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former education secretary betsy devos will cover it for us.. ♪ can you tell me all i need to know? ♪ teacher, teach teacher, can you reach me? ♪ or will i follow where -- (shower water runs) (♪) (♪) planning to move? join the 6 million families who discovered a smarter, more flexible way to move, with pods. save up to 20% now for a limited time. whether you're moving across town or across the country. save up to 20% at pods dot com today. ♪ finish. stuart: president trump has confirmed that his number one goal for the education secretary nominee, linda mcmahon, is for her to be so good at her job that the department is no longer needed. trump's former education secretary is betsy devos, and she joins me now. abolishing the department of education doesn't happen overnight. realistically, how long would it take to the get rid of it? >> well, it certainly would require congress' ascent and approval and cooperation. but this is an ideal moment to really tackle this issue, one that has been brewing for a number of years. we tried to, essentially, d

betsy devos, the former secretary of education, tells people in that department, please go do this dei training. we want everyone to be aware of what's going on. and now those people who did that at her direction, their names are going on some sort of a list. >> that's right. i just talked to two union leaders who told me this on the record. they told me that this was a diversity training. it wasn't even described as a dei training because that sort of term wasn't there yet. it was called the diversity change agents programs that the administration, the trump administration, also said they wanted to have 400 people take the training. so they even had a big goal of how many people they wanted. now we're looking at the department of education, at least 55 people on paid leave, and union leaders think that they're going to be more people. maybe hundreds of them put on paid leave because of taking that training. alex. >> okay. yamiche, thank you very much. from west palm beach. joining me now is fbi, former assistant director for counterintelligence and msnbc senior national security analy

his former education secretary, betsy devos has supported that plan.next guest also worked in the education department in the first trump administration. former department of education press secretary and defense of freedom institute spokeswoman angela morfito joins me now. >> thanks for having me. mike:we saw democrats head to the education department demanding a meeting with acting leadership. it didn't work. what do you make of the on camera confrontation? >> democrats are total hypocrites on education. where was the outrage a couple weeks ago when we found out when in three eighth graders can't read or students were locked out of schools for upwards of the year during covid thanks to teacher union bosses. it was crickets from these people and when trump decides it is time to cut back some of this wasteful bureaucracy they are up in arms and apparently forgotten how to make appointments. it shows where their priorities are and is just not -- mike mike:the problem from parents is do we need is a part of education? >> we don't. former secretary devos

betsy devos tried to fix it for four years and saying, "look i did everything i could and democracy isrenched and must end for united states students." >> john: let's put the footage back up on the screen. that employee in the brown shirt with his glasses on his forehead, test is standing in front of the entrance to say the building is closed. they were hurling abuse at him and using him as a foil, a punching bag. he sort of sits there taking it all in. i think he barely said a word. >> i doubt anybody is endemic. you have 6% of federal workers showing up, john. 34,000 for the department of education so at the very most, extrapolates well 2,000 people in the entire city block building which is probably going to be on cello pretty soon. >> sandra: if only that amount of outrage over the nation's report card, right? these fourth-graders that can't read proficiently. eighth-graders. to the point we have seen drop already very low scores for the nation's children, that should be the outrage. and i also want martha at, to ask you about previewing this executive order a push for paper straws

also you had the former secretary of education, betsy devos writing yesterday in the free press she thinks the department of education should be eliminated. one of those things they probably won't get access to this building but the democrats are not clear how to deal with this. >> we see them showing up and protesting outside a number of buildings or capitol hill yesterday forcing themselves on their way into a meeting they wanted to be a part of. right now they feel like chaos is the strategy. it was the line in playbook this morning talking about the fact that they know that they will be overwhelmed with all of these actions and all the things that they are trying to get ahold of. they are showing up. we've seen protests and we're at war and say take this to the streets. it does feel like the democrats are back on their heels trying to get control of the messaging much less the substance of all these different things that are happening. >> dana: i think one congressman i can make out there taking the photograph there is maxwell cross and they're talking to a security guard. let me just

took a diversity training program that president trump, through his former education secretary, betsy devose trump administration at the time said they wanted 400 people to take a two day voluntary program. it was called the diversity change agent program. people that had nothing to do with dei jobs like program analysts and it folks, they took this training in 2018. this was under president trump the first time. now they are being put on administrative leave. one unit leaders said they felt like it was entrapment. of course it is not clear if president trump will get reelected and target these people. but that it was encouraged under the first trump administration and now it is in some ways being penalized. >> a lot of moving parts. thank you for keeping up with it. >>> hamas released three more israeli hostages sunday. one was keith siegel who was cheerfully reunited with his family after 16 months in captivity. israel also released more than 180 palestinian prisoners. this was the fourth exchange in the multiphasic cease-fire deal. according to the agreement, negotiations for implementin

literally failed at their mission, which was to prove the education level of america's students -- as betsy devos wrote today, she tried to fix it for 4 years, said the -- so deeply entrenched that it will never happen, and frankly, american students will be better off without it. >> because isn't that the point? the point of the doa was to improve and ensure quality education, so if that has failed, why shouldn't the democrats be open to an overhaul that puts, at its center -- instead of the bureaucracy -- actually student performance. the more money we have pumped in, the more abysmally test scores and performance has been on the student level. i don't quite know what they want to protect. >> i think we saw with the 2024 election that democrats will not move off of their talking points, because they don't want to admit that they were wrong. maxine waters is not the only one who's been yelling. there were parents in 2020 and 2021 going to school board meetings. they were yelling as well. they were saying "our children's education is getting worse." they were labeled domestic terrorists. it's irr

so these are people who were encouraged by betsy devos, trump's former education secretary, to go to some of these diversity trainings. now they're being told that they need to be on paid leave. alex. >> yeah. >> that. >> is absolutely extraordinary. let me ask you a sense of the immediate fallout from trump's order yesterday to hit canada and mexico. china with tariffs that starts on tuesday. i'm going to get into details in just a moment with christine romans. but but just give me a sense of the immediate fallout. >> well, listen, the backlash here has come fast and furious. you already have both canada and mexico saying that they're going to implement their own tariffs. we also have heard from the canadian prime minister, justin trudeau. here's what he said directly to the american people. take a listen. >> this is a choice that yes, will harm canadians, but beyond that, it will have real consequences for you, the american people. as i have consistently said, tariffs against canada will put your jobs at risk, potentially shutting down american auto assembly plants and other manufa

this was betsy devos, trump's pick for the department of education. she encouraged people to take diversity trainings. now we're hearing that as many as two dozen or more employees who took that training, they've been put on administrative leave. they're very worried that they could be fired. it's again, they had a whole goal that said they wanted 400 people to take this training. so very worried in the department there. and then you also have usaid. we have elon musk saying that it's an evil agency and that it should be shut down. so there's a lot of eyes going there because there's also senior officials being removed there as well. >> alex. >> let me quickly get to you. the talks of a trade war underway after trump announced he's going to hit mexico, canada and china with sweeping tariffs. what are you hearing from the administration about it? >> well, the president has been doubling down on his new tariffs. and i want to read to you part of what he posted online because he's acknowledging that prices might go up. and this is, of course, coming afte

a training that had to do with dei, that was actually proposed by betsy devos, who was the educationecute this purge. and then when you start thinking about, well, now they have access to medical information, potentially disciplinary information, all sorts of sensitive internal hr information that could then be used to do different kinds of purges down the line. so i think that's really the concern within opm about all of this data, kind of just free reign for musk's associates over this data. >> i mean, i can't emphasize enough i filled out these forms, how detailed these personnel forms are. it's so much information about people's lives. it sounds like you've outlined why you what you think they want to do with it. what do these officials think they want to do next with it? they've clearly been focused on what they see and define as d as addressing dei, which is outrageous. but will this put this over here? what else they want to do with it next? >> well. >> i don't i don't think anyone really knows for sure because essentially a lot of the career staff has now been blocked out of

as betsy devos and others wanted to do, and we will see a less educated electorate.s who will not stand for that. >> and those administrators and those educators have been put in an absolutely untenable position in the wake of these cuts. just real quick, i'm not going to make you listen to sound of the president saying this, but there was something in his remarks yesterday that i think is worth highlighting. i like choice, we all like choice, but beyond choice, long beyond choice. i want to see it go back to the states. what does that even mean? operationally? >> i have no idea. but the president does not make sense often. >> does he? >> no. he doesn't. >> but an evergreen answer. >> i guess i'll leave it at that. >> congresswoman madeleine dean of pennsylvania, we see that jersey behind. >> you. >> flying the eagles fly the eagles, baby. >> so birx. >> we got much more ahead. this is the weekend on msnbc. >> duncan. hello, handsome. >> how is. >> the kid, anyway? >> he did his first five dives with me. he's solid. >> you just lost. wow. grass. >> get out right now.

what i did under the trump administration along with the support of secretary betsy devos at the time and president trump was to get the highest level of funding for hbcu's ever to that point. it still wasn't enough to your point, and the biden administration has continued that work. this is not a political issue for us. these are incredibly important historic jewels that need to be funded. it's not about the institutions. it's about the students who attend those institutions, who we and employment, the employer side, need to fill those seven or eight million open jobs. they are critical to our work place diversity. >> thank you. let me move on and ask about the augustus hawkins center of intelligence, the grant, a program that's designed to support an array of teachers and address shortages and that funded a northbound our state, north carolina center. it was listed in the recent office of management and budget memo, freezing federal funding would you agree this grant was on that list? >> that concerns me. i have two graduates sitting behind me, one a three-time north carolina centra

she ran for profit schools where the goal every day was not to educate kids but to make money for betsy devos and her family. and so part of the agenda here is not just to pass along a tax cut to the billionaires and the millionaires and the corporations, but also just ship big parts of our public service infrastructure into the private sector. i'm a capitalist. i believe in the genius of the private sector, but i think there are some things we should do for the common good. there are some things that shouldn't be about how much money can i make? billionaires, corporations, private equity firms, they're doing fine. like, they don't need our schools. they don't need our schools. frankly, there's plenty of evidence to show that when they get their hands on fundamental public services, they do it worse. for instance, if you look at nursing homes that are owned by private equity firms versus nursing homes that are not for profit, the not for profit homes are better quality homes, are better quality homes. less people die in nursing homes owned by not for profit organization than die in nursing ho