports, after Ontario’s premier Doug Fordcanceled a 25% surcharge on electricity exports to three US states.
