During a press briefing on Wednesday, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) spoke about his conversation with Secretary of Education Linda McMahon amid a push by the Trump Administration to dismantle the agency she heads.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Let me start with what I take to be the good news.
00:04First of all, Secretary McMahon met with us.
00:07My colleagues and I have signed dozens of letters requesting meetings with different
00:12Cabinet secretaries, and so we wanted to express our gratitude to Secretary McMahon for meeting
00:19with us and hearing about the tremendous concerns that our constituents have all across America
00:25about what's taking place.
00:29The second bit of good news is that she reassured us multiple times that she plans to follow
00:35what federal law is.
00:37So I think that she doesn't want to end up in court being sued and struck down the way
00:42so many of the other departments and agencies have been struck down because they've just
00:48thrown caution to the winds and dismantled actual congressional rules and mandates that
00:54have been put in place for the people.
00:56So all of that is to the good.
00:58Now, we have the concern that there are decades-long bodies of law and precedent that have been
01:09built up in this institution to enforce the rights of families and kids all across America.
01:16Title I is a critical part of that.
01:18Title VI is a critical part of that.
01:20Title IX is a critical part of that.
01:23And so the idea of dismembering the department, which we understand predates Secretary McMahon,
01:29but the idea of dismembering the department and then parceling it out to other agencies
01:36and departments does not give us a lot of confidence or hope in what's happening, and
01:42we tried to express that.
01:43I think she did express that while there is a mandate to take down the Department of Education,
01:50there's not a mandate to take down education, but we just want to make sure that that's
01:54not what's going to happen, and I think that that's the essence of the conflict here.
02:00And civil rights does become the crux of the controversy.
02:06So much of American history has been consumed with people fighting for the right to have
02:10their kids educated without racial discrimination.
02:14That's what Brown v. Board of Education is all about.
02:17That's what so much of the Civil Rights Act is all about, fighting to make sure that kids
02:22with disabilities have a right to an individualized education plan and to get the services that
02:28they need.
02:29And we don't want this second Trump administration to be the moment where all of the progress
02:34that we've made in American history towards an equal and excellent education for everybody
02:39suddenly goes down the drain.
02:41And that's why we're here, and that's why we're engaged in this dialogue with Secretary
02:46McMahon and with her staff, and we hope that we will be able to continue to have dialogue
02:52with her and make sure that education continues to improve in America rather than sink back
02:59to a time when whole parts of the population were just left out.
03:06Next question.
03:07Yes, go ahead.
03:08I know that she says she would be guided by statute, and I know you're encouraged by that,
03:17but do you feel that she would have...