Pete Aguilar (00:01):
Good morning. The chaos and the corruption at the White House continues unabated. Elon Musk has illegal access to sensitive personal information of every taxpayer in America. He's setting his sights on cutting Social Security benefits for American seniors, who have earned their benefits over a lifetime of work, just so Tesla can continue to pay $0 in federal taxes. And now, Donald Trump has directed him to launch a Republican war on students by dismantling the Department of Education. I'm grateful to be joined by Representative Jahana Hayes, a former teacher, former National Teacher of the Year. And Representative McDonald Rivet, former director of Michigan Head Start.
(00:51)
President Trump and Elon Musk want to cut public education for our children and our neighborhood schools to finance a $5 trillion tax giveaway to billionaires and wealthy corporations. By eliminating the Department of Education, Republicans are sending a clear message that they don't care about our children reaching their full potential. The American people did not vote for their neighborhood schools to be closed or class sizes to be larger. They did not vote to cut special education. The Republican war on students won't lower the cost of eggs or groceries, but it will raise property taxes, as the cost of Trump's education cuts will be forced onto parents and homeowners.
(01:38)
House Democrats believe that education is the key to unlocking the American dream. Our focus is on securing the resources needed to improve public education outcome, raising test scores, and lowering dropout rates. If House Republicans won't stand up for our kids and end their war on students, then they should not ask for our votes to pass government funding bill. Now turn it over to Vice-Chair Ted Lieu.
Rep. Ted Lieu (02:05):
Thank you, Chair Aguilar. The Trump administration has engaged a number of brazenly undemocratic and illegal actions, and they're losing in court. 55 lawsuits have been filed. And judges appointed by Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Donald Trump himself have issued injunctions or temporary restraining orders against the administration's actions. For example, a judge issued a nationwide injunction against the Birthright Citizenship Executive Order, which attempted to overturn the US Constitution's 14th Amendment right to birthright citizenship. A judge halted the attempted freeze of federal funding. A judge halted the attempted cuts to NIH that would've affected cancer research. A judge halted Doge access to your private Social Security numbers, and on and on. At the same time none of these actions by the Trump administration are lowering costs. My wife and I recently went to the grocery store. We went to get some eggs, and we can see the prices of these eggs had now jumped to about $8. But there were no eggs. The shelves are completely empty. Nothing the president is doing is trying to lower costs for the American people. And the American people are now seeing this. A recent poll showed that nearly half of the American people say their costs are actually increasing now. And so, we're asking the Republicans and Donald Trump to focus on lowering costs, which they are ignoring right now. And it's now my pleasure to yield to Congresswoman Jahana Hayes, who in addition to being an amazing member of Congress, as Chairman Aguilar had said, she was also a national teacher of the year prior to coming in Congress.
Jahana Hayes (03:55):
Thank you. And thank you so much for being here. The Department of Education was created by an act of Congress and can only be dissolved by an act of Congress. This administration knows that. And I suspect based on what we've seen, that this chaos and confusion, this flooding the zone is going to rain down on the Department of Education, to try to convince the American people that we don't need it, to strangle out funds meant to support public education. And ultimately, just turn off the lights. It's important to understand what it means by Republicans calling to end the Department of Education. The Department of Education does not handle curriculum instruction or instructional materials. Those decisions are already made locally by state and local boards of education.
(04:48)
But what the Department of Education does handle is civil rights protections for all students. They handle supports for low-income students through their Title I funding. They develop and prepare educators through Title II funding and professional development. They provide resources for English language learners, collect statistics on enrollment, staffing, and crime in school. And the department is responsible for more than $1.6 trillion in federal student aid. 49 million students attend public school in this country, and all of the services provided by the Department of Education are at risk. Of those, 7.5 million students receive special education or related services under the Individuals with Disabilities and Education Act.
(05:40)
IDEA makes free and appropriate public education available to all eligible students. That means the occupational therapist that helps a student just to hold a pencil, because in their brain they have all the information, they just need to figure out a way to articulate that, is at risk. And I think people need to understand that an IEP is a legal document. It is not solely an education document. Ending federal funding or eliminating the department does not end our legal obligation to provide these services to kids.
(06:21)
So, one of two things will happen. Either local communities will have to make hard choices about what other resources they have to cut to meet their legal obligation to educate these children, or their taxes will go up to replace the funding that the federal government is no longer sending. Now, I've seen the NAEP scores. I'm open to having any conversation to improve education and get better results for students. But I think if we're looking at those scores, we have to be honest. The numbers are brought down by red states who have failed to invest in education over decades. But any real solution that we're talking about for improving educational outcomes for our students cannot be limited to funneling money to private voucher programs, which only about 1 million students take advantage of.
(07:20)
What about the other 48 million students? Any real solution has to include solving for the barriers that impede education, the things that cause children to show up not ready to learn. Things like housing insecurity, things like empty bellies, things like a lack of healthcare, no access to FMLA for their families so that their parents can't stay home with them when they're sick. Birth to three initiatives, pre and postnatal care, gun violence in schools. If you want to have a real conversation about educational outcomes, let's do it. I'm here for it. But Elon Musk, Donald Trump and the elites
Jahana Hayes (08:00):
Elites in this country don't need public schools. They don't have to send their children to public schools. They can afford to send their children somewhere else. I'm standing up for all the students who don't come from those kind of families, for all the parents who can't afford to make those choices, for all the teachers who greet those students and try their best to give them the type of education that they see in other communities, because they deserve it.
(08:27)
So I remain committed to maintaining the integrity of the Department of Education and fighting back against all of these cuts, because this smash-and-grab tactics and attempts to rob the penny bank of America's children and their future is not something that House Democrats are going to stand for. And with that, my colleague, Kristen McDonald Rivet.
Kristen McDonald Rivet (08:52):
Right. Thank you. Thank you so much. Good morning and thank you for joining us, and thank you to Congresswoman Hayes. Thank you to Chairman Aguilar, and Vice Chair Lieu, for highlighting this urgent issue.
(09:06)
So education, specifically early childhood education, holds a really special place in my heart. First, I parented six kids. Second, I have a daughter who's a special education teacher, particularly in the early years. But I started my career working in Head Start. I have seen firsthand the impact that early childhood education programs and special education programs play in the lives of children and families. I also served as the chief of staff at the State Department of Education in Michigan, and in the Michigan State Senate served on the K through 12 Appropriations Committee and the Education Policy Committee. So I've spent a little time in education.
(09:49)
I can tell you that we do need to improve our education in this country, and we've seen things that work. Things like decreasing class size, investing in new teachers, dramatic increases in math and reading programs, and robust early childhood programs. These are the kinds of things that make our schools, our families, and our kids stronger.
(10:15)
But eliminating the Department of Education would be disastrous for our kids. Special education classes would be gutted, our most unserved communities unable to keep school doors open, higher property taxes across the country as local districts are forced to pay for federally mandated programming, and countless teachers losing their jobs due to a lack of funding. It's simply unacceptable. We can't go back to a time where we ignore or leave behind our most vulnerable students. As Representative Hayes said, there are roughly seven and a half million students who benefit from the Department of Education's special education programs, including students with learning disabilities, developmental delays, speech and language deficiencies, and much more.
(11:07)
If Mr. Musk gets his way, 15% of public school students in America will not receive the programming they need to reach their full potential and every single classroom will be disrupted. So let me say that again, seven and a half million children. What's more, state and local governments do not have the resources in place to administer these programs. I know what public school budgets look like, they do not work without federal support. If Mr. Musk slashes it, localities will be forced to cut services to kids, and let me be clear, raise your taxes to close the gaps. To the families in my district working multiple jobs and still struggling to make it to the end of the work week, that's more costly, not more efficient.
(11:59)
Elon Musk's plan to eliminate the Department of Education would devastate kids, schools, and communities in my district and across the country at a time that we simply cannot afford it. Thanks again for joining us. With that, I will turn things back to Chairman Aguilar.
Pete Aguilar (12:16):
Thanks, Kristen. I want to thank Kristen. Questions? Nick.
Nick (12:22):
I want to ask on government funding, just to follow up on what you mentioned in your remarks about Republicans asking for your votes. First of all, do you have faith in Republican negotiators to protect education and democratic priorities in democratic funding? And secondly, do you believe that Democrats should shut down the government if that isn't included in there?
Pete Aguilar (12:49):
No House Democrat wants to shut down government. I want to be very clear with that. Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the White House. If they want to keep government open, they should keep government open. We are working with them. Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro will lead our efforts to negotiate and work through issues, just like we have for many years through multiple congresses. That is our plan, that has always been our plan. If Republicans need votes, they can come to us and we are happy to negotiate. There is, and I said this last week, there's very little appetite to help Republicans when we don't trust that Donald Trump is going to spend the resources that we've allocated for education, for healthcare, or even, we don't know, for our defense.
(13:45)
With Elon Musk and his unelected friends running through and combing through the federal system, we don't have those assurances. These are not advisory bills, this is not advisory spending levels. This has the full weight of law, as described by the Constitution. We are standing up for the Constitution and our Article I responsibilities, and occasionally there are Republicans who also stand up for Article I Constitution, but we are looking for partners who want to do that. That's where Republicans are. There is no deviation in the House Democratic Caucus as to where we stand and what our posture is. Annie.
Annie (14:30):
There are so many things that Democrats are trying to respond to from Trump's executive actions to Elon Musk's DOGE efforts. I know there's a new task force that Leader Jeffries announced yesterday. How is the caucus deciding what to respond to and what not to? And is it difficult to make that decision?
Pete Aguilar (14:52):
Well in any environment when there's so much chaos and confusion, you saw that from the press conference right before us. Right? Republicans in the House are fighting with Republicans in the Senate. Republicans in the House are fighting amongst themselves. All of this is before they even talk to us about what the plan is. They don't have a plan amongst each other. So, of course that's going to make things a little more difficult.
(15:17)
Leader Jeffries has been incredibly clear where house Democrats are. We are going to push back. We're going to stand for the Constitution, as I said, but we're going to push back in the courts, we're going to push back in Congress, and we're going to push back in our communities. That's where this is. That is our focus. We understand that people have strong feelings about this, we do as well. We are focused on delivering results, and protecting our institutions, and making life better for our communities. That's what our focus is. And as the Vice Chair mentioned, a poll out this weekend, 66% of people don't feel that Donald Trump is doing enough
Pete Aguilar (16:00):
Enough to lower their costs. We are speaking to those folks. We are speaking to the gas prices, the grocery prices, the rent and the un-affordability crisis that is out in the country. So that is our focus on our mindset, and that's how we're trying to channel our energy and efforts. But I'll yield to the vice chair too.
Rep. Ted Lieu (16:24):
A lot of these actions are so brazenly illegal that courts are striking them down or halting them. And these are judges, again, that have been appointed by Republican presidents, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Donald Trump himself. And so you have a judicial branch that is simply applying the law and halting these actions, and then there's a legislative strategy that Leader Jeffries has set out as well as a mobilization strategy. So house Democrats are engaging at all three of those strategies.
Jahana Hayes (16:54):
Can you give more specifics on that legislative and outreach strategy that you just mentioned?
Rep. Ted Lieu (17:00):
So Leader Jeffries set out an initial ten-point plan, a dear colleague letter, and you've got some deadlines coming up. You've got a March 14th funding deadline, there's appropriations, and Chair Mario can speak to that, to which hopefully the Republicans will start talking to Democrats and we can keep this government funded. So we'll see what happens.
Pete Aguilar (17:23):
I would say just briefly on the legislative piece. I mean, they haven't been able to do much. It's not like we were dealing with a dozen bills here every week. One or two bills that they already passed the rules for are coming before us. There's very little activity here so it's a question for our colleagues on the other side of the aisle as to legislative efforts. Michael.
Michael (Journalist) (17:47):
I wanted to follow up with Vice chair on the judicial opinions that he mentioned. I'm curious to know, if House Democrats are confident that the Trump administration will comply with these orders that are coming from judges… There have been some tweets, there have been some comments that have come from President Trump himself that suggest that they feel as though they don't have to follow orders that they don't like from judges no matter who appointed them. So I'm curious how you all are looking at this. Are you all planning for the worst case scenario of the Trump administration to find some of these orders, or do you believe that the judicial system will hold up against some of this defiance?
Pete Aguilar (18:29):
We understand very clearly what's in front of us, but this is very consistent. The Republican party is no longer a party of limited government and spending less resources and local control. The Republican Party stands for, we trust the answer if it agrees, if it is decided in our favor. We saw this with the elections, we continue to see it. Donald Trump still could not say that the 2020 election was fair this weekend in an interview. They trust the election results when they win. They trust the court decision when they win. When they do not win, they want to burn it all down. That's the consistent theme of where the Republican Party is right now. So it's incredibly frustrating, but that's where we are and we understand very clearly the moment that we're in and the danger that they pose ahead with respect to honoring what the courts have decided. I'll yield to the vice chair who's on the important committee here.
Rep. Ted Lieu (19:33):
Every president, including Donald Trump in his first term, comply with court orders. If this administration is going to start ignoring court orders, they're essentially eliminating an entire judicial branch because why even have judges if you're not going to follow their court orders? So we expect this administration to follow the court orders. And I do note that there was a recent case where the judge had said, "Hey, look, I issued an injunction on the funding freeze. It appears that you're not following it." What the administration came in and said is that while you issued on this one executive order, but not this other one. The administration did not say, "We don't think you have the authority to do any of this. That's not what the administration said." And then what JD Vance said was just clearly insane. If he really wants to eliminate the third branch of government, I think there's going to be enormous pushback from both Republicans and Democrats. Nicole.
Nicole (Journalist) (20:28):
Thank you Mr. Chair. Speaker Johnson has said on a number of occasions that he believes that Congress should codify some of these actions that the administration is taking. What are Democrat strategies to try to counter that? I mean, take for instance the Department of Education. There's already a bill introduced by Congressman Tom Massey, so what's the strategy to counter any potential codification down the road?
Pete Aguilar (20:55):
Great. Bring it in committee, let the education committee debate it, bring it to the floor. If they have the votes to pass some of these things, then we'll see. If they have the votes to cut dramatically public education funding, then we'll see. If Republicans want to genuinely debate costs, we're willing to have those discussions. But right now we see an unwillingness, as you saw from the press conference before us, they don't know a plan. They don't have any idea when this is going to come up. So we are going to continue to focus our energy on highlighting what it is they're seeking to do here. And while we're home next week in our districts, we're going to continue to talk about Department of Education cuts, we're going to talk about cuts in our communities, cuts to healthcare that are clearly in the future.
(21:52)
Those are the things that we will highlight to the American public and make our case to the American public that they did not elect Elon Musk to engage in taking the privacy protections away from folks and that their focus and agenda here is to pass $5 trillion of tax cuts to billionaires in corporations at the expense of public education and healthcare in our communities.
Jahana Hayes (22:20):
I'd like to… I just want to say, there's a reason why they're trying to do this. The way that they're doing it and not include Congress is because they don't want that oversight. They don't want us to have committee hearings and be able to ask the questions because similar to the bill that Mr. Massey introduced, I introduced a bill to protect public education. And I think what we have to do as Democrats, like I said before, is help the American public to understand what that means. People might say we need to reduce the size of government and save money. They're not talking about saving money to put it back in the pockets of the American people. And I think as parents begin to understand, wait a minute, that means that my child won't get the services that they need, or the school around the corner is going to shut down, or we can no longer have before or after school programs. We have to start communicating with people, not about bills and titles, but this is what this means for you and your family.
(23:14)
And I expect that as people begin to better appreciate that, there will be a public outcry. And as we've seen with just about all of the executive orders that this administration has rolled out, when public sentiment pushes back, they back down, they recoil, they backtrack their steps, they clarify what they meant. And I think this is going to be a time when the American people, not just the members of Congress or the media, the American people are going to say, we will not disinvest in public education. We will not take away opportunity for so many children. We will not eliminate Pell Grants and all of the programs that help for people from low-income communities to go to college and then go back to those communities and help out that create a workforce that's ready
Jahana Hayes (24:00):
For an emerging economy. I think as the American people begin to understand, oh wait a minute, I didn't realize that's what this meant, and that's across all the departments, I think that there's going to be public outcry and pushback and that's why they don't want to do this through the regular order and congressional processes with oversight, where we're asking the questions and they're forced to answer them. That's why they don't want to bring Elon Musk before Congress. If you are so confident in what you're doing and believe you have the support of the American people, come before the Congress and spell that out, which they're not willing to do.
Pete Aguilar (24:34):
May, then Eric.
May (24:36):
Thank you. I wanted to ask about the litigation working group that you announced yesterday. The litigation is at the forefront of Democrats strategy clearly, and you touched on this a little bit, but I was wondering if you could out outline any changes between Democrat's legal strategy during Trump's first administration and his second administration?
Pete Aguilar (24:52):
I'll yield to the vice chair with his judiciary background. Leader Jeffries announced this yesterday morning to the caucus and he announced that Joe Neguse would be playing a role with this. This is, again, a collection between Jamie Raskin and the Judiciary Committee, Gerry Connolly and the Oversight Committee, and Rosa DeLauro. This was meant to serve as kind of the hub of democratic ideas and input, and then we will communicate that out using the DPCC to get a message to our members. But there's a lot of incoming and a lot of ideas from members, and this was meant as a way to kind of channel those efforts. Now, separate and apart from that, each committee will be engaged and will be forcefully, as you saw Gerry Connolly and as you've heard Jamie Raskin, forcefully pushing back on these ideas within committee. But the working group will play a part in how we communicate that broadly and how we handle the collection of ideas and input from our members.
Jahana Hayes (25:59):
Right here, [inaudible 00:26:00] a question.
Pete Aguilar (26:00):
Ted going to answer that one.
Rep. Ted Lieu (26:02):
Chairman Aguilar is absolutely right and one of their reasons for this is because there's so much stuff happening. The American people and even members of Congress may not know about all these different lawsuits and what's happening in those lawsuits. It turns out the administration is losing most of those lawsuits because what they're doing is just brazenly illegal. And so this working group will provide that information and let the members know so that we can communicate in our districts as well as to what's happening through the court cases.
Pete Aguilar (26:33):
Eric, and then up front.
Eric (26:35):
Separate question. The Department of Justice is trying to pressure the District of New York to drop the charge against Eric Adams. Do you have any comment on that as well as the [inaudible 00:26:49]?
Pete Aguilar (26:49):
I don't. The Department of Justice is responsible to ensure that our laws are followed. And usually in normal times each of these jurisdictions will be allowed to carry on their work. We saw that in the Biden administration and we see that Donald Trump and his friends do things differently, and that's unfortunate because the rule of law needs to be upheld. Whether you're red team or blue team, it doesn't matter, and we rely on the U.S attorneys to do that. And it's unfortunate that that we're getting away from that, but I know that other members of the New York delegation might have thoughts on that too. Go ahead.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Chairman, switching gears a bit, Congresswoman Nancy Mace last night took to the floor and took an hour and a half floor time to basically air out a allegations of rape and sexual abuse by her ex-fiancé and a number of his friends. I spoke to a number of Democratic colleagues who say it just wasn't the right time, the right place, and why. I just wanted to get leadership's reaction to that.
Pete Aguilar (28:09):
Very serious allegations that she's made. I'll leave it, that's between her and her constituents on the timing. I just read a report, I have not seen any of the over hour-long discussion on her floor speech. Very serious allegations, and I would hope that law enforcement will take a look if there is something there, but I'm not minimizing the importance of what she said or the allegations that she's made or the protected manner in which she's doing it from the house floor.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Thanks, Mr. Chairman. You've been very clear there has not been substantial outreach yet on keeping the government open from the other side, and you say Republicans know how to get votes from y'all if they need to. I'm just wondering what your expectation is as we get closer to that. Do you expect if they do come together on a more concrete detailed framework or a spending bill that they will bring you in, or what is your expectation as we get closer to that deadline?
Pete Aguilar (29:10):
Our expectation is that we're treated as equal partners when the four corners meet and discuss, and that's Rosa DeLauro on our side and Tom Cole on the Republican side with their Senate counterparts, we're partners. Because every spending plan that we have done under the Trump era, under the Biden era, has been done so with that in mind. In fact, we had a deal. We have an existing deal that guides our spending levels for this year, so that's what's a little surprising and shocking that Republicans still don't want to arrive at a top-line number when it is spelled out in law. Our expectation is that as we get closer to March 14th, we would hope that their outreach becomes more real and that their discussions with us become more substantive about what is necessary to fund government and our expectations that those numbers are followed, that government is funded.
(30:10)
Again, as I said, these are not advisory thoughts and ideas. We genuinely believe that when we make a deal, just like we did in December, that that deal is honored, and when we make a deal and it is voted into law, that becomes the law of the land and that those spending levels are honored. Anything absent that is a violation of law according to the Impound Control Act. So that is our expectation, but based on where their leadership is and the dysfunction that we see and the chaos that we see on their side, none of us are making plans for March 15th, that's for sure. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
[inaudible 00:30:50].