It’s Not Just Trump—Republicans Have Plan to Gut Education Department

The Republican vision for the Department of Education’s destruction goes far beyond Donald Trump.

On Thursday, Republican Senator Mike Rounds introduced a bill that would totally abolish the department. “The federal Department of Education has never educated a single student, and it’s long past time to end this bureaucratic Department that causes more harm than good,” said Rounds in a statement. “For years, I’ve worked toward removing the federal Department of Education. I’m pleased that President-elect Trump shares this vision.… This legislation is a roadmap to eliminating the federal Department of Education by practically rehoming these federal programs in the departments where they belong.”

House Republicans are attacking the Department of Education too. Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie told ABC News that he’d bring forth department-destroying legislation of his own in the coming weeks.

“There’ll be one sentence—only thing that will change is the date: The Department of Education shall terminate on December 31, 2026,” Massie said. He has been trying to tear down the Department since 2023.

The bills will likely have strong support from the president-elect, as the elimination of the department was a central component of his successful campaign.Trump’s nominee for the Department of Education, former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon, also shares these wanton views. And with Republican control imminent at all levels federally, it seems possible that this bureaucratic nightmare could soon become a reality.

Donald Trump has tapped one of his impeachment attorneys, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, to lead the Justice Department.

“For too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans—Not anymore,” Trump said Thursday in a statement. “Pam will refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting Crime, and Making America Safe Again.”

Bondi replaced ex-Florida Representative Matt Gaetz as the top contender for attorney general after he withdrew his nomination Thursday. Insiders believed that Gaetz never had a chance at passing the Senate’s rigorous nomination process, especially as the alleged sexual abuser faced intense scrutiny over the details of two federal investigations related to sex trafficking accusations.

Gaetz hurriedly withdrew his nomination following news that the House Ethics Committee had obtained evidence that there was a second incident in which the ex-congressman slept with a minor.

As one of the few Trump nominees with relevant experience, Bondi could prove equally if not more dangerous than Gaetz in the crucial law enforcement role—as well as a relative shoo-in. Assuming that all Democrats will vote against Trump’s nominees, the president-elect can only afford to lose three Republican votes to squeeze his candidates into the executive branch. Bondi, who served more than 18 years as a prosecutor, stands against a background of Trump nominees that authoritarianism scholars have described as “anti-qualified.”

Bondi and Trump have been longtime allies. In 2013, his charity (illegally) issued $25,000 to her reelection bid for Florida attorney general—while her office was weighing whether to pursue charges against Trump University (she ultimately did not). Bondi was a star player on Trump’s legal team during his first impeachment, and was a vocal opponent of Jack Smith during Trump’s post-2020 legal woes, accusing the special counsel of “weaponising our legal system” for trying to hold the former president’s feet to the fire.

New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had the perfect response to Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s new gig as Congress’s billionaire babysitter.

The House Oversight Committee announced Thursday that it would create a new subcommittee expressly for the purpose of working with the Department of Government Efficiency, the meme-based advisory group led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, that plans to slash trillions of dollars’ worth of essential government services for the purpose of eradicating the administrative state and racking up new government contracts to replace it. 

Greene is reportedly set to head the new subcommittee, and Ocasio-Cortez managed to find the silver lining.

“This is good, actually. She barely shows up and doesn’t do the reading,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X Thursday. “To borrow a phrase I saw elsewhere, it’s like giving someone an unplugged controller.”

“Absolutely dying at those two now getting assigned the ‘privilege’ of ‘working’ with MTG,” she wrote in a separate post. “That is actually hilarious. Enjoy, fellas! Very prestigious post you have there.”

Representative Jamie Raskin also weighed in on just how ridiculous Republicans’ plan is to shrink the size of government by creating a new committee. 

“It’s hard to keep track of all the new departments and bureaucracies the Republicans are setting up to study the size and efficiency of government,” Raskin said in a statement. “But isn’t that what Chairman Comer and the Committee on Oversight and Accountability actually said they were doing over the last two years? Where’s their report and recommendations? Perhaps the impeachment flop derailed them a bit.”

“So now a noted student of American government, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, will chair a subcommittee to work with two unvetted billionaires who stand to receive billions more in government contracts and subsidies from the government under Trump,” Raskin said. “That’s why Democrats will stay focused on waste, fraud, abuse and corruption.  The government belongs to the people, not the billionaire oligarchs.”

Musk and Ramaswamy have already outlined their plans to strip funding from public broadcasting, Planned Parenthood, and “entitlement programs,” which likely include Medicare and Medicaid. It may be a blessing that they now have to work with the congressperson more interested in pushing outlandish, and antisemitic, conspiracy theories than actually governing. 

With fresh arrest warrants being issued by the International Criminal Court on Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will have fewer travel options, as a handful of foreign countries have announced that they will comply with the ICC’s mandate.

The ICC issued warrants for Netanyahu, Israel’s former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif, alleging that all parties have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. Deif’s charges have to do with Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel that left 1,200 dead; Netanyahu and Gallant are being charged over Israel’s brutal war in the year since, which has killed at least 44,000 Palestinians—which is very likely an undercount. Estimates by the medical journal The Lancet from July say the death toll ​​could exceed 186,000.

Israel claims Deif was killed in August; if true, it no longer matters whether or where he is arrested. Netanyahu and Gallant are another story entirely, as they risk arrest if they travel to any countries that are signatories to the Rome Statute. Israel and the United States are not among those countries, but many others are, including Canada, whose Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday that the country “will abide by all the regulations & rulings of the international courts.”

A spokesperson for France’s foreign ministry, Christophe Lemoine, said that while the warrants were a “complex legal issue,” the nation supports the court’s actions. “Combating impunity is our priority,” Lemoine said. “Our response will align with these principles.”

Leaders of the Netherlands gave a clearer answer, saying Netanyahu would be arrested if he set foot on Dutch soil. “The line from the government is clear. We are obliged to cooperate with the ICC ... we abide 100 percent by the Rome Statute,” Dutch foreign minister Caspar Veldkamp said in Parliament Thursday. The Netherlands is home to the court, located in The Hague.

In all, 124 countries are party to the Rome Statute, including every country in the European Union; under the terms of the treaty, Netanyahu and Gallant shouldn’t be able to travel to any of them without being arrested. Other signatories to the Rome statute include the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia.

But the United States is not, and has rejected the warrants out of hand, with the National Security Council saying that “the ICC does not have jurisdiction over this matter. In coordination with partners, including Israel, we are discussing next steps.”

Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have been accused of war crimes going back to 2023, so this decision from the ICC will be seen by foreign rights observers as a long time coming. The U.S. has thus far avoided any measures holding Israel accountable, whether ignoring its own laws and pronouncements or failing to restrict weapons exports to Israel in Congress. The question is whether the U.S. will intervene to prevent the enforcement of these arrest warrants.

With his nomination to run the Department of Justice hanging in precarious balance, a timely news story finally proved to be the deal-killer for Trump loyalist Matt Gaetz. At issue was a second, unreported sexual encounter between Trump’s attorney general nominee, Matt Gaetz, and the underage girl he had sex with at a sex party in 2017—to which the House Ethics Committee was alerted. 

This second encounter, reported on Thursday by CNN, may very well be the biggest reason that Gaetz withdrew his nomination. Gaetz and Vice President–elect JD Vance spent Wednesday lobbying Republican senators to overlook Gaetz’s infamous allegations of sexual misconduct and trafficking. The way the CNN report is written points to an uncanny timing behind Gaetz’s decision to pull out:

The woman, who was 17 years old at the time, testified that the second sexual encounter, which has not previously been reported, included another adult woman. She also testified to both sexual encounters in a civil deposition as part of a related lawsuit, sources said.

After being asked for comment for this story, Gaetz announced he was backing out as President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general nominee.

Gaetz has since played things very close to the vest. “I had excellent meetings with Senators yesterday.  I appreciate their thoughtful feedback—and the incredible support of so many,” Gaetz wrote on X. “While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition.” President-elect Trump thanked Gaetz on Truth social and told him he had a “wonderful future.”

The Florida lawmaker tried to rid himself of multiple investigations into his alleged pecadillos by resigning from Congress right before the House Ethics Committee was set to release its probe on him. This strategy has backfired tremendously, as he is now out of two jobs. 

The New York Times reported that four Republican senators were poised to oppose Gaetz’s nomination: Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, John Curtis of Utah, and Mitch McConnell. Gaetz’s replacement for the nomination remains to be seen; it’s equally unclear where Gaetz goes from here. President-elect Trump, in a statement on Truth Social, appeared to close the door on the possibility of Gaetz serving in a meaningful role in his administration: “Matt has a wonderful future, and I look forward to watching all of the great things he will do!” But that future is looking pretty bleak.