Jeffries Reaffirms DoE Closure Will Be ‘Stopped At The Courts’: ‘A Wannabe King Cannot Unravel It’

3/25/2025

At a press briefing on Monday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) discussed his predictions for the future of the Department of Education.

Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:

https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript

Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com

Transcript

00:00I think, Mr. Leader, you posted a video earlier today saying the House Democrats will prevent

00:04the Trump administration from closing the Department of Education.

00:09You mentioned two lawsuits were filed today. Are there any other plans in the works for you

00:14to push back against that executive order that the president signed last week,

00:18dismantling the Department of Education?

00:19Yeah, the effort to dismantle the Department of Education is deeply unpopular,

00:25as is the fact that they are trying to detonate Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

00:30I mean, who are these people? This is the mandate that you claim to have,

00:37to like dismantle the American way of life.

00:42This is why they're on the run. This is why they're hiding from the American people.

00:46This is why they're panicking in that Florida special election.

00:50This is why Elon Musk is pouring millions of dollars into Wisconsin.

00:58These people have overreached and failed to deliver on their core promise,

01:06which was to drive down the high cost of living in the United States of America.

01:11That's what they promised all of last year, and then ran away from Project 2025 as if it didn't

01:18exist. Lied in cold-blooded fashion to the American people. What are they doing this year?

01:26Have done nothing to lower costs. Costs aren't going down, they're going up.

01:32Inflation is going up. They're crashing the economy in real time,

01:36driving us to a Republican recession. Have done nothing to address inflation.

01:45Not a single bill, not a single executive order, not a single administrative action. Instead,

01:52they're unleashing the horrors of Project 2025, which they claimed last year didn't exist and

01:59that they knew nothing about. They're unleashing the horrors of Project 2025 on the American people

02:05by doing things like trying to blow up our nation's public schools.

02:08So, House Democrats are, of course, going to push back aggressively against it.

02:14We will stop them in Congress and we will stop them in the courts. The Department of Education

02:20was created by an act of Congress. A wannabe king cannot unravel it. The only way to unravel the

02:28Department of Education is through the Congress. Let's be clear, they don't have the votes to do it.

02:36It's not happening in the Congress and it's going to get stopped in the courts.

02:46Mr. Leader, there was some criticism about how Democratic leaders weren't on the same page as it

02:51relates to the spending negotiations from a week ago. You're talking about standing up and preventing

02:58Medicaid cuts during these budget negotiations going forward. How can you assure your supporters

03:03that leaders are now on the same page? And I don't mean just within the House, but in the

03:07Senate as well. Well, the House was incredibly unified and we will remain unified in opposition

03:13to pushing back against the effort to jam the largest cut to Medicaid in American history

03:19down the throats of the American people. Every single House Democrat voted against

03:27the reckless Republican budget at the end of February. Every single House Democrat. In fact,

03:34every single Senate Democrat voted against the Senate budget resolution. So I'm very confident

03:43that we will continue to be on the same page because we have been on the same page as it relates to this issue.

Jeffries Reaffirms DoE Closure Will Be ‘Stopped At The Courts’: ‘A Wannabe King Cannot Unravel It’

Category

Transcript

Recommended