Trump: Education Department Will Probably See More Cuts Than Any Other Part Of Federal Government

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In the Oval Office, President Trump defended his federal job cuts and said the Education Department will probably face the most.  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

00:00Okay.

00:01Are you going to retaliate?

00:02Are you going to retaliate?

00:03Sir, would you describe for us, is this meeting your vision by cutting about half the workforce?

00:04And what responsibility do you feel to the civil servants who have now lost their jobs?

00:05Many of them worked at the Department of Education during their first term.

00:06Sure, I do.

00:07I feel very badly.

00:18But many of them don't work at all.

00:20Many of them never showed up to work.

00:22Many of them, many of them never showed up to work, Kelly.

00:26And unfortunately, and that's not good.

00:30And when we cut, you know, we go, and that's what I had a number of meetings with a lot

00:35of people over the last couple of months.

00:37When we cut, we want to cut, but we want to cut the people that aren't working or not

00:41doing a good job.

00:43We're keeping the best people.

00:44And Linda McMahon is a real professional, actually a very sophisticated business person.

00:51And she cut a large number, but she kept the best people.

00:56And we'll see how it all works out.

00:57But our country was run very badly, whether it was that or contracts that were signed

01:02that was so bad, so obviously bad.

01:04And I go through them in speeches.

01:06I could go through them all day long.

01:07I could read for billions and hundreds of billions of dollars.

01:12And all of that fat and waste and fraud and abuse is being taken out.

01:17But it's it's incredible what's happened now.

01:20Department of Education's maybe more so than any any other place has a lot of people that

01:26can be cut.

01:27They're number one, not showing up to work.

01:30Number two, they're not doing a good job.

01:32And if you take a look at take a look at our education process.

01:37And if you look at the charts, because they have numerous charts where they do the top

01:4140, we're at number 37, 38, 39 and 40.

01:45And recently they hit during Biden's last few days.

01:48They hit last.

01:50So they were number 40.

01:52And yet we're number one in cost per pupil.

01:55So it's pretty bad.

01:56But we have a we have a dream.

01:58And you know, the dream is we're going to move the Department of Education.

02:01We're going to move education into the states so that the states instead of bureaucrats

02:06working in Washington, so that the states can run education.

02:10And you have Norway, you have Denmark, you have Sweden, you have various Finland, you

02:16have various countries that do very well.

02:19But you also have China that does very well in education, which is a pretty big tribute

02:22to China.

02:23I must say, one point four billion.

02:26And they're in the top 10.

02:28And it's pretty amazing.

02:30So we can't blame size anymore.

02:32You know, normally you'd blame size.

02:34It's too big.

02:35How can you do it?

02:36But China does it.

02:37So we think when you move it back to Iowa and Indiana and all the states that run so

02:44well, there's so many I could name 30, maybe almost 40.

02:49Those will be as good as Denmark.

02:51Those will be as good as Norway.

02:53And they'll be as good as any of these.

02:55I believe they'll be as good as any.

02:57Now, then you're going to have 10 that won't be so great.

02:59You're going to have five that will not be good at all, but will work with them and we'll

03:03get them to be good.

03:04But what we want to do is always school choice.

03:08But we're going to do school choice and we're doing it.

03:10But we want education to be moved back where the states run education, where the parents

03:16of the children will be running education, where governors that are doing a very good

03:21job will be running education, not run.

03:24I drive through the city and I see like so many buildings, Department of Education, Department

03:31of big buildings, the department.

03:32And by the way, they're empty.

03:33Nobody shows up to work.

03:35So I think Linda did a very good job.

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