Critic slams Trump plans to remake U.S. education system
David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement
March 12, 2024
A demonstrator holds a placard showing a picture of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump modified to add a swastika and an Adolf Hitler-style mustache during a protest outside the U.S. Embassy in London November 9, 2016. (Photo: Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)
Donald Trump's plans to remake education at all levels, if he becomes president, are drawing concern.
In two separate videos on Trump's little-noticed "Agenda 47" website, the ex-president details his vision to take millions of dollars away from the endowments of private colleges and universities, through lawsuits and fines, as retribution for some students he suggests embraced Hamas after it attacked Israel. Those millions of dollars would be used to create an entire new federal government university system which, Trump vows, would be entirely non-political: no "wokeness" would be allowed.
Trump claimed colleges and universities are "turning our students into communists, terrorists, and sympathizers of many, many different dimensions. We can't let this happen. It's time to offer something dramatically different. Under the plan I'm announcing today we will take the billions and billions of dollars that we will collect by taxing, fining, and suing excessively large private university endowments, and we will then use that money to endow a new institution called the American Academy."
READ MORE: ‘Incomprehensible’: Trump Decimated for ‘Word Salad on Crucially Important Policy Question’
Trump also announced plans to entirely eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, allowing states to keep those funds so they can determine what and how children should be taught.
"Rather than indoctrinating young people with inappropriate racial, sexual and political material, which is what we're doing now, our schools must be totally refocused to prepare our children to succeed in the world of work and in life and the world of keeping our countries strong," Trump declared. "Right now we're living in a failing nation because Joe Biden and these people running it, that Marxist that communist what they're doing to our country is incredible."
Trump claimed, "we will ensure our classrooms are focused not on political indoctrination but on teaching the knowledge and skills needed to succeed. Reading, writing, math, science, arithmetic, and other truly useful subjects," "we will teach students to love their country not to hate their country like they're taught right down," and, "we will support bringing back prayer to our schools."
Political strategist Rachel Bitecofer, who posted the videos to social media last week, says Trump plans to "take over public education just like the Nazi's did."
READ MORE: Sex Trafficking Survivor Debunks Katie Britt’s Claims in CNN Interview
"Your children will become their children," she writes. "A portrait of Trump in every classroom."
On Monday, Bitecofer added, Trump "plans on turning public schools into MAGA academies and seizing the private endowment of the Ivies."
READ MORE: Trump Praised Hitler While He Was in the White House: Ex-Official
David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement
March 12, 2024
A demonstrator holds a placard showing a picture of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump modified to add a swastika and an Adolf Hitler-style mustache during a protest outside the U.S. Embassy in London November 9, 2016. (Photo: Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)
Donald Trump's plans to remake education at all levels, if he becomes president, are drawing concern.
In two separate videos on Trump's little-noticed "Agenda 47" website, the ex-president details his vision to take millions of dollars away from the endowments of private colleges and universities, through lawsuits and fines, as retribution for some students he suggests embraced Hamas after it attacked Israel. Those millions of dollars would be used to create an entire new federal government university system which, Trump vows, would be entirely non-political: no "wokeness" would be allowed.
Trump claimed colleges and universities are "turning our students into communists, terrorists, and sympathizers of many, many different dimensions. We can't let this happen. It's time to offer something dramatically different. Under the plan I'm announcing today we will take the billions and billions of dollars that we will collect by taxing, fining, and suing excessively large private university endowments, and we will then use that money to endow a new institution called the American Academy."
READ MORE: ‘Incomprehensible’: Trump Decimated for ‘Word Salad on Crucially Important Policy Question’
Trump also announced plans to entirely eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, allowing states to keep those funds so they can determine what and how children should be taught.
"Rather than indoctrinating young people with inappropriate racial, sexual and political material, which is what we're doing now, our schools must be totally refocused to prepare our children to succeed in the world of work and in life and the world of keeping our countries strong," Trump declared. "Right now we're living in a failing nation because Joe Biden and these people running it, that Marxist that communist what they're doing to our country is incredible."
Trump claimed, "we will ensure our classrooms are focused not on political indoctrination but on teaching the knowledge and skills needed to succeed. Reading, writing, math, science, arithmetic, and other truly useful subjects," "we will teach students to love their country not to hate their country like they're taught right down," and, "we will support bringing back prayer to our schools."
Political strategist Rachel Bitecofer, who posted the videos to social media last week, says Trump plans to "take over public education just like the Nazi's did."
READ MORE: Sex Trafficking Survivor Debunks Katie Britt’s Claims in CNN Interview
"Your children will become their children," she writes. "A portrait of Trump in every classroom."
On Monday, Bitecofer added, Trump "plans on turning public schools into MAGA academies and seizing the private endowment of the Ivies."
READ MORE: Trump Praised Hitler While He Was in the White House: Ex-Official
'Five-alarm fire': Trump's latest public schools threat causes experts to panic
David McAfee
March 3, 2024
Then-President of the United States Donald Trump speaking at the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. Photo by Gage Skidmore.
Donald Trump said something about public schools that got no media coverage, yet it's causing political analysts, ex-prosecutors, and other onlookers to sound the alarm.
Trump began hinting last year that, if he were made the president once again, he would withhold all federal funds from schools that require vaccines or masks.
On Saturday, he doubled down on that promise.
As reported by former Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-VA), "Trump said in Richmond, that he will take all federal funds away from public schools that require vaccines."
"Like most states, Virginia requires MMR vaccine, chickenpox vaccine, polio, etc.," she then added. "So Trump would take millions in federal funds away from all Virginia public schools."
Former federal prosecutor Shan Wu responded to Comstock Sunday, saying, "It's almost like Trump and his advisors want Americans to be sickened from disease..."
The comment further caught the attention of Elizabeth de la Vega, also a former federal prosecutor. She said, "Trump said yesterday that he would take away federal funding from school systems that require vaccines."
"This should be a five-alarm fire," she then added. "In 1955, before the polio vaccine was widely administered, my 13yr old brother spent a year on his back because of polio. My H.S. English teacher, a former football star, walked with arm braces [and] dragged his legs because he'd had polio years before. This is the world Trump wants."
Former "Tea Party" Republican Rep. Denver Riggleman (VA) also chimed in:
"We can only surmise, Trump cares for all children about as much as he cares for his own."
"His ignorance is an infection that needs its own vaccine," the former lawmaker added.
Conservative Rick Wilson called Trump's purported plan "a death sentence for American school kids."
Actor Jon Cryer said it would be "truly psychopathic."
"It's difficult to overstate how disastrous this policy would be if enacted," the former co-star of Two and a Half Men said on Saturday.
David McAfee
March 3, 2024
Then-President of the United States Donald Trump speaking at the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. Photo by Gage Skidmore.
Donald Trump said something about public schools that got no media coverage, yet it's causing political analysts, ex-prosecutors, and other onlookers to sound the alarm.
Trump began hinting last year that, if he were made the president once again, he would withhold all federal funds from schools that require vaccines or masks.
On Saturday, he doubled down on that promise.
As reported by former Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-VA), "Trump said in Richmond, that he will take all federal funds away from public schools that require vaccines."
"Like most states, Virginia requires MMR vaccine, chickenpox vaccine, polio, etc.," she then added. "So Trump would take millions in federal funds away from all Virginia public schools."
Former federal prosecutor Shan Wu responded to Comstock Sunday, saying, "It's almost like Trump and his advisors want Americans to be sickened from disease..."
The comment further caught the attention of Elizabeth de la Vega, also a former federal prosecutor. She said, "Trump said yesterday that he would take away federal funding from school systems that require vaccines."
"This should be a five-alarm fire," she then added. "In 1955, before the polio vaccine was widely administered, my 13yr old brother spent a year on his back because of polio. My H.S. English teacher, a former football star, walked with arm braces [and] dragged his legs because he'd had polio years before. This is the world Trump wants."
Former "Tea Party" Republican Rep. Denver Riggleman (VA) also chimed in:
"We can only surmise, Trump cares for all children about as much as he cares for his own."
"His ignorance is an infection that needs its own vaccine," the former lawmaker added.
Conservative Rick Wilson called Trump's purported plan "a death sentence for American school kids."
Actor Jon Cryer said it would be "truly psychopathic."
"It's difficult to overstate how disastrous this policy would be if enacted," the former co-star of Two and a Half Men said on Saturday.
RNC purge was a dress rehearsal for Trump's federal government bloodbath: GOP strategist
Matthew Chapman
March 12, 2024
Lara Trump speaking with supporters at a "Make America Great Again" campaign rally at the Scottsdale Plaza Resort in Paradise Valley, Arizona. (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
Donald Trump's installation of loyalists at the Republican National Committee and the subsequent staffer purge served as a trial run for what the former president plans to do next, says GOP strategist and Republican Accountability Project leader Sarah Longwell.
Longwell appeared on MSNBC Tuesday night to discuss with host Chris Hayes Trump's plans for the civil service if reelected to the White House in 2025 one day after a reported RNC "bloodbath" saw 60 officials get the ax.
"I always feel like we've taken the final step in Trump's complete takeover of the Republican Party, but there is always another step," said Longwell. "Because he is formally taking over the Republican Party apparatus here. You know, so it started with the resignation of Jeff Flake and it ends with Lara Trump controlling the RNC."
Before Trump was a U.S. president, he was the popular host of a reality television series "The Apprentice" best known for the catchphrase "You're fired."
Longwell argued Trump has brought that mindset to the RNC and he will bring that mindset to the federal government, replacing axed workers with people who will do his bidding.
"That's what he wants to do to the government," Longwell said. "He wants to create an entire American government that is at his service. He's running for president to pay off his legal bills and he's trying to get elected president to stay out of jail. It's all about him, and the Republican Party is completely in service to that."
The part that makes all this "crazy," Longwell added, is that all of this pulls resources from Republican candidates around the country who need to win to give Trump any real power.
"There are down-ticket races where people need money," said Longwell. "And the RNC is only there singularly for Trump."
Matthew Chapman
March 12, 2024
Lara Trump speaking with supporters at a "Make America Great Again" campaign rally at the Scottsdale Plaza Resort in Paradise Valley, Arizona. (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
Donald Trump's installation of loyalists at the Republican National Committee and the subsequent staffer purge served as a trial run for what the former president plans to do next, says GOP strategist and Republican Accountability Project leader Sarah Longwell.
Longwell appeared on MSNBC Tuesday night to discuss with host Chris Hayes Trump's plans for the civil service if reelected to the White House in 2025 one day after a reported RNC "bloodbath" saw 60 officials get the ax.
"I always feel like we've taken the final step in Trump's complete takeover of the Republican Party, but there is always another step," said Longwell. "Because he is formally taking over the Republican Party apparatus here. You know, so it started with the resignation of Jeff Flake and it ends with Lara Trump controlling the RNC."
Before Trump was a U.S. president, he was the popular host of a reality television series "The Apprentice" best known for the catchphrase "You're fired."
Longwell argued Trump has brought that mindset to the RNC and he will bring that mindset to the federal government, replacing axed workers with people who will do his bidding.
"That's what he wants to do to the government," Longwell said. "He wants to create an entire American government that is at his service. He's running for president to pay off his legal bills and he's trying to get elected president to stay out of jail. It's all about him, and the Republican Party is completely in service to that."
The part that makes all this "crazy," Longwell added, is that all of this pulls resources from Republican candidates around the country who need to win to give Trump any real power.
"There are down-ticket races where people need money," said Longwell. "And the RNC is only there singularly for Trump."
MAGA evangelicals are about to make GOP's biggest political headache even worse: report
Matthew Chapman
March 12, 2024
Evangelical worshippers (Photo by Larry Marano for Shutterstock)
Republicans are beginning to get cold feet over just how far the anti-abortion movement is willing to go to restrict health care — and evangelical activists are now turning on some of them.
According to Politico, the recent Alabama Supreme Court decision declaring embryos people and effectively outlawing in vitro fertilization in the state has caused a huge rift among cultural conservatives, with Republican politicians rushing to defend IVF and even protect it in legislation, and their longtime anti-abortion allies responding with fury.
"Several have attacked state and federal lawmakers — who introduced legislation to protect IVF after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled last month that frozen embryos are children — for giving doctors a 'license to kill' and said legislators’ efforts would result in 'thousands of dead human beings,'" reported Megan Messerly and Alice Miranda Ollstein. "Other groups are going further, running ads against longstanding GOP allies that use the same graphic imagery — blood, babies and scalpels — they have long deployed to oppose Democrats and the abortion-rights movement.
Tom Parker, the Alabama chief justice who helped craft the IVF decision, is an avowed Christian nationalist who has spoken in favor of the "Seven Mountain Mandate," or a call for right-wing Christians to seize control of the government and culture. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has ties to this movement as well.
Trump, on the other hand, even as he calls for a national abortion ban, has called for Republicans to protect IVF, and Alabama lawmakers themselves recently enacted a law codifying IVF rights in the state. Kentucky and Missouri lawmakers have introduced similar legislation, but are getting attacked by local anti-abortion groups as well.
“For a lot of conservative Republican lawmakers, being against abortion has served as a kind of lazy way to say that you’re a conservative,” said the right-wing American Family Association Action's policy director Jameson Taylor. “Frankly, a lot of Republican lawmakers are not in touch with conservative principles because they have not taken sufficient time to think through what those principles are.”
Matthew Chapman
March 12, 2024
Evangelical worshippers (Photo by Larry Marano for Shutterstock)
Republicans are beginning to get cold feet over just how far the anti-abortion movement is willing to go to restrict health care — and evangelical activists are now turning on some of them.
According to Politico, the recent Alabama Supreme Court decision declaring embryos people and effectively outlawing in vitro fertilization in the state has caused a huge rift among cultural conservatives, with Republican politicians rushing to defend IVF and even protect it in legislation, and their longtime anti-abortion allies responding with fury.
"Several have attacked state and federal lawmakers — who introduced legislation to protect IVF after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled last month that frozen embryos are children — for giving doctors a 'license to kill' and said legislators’ efforts would result in 'thousands of dead human beings,'" reported Megan Messerly and Alice Miranda Ollstein. "Other groups are going further, running ads against longstanding GOP allies that use the same graphic imagery — blood, babies and scalpels — they have long deployed to oppose Democrats and the abortion-rights movement.
Tom Parker, the Alabama chief justice who helped craft the IVF decision, is an avowed Christian nationalist who has spoken in favor of the "Seven Mountain Mandate," or a call for right-wing Christians to seize control of the government and culture. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has ties to this movement as well.
Trump, on the other hand, even as he calls for a national abortion ban, has called for Republicans to protect IVF, and Alabama lawmakers themselves recently enacted a law codifying IVF rights in the state. Kentucky and Missouri lawmakers have introduced similar legislation, but are getting attacked by local anti-abortion groups as well.
“For a lot of conservative Republican lawmakers, being against abortion has served as a kind of lazy way to say that you’re a conservative,” said the right-wing American Family Association Action's policy director Jameson Taylor. “Frankly, a lot of Republican lawmakers are not in touch with conservative principles because they have not taken sufficient time to think through what those principles are.”
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