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The US Department of Agriculture is ending two Covid-19 era programs that provided money for schools and food banks to purchase food from local and regional farmers and ranchers, halting some $1 billion in funding.

The agency said in a statement that it is “prioritizing stable, proven solutions that deliver lasting impact. The COVID era is over — USDA’s approach to nutrition programs will reflect that reality moving forward.”

The USDA also noted that last week it released more than half a billion dollars in previously obligated funds for the two initiatives — the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program and the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program.

The School Nutrition Association decried the cut, saying that an estimated $660 million in funds for schools would be lost. School districts are already contending with sustained high costs for food, labor and equipment, according to the group.

“The Local Food for Schools program has enabled chronically underfunded school meal programs to purchase fresh, local options for student meals — everything from locally grown produce, fresh fish, or meat from nearby ranches, to cheese, yogurt and milk from local dairies,” Shannon Gleave, the association’s president, said in a statement. “In addition to losing the benefits for our kids, this loss of funds is a huge blow to community farmers and ranchers and is detrimental to school meal programs struggling to manage rising food and labor costs.”

For instance, in Massachusetts, public school districts are using the funds to provide students with fish tacos, apples, spinach, winter squash and carrots, according to a report from Massachusetts Farm to School, which works to increase local food purchasing at schools.

The sunsetting of the two programs comes as the Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency are seeking to shrink the federal government.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has eliminated an office that helps minority veterans deal with disparities in how the government provides benefits, as the agency plans further cuts to its workforce.

“Under Secretary Collins, VA treats all Veterans and beneficiaries fairly and equally, so the Office of Equity Assurance is no longer needed,” VA spokesperson Peter Kasperowicz said in a statement to CNN. “The money saved by closing the office will be redirected to improve health care, benefits and services for Veterans, all of whom we treat fairly and equally.”

An employee of the Office of Equity Assurance shared an email with CNN, dated February 14, from the VA’s human resources department, saying “We appreciate your dedicated service to this organization”, but that, per a presidential executive order directing an end to DEI programs, “we are closing your assigned office and conducting a reduction in force.”

The elimination of the Office of Equity Assurance, which was created under President Joe Biden as part of the VA’s Veterans Benefits Administration, was first reported by ProPublica.

The move was met with criticism from some lawmakers and veterans, with the top Democrat on the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs calling the office’s closure “excessive” and “reckless”.

In a statement, Richard Brookshire, co-CEO and founder of the Black Veterans Project, described the move as “a first step toward gutting the second largest agency in our federal government,” warning, “The consequences will be dire, wide-reaching and deadly.”

CNN reported last week that the Trump administration is planning to cut tens of thousands of employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune took a procedural step on the Senate floor to set up a key vote for Friday on the House-passed GOP government funding bill, though the vote could happen earlier if senators were to reach an agreement to move up the timing.

This Friday vote would be to break a filibuster on the package and would need 60 votes for the bill to advance. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said earlier today that Democrats have the votes to block the bill from advancing.

However, later in the day, some Senate Democrats signaled that they may provide the votes to advance the funding package – but only if they get an amendment vote on a shorter, one month stop-gap bill.

Here’s what Republican senators are saying:

• Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana: “It’s up to Chuck,” he told CNN, referring to the Democratic leader. “He’s got two choices here: door number one is keep government open, door number two is shut government down.” Asked if he believes the government is headed for a shutdown, Kennedy said, “It looks to me like that, yeah, but it’s up to Chuck.”
• Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming also placed the fate of the government shutdown on Democrats. “If the Democrats want to shut down the government, it’s within their control to do so,” she said. “We need to put the current fiscal year budget behind us, the spending behind us, and begin to focus on the next fiscal year” where some budget sizes will be reduced based on the “waste, fraud and abuse that has been identified.”

Dr. David Weldon, the former Republican lawmaker whom President Donald Trump has nominated to be director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, repeated “debunked claims” about vaccines in a meeting last month with Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, according to the senator.

“It’s dangerous to put someone in charge at CDC who believes the lie that our rigorously tested childhood vaccine schedule is somehow exposing kids to toxic levels of mercury or causing autism,” Murray said in a statement, which was first reported by Bloomberg News.

Murray serves on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which is holding Weldon’s nomination hearing tomorrow morning — the first for a CDC director nominee.

Weldon didn’t immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.

While representing a House district near Tampa from 1995 to 2009, Weldon became known for believing in a link — many times debunked — between vaccines and autism.

His confirmation hearing comes after the US Department of Health and Human Services, led by anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is said to have asked the CDC to investigate vaccines and autism, despite robust evidence showing no link between the two.

The hearing also comes as federal health agencies are being slashed and research funding is being halted by the Trump administration.

“At the same time this administration is elevating prominent vaccine skeptics like RFK Jr. and Dr. Weldon to key positions, it is also mass firing thousands of qualified public health experts and freezing communications across health agencies,” Murray said. “Make no mistake, there will be serious consequences to decimating our public health infrastructure.”

Even as Senate Democrats continue to press for a one-month stop-gap funding bill, some acknowledged that members may provide the necessary votes to move ahead with the House-passed GOP version, as long as they get an amendment vote on their short-term package.

“I think we’re going to vote no on cloture, or not speed up the cloture vote, until he gives an amendment,” said Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia.

Asked to clarify if enough Democrats could vote to advance the package if they got an amendment vote on the short-term option, Kaine confirmed, “Yes.”

However, he still is not backing the House’s continuing resolution measure. “We can do better than the CR that the House guys did, without including us, and we should. So that’s my goal. I’m no on this. We can do better, and we should,” Kaine said.

Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona didn’t rule out voting to advance to the long-term funding bill, as long as Democrats get a chance to vote on the short-term one as well.

Kelly added that they are talking with Republicans about the path forward.

Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont, like Kaine, said that he would not vote to advance the package — even if Democrats get the amendment vote they want.

Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, the only Democrat who has said that he will vote for the House-passed funding bill, slammed Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s threat to block a GOP-led bill, arguing that it would effectively force a shutdown and could have grave economic consequences.

Separately, House Democratic leaders said they “strongly support” a bill that would fund the government for four weeks, aligning themselves with Senate Democrats, who are opposed to the Republican spending bill that funds the government through September.

CNN’s Veronica Stracqualursi and Haley Talbot contributed to this post

A federal labor board member President Donald Trump fired has been reinstated.

Judge Sparkle Sooknanan of the DC District Court found the termination of Susan Tsui Grundmann from the Federal Labor Relations Authority to be unlawful.

The judge wrote that Grundmann could only be removed for cause, and that she should continue serving until her Senate-confirmed five-year term expires on the Federal Labor Relations board. Her term was to run until at least July this year.

The case is among a handful in recent days where judges in Washington, DC, have reinstated executive branch officials to boards that are intended to operate with some independence from the presidency. The Justice Department is appealing the rulings.

Grundmann’s case is likely to face appeals as well, with the question of the reach of Trump’s hiring and firing power over some official positions potentially headed to the Supreme Court.

It’s not the only case where judges have pushed back against the Trump administration’s moves to remake the federal government.

Here’s what else happened in the courts today:

• Constitutionality of military transgender ban: Federal Judge Ana Reyes demanded that the Department of Defense and Secretary Pete Hegseth clarify the terms of the policy banning transgender individuals from military service. As part of an hours-long court hearing, the judge said the administration has until Monday to present a signed declaration from Hegseth to explain a post on X from the secretary that said: “Pentagon says transgender troops are disqualified from service without an exemption.”
• EPA climate grant: US District Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to provide more information by Monday justifying its cancellation of a multibillion-dollar climate grant. The grant recipient, Climate United Fund, is seeking a temporary restraining order that would release the frozen money. The agency issued its cancellation notice Tuesday night, after it and the bank, Citibank, had already been sued by the fund for not releasing the funding.
• Executive order targeting law firm: A federal judge halted parts of Trump’s executive order that targeted a Democratic-linked law firm, Perkins Coie. The firm represented Hillary Clinton in 2016 and has been involved in election litigation that Trump opposed. The judge’s temporary restraining order blocks some sections of Trump’s order, including its limitations on government contracts with clients of the firm and the potential restrictions it puts on the firm’s employees.

CNN’s Betul Tuncer and Tierney Sneed contributed reporting to this post.

US Customs and Border Protection apprehended more than 8,000 illegal migrants attempting to cross the southern border in February — marking a new low, compared to the month before and February of last year, data shows.

CBP said its Office of Field Operations apprehended 8,347 people last month. For context, that is a 71% decrease from January, when the agency said it apprehended 29,101 migrants.

It’s also a 94% decrease from February 2024, when it apprehended more than 140,000 people, according to a statement from CBP.

The agency said President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “have sent a clear message: if you cross the border illegally, you will be deported without an opportunity to try another day, or in a few hours,” according to the statement.

“As a result, CBP encounters with illegal aliens have decreased dramatically,” it said.

In addition to the US southern border, CBP said it has “has dramatically increased active patrols of our international borders” with support from the Department of Defense.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats have the votes to block the House-passed GOP spending bill. It is his first statement about his party’s strategy ahead of the Friday shutdown deadline.

Schumer called on Senate Republicans to cut a deal with Democrats on a short-term spending bill instead, while they continue negotiating full-year appropriations.

“Funding the government should be a bipartisan effort, but Republicans chose a partisan path, drafting their continuing resolution without any input — any input from congressional Democrats. Because of that, Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the House,” he said on the floor.

The House-passed bill would keep the government open until September. Senate Republicans are expected to reject Democrats’ attempts to pass their own short-term stopgap bill.

Earlier this afternoon: Senate Democrats engaged in an animated debate behind closed doors over how to handle the House’s government funding bill. The meeting lasted for more than an hour.

They were debating whether to supply the votes for a bill or block it and risk what could be a prolonged shutdown. Some Democrats are also pushing for bill that would keep the government funded for 30 days while a long-term solution is worked out.

Ukraine’s plan of using Russia’s Kursk region as a bargaining tool in negotiations has collapsed, Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, claimed Wednesday.

Russia has reclaimed 86% of the area and hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers have been taken prisoner in the region, Gerasimov claimed as President Vladimir Putin was making his first visit to the region since Ukraine’s incursion in August last year.

“Moreover (the) Kyiv leadership was trying to use the foray into the Kursk region to stop our advances and take away our troops from Donbass,” he said. “This enemy’s plan totally collapsed.”

Ukrainian troops in the region have been surrounded, Gerasimov also claimed.

CNN cannot independently verify the general’s claims.

Putin said the goal is to “completely liberate” the region as soon as possible and raised the possibility of creating a “buffer zone” along Russia’s border with Ukraine.

Appearing on Russian state television dressed in military uniform, Putin also said all Ukrainian soldiers captured in Kursk will be treated as terrorists.

Some background: Ukraine launched its shock incursion into Kursk in August, swiftly capturing territory in what was the first ground invasion of Russia by a foreign power since World War II. As well as capturing land that could potentially be swapped for Russian-occupied territory, the campaign aimed to divert Moscow’s resources from the front lines in the east. But since then, Ukraine has struggled to hold onto its captured territory, with its grip on the region rapidly deteriorating in recent days.

What Ukraine is saying: Moscow is using airborne troops and special operations forces to push Ukrainian troops out of Kursk, and has carried out air strikes on its own land, Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s army, said in a post on Telegram. Russia is attempting to break through Ukrainian defenses in Kursk and move the fighting to the northeastern Ukrainian regions of Sumy and Kharkiv, he said. His priority is to save his soldiers’ lives even if it means maneuvering them into “more favorable positions” while continuing to hold defense in Kursk for as long as it’s appropriate, he said.

This post was updated with a statement from Ukraine’s military leadership.

US intelligence sharing has fully resumed and American weapons are flowing into Ukraine again after Tuesday’s meeting between US and Ukrainian representatives in Saudi Arabia, according to a US official.

Artillery rounds, anti-tank weapons, and ammunition for the HIMARS rocket system are once again being shipped into Ukraine, the official said, as part of the packages approved by the Biden administration. These shipments were paused following the disastrous White House meeting between President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky.

Some of these weapons were held in Poland before they had entered into Ukraine. On Tuesday night, Poland’s Secretary of State in the Ministry of National Defense Pawel Zalewski, said on social media that the weapons in Rzeszow near the border with Ukraine had started moving again.

US contractors who are in Ukraine to help with maintenance, training and support on the country’s more complex weapons systems have also resumed their work, the official said. It is not clear if they were compelled to leave the country as part of the pause in aid or if they remained in Ukraine.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has dismissed US President Donald Trump’s offer to open negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear program.

“The US president says he is ready to negotiate with Iran, but his call for dialogue is nothing but a deception of world public opinion,” Khamenei told a meeting of college students in the Iranian capital Tehran on Wednesday.

Trump told Fox News last week that he had written a letter to Khamenei, telling the network, “there are two ways Iran can be handled: militarily, or you make a deal. I would prefer to make a deal, because I’m not looking to hurt Iran.”

“I said, ‘I hope you’re going to negotiate, because it’s going to be a lot better for Iran,’ and I think they want to get that letter — the alternative is we have to do something, because you can’t let them have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Wednesday he had received a letter from Trump during a meeting in Tehran with Anwar Gargash, the UAE president’s diplomatic adviser.

Khamenei told the students he had not personally received a letter from Trump yet.

Some context: Tehran, which has long insisted its nuclear program is peaceful, has expressed increasing skepticism about diplomacy with the US since the Trump administration withdrew in 2018 from the Iran nuclear deal signed three years earlier by Iran and six other countries.

Khamenei’s comments also targeted domestic critics who have called for renewed engagement with Washington to ease economic sanctions. “If the goal of negotiations is to lift sanctions, then dialogue with this administration will not lead to that. Rather, it will make the sanctions more complicated and impose more pressure,” Khamenei said.

This post was updated with a comment by Iran’s foreign minister.

The Trump administration is rolling back several major climate policies, including two rules that target planet-warming pollution from vehicles and power plants, in a major blow to America’s effort to address the causes of climate change.

The changes are expected to inject even more uncertainty into key industries, including manufacturing, which President Donald Trump has pledged to support through policy.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Wednesday it will undo a vehicle pollution rule the Biden administration finalized in March 2024, which — by mandating less pollution from cars — would have pushed US automakers to produce more electric vehicles and fuel-efficient hybrid models that run on a mixture of gas and small batteries.

“The American auto industry has been hamstrung by the crushing regulatory regime of the last administration,” EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said, adding the Trump administration “will abide by the rule of law to protect consumer choice and the environment.”

The administration also plans to dismantle a Biden-era rule that compelled coal and new natural gas power plants to either cut or capture 90% of their climate pollution by 2032.

Zeldin went as far as to recall the Obama administration’s power plant rule, saying in a statement that Trump “promised to kill the Clean Power Plan in his first term, and we continue to build on that progress now.”

Additionally, Trump’s EPA is preparing to reconsider and strike down a consequential scientific finding that has served as the basis of federal regulations to curb climate pollution. Dismissing the precedent would strip the EPA’s authority to manage the pollution that causes global warming.

This post has been updated with additional information about the rules set to be undone and comments from Zeldin.

The White House today declined to say if the Trump administration has any enforcement mechanism in place in case Russia breaks a US-proposed ceasefire with Ukraine.

“Well, that’s obviously a grand hypothetical question that I won’t comment on, because we’re not there yet,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at the White House following a Fox interview.

“The current state of play is that the Ukrainians have agreed to a ceasefire, the Ukrainians have agreed to the peace plan that was put on the table yesterday in Saudi Arabia by the secretary of state and our national security adviser, whom I just spoke with before coming out here,” she said.

Leavitt said that national security adviser Mike Waltz spoke with his Russian counterpart earlier today, and that Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff is traveling to Moscow this week to urge Russia to sign on to the plan. She described the state of negotiations as “on the tenth yard line of peace” and said it is now “up to the Russians to agree to this plan.”

But she declined to say if President Donald Trump planned to call Russian President Vladimir Putin in an effort to exert direct pressure to commit to the ceasefire.

“I don’t have a readout on the the president’s calls, but as the president always does, if that call happens, he will let you guys know,” Leavitt said.

Asked if he planned to speak with Putin this week to discuss the ceasefire proposal, Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday, “I think so, yes.”

President Donald Trump has imposed sweeping 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imported into the United States.

In total, the US imported $31.3 billion worth of iron and steel and $27.4 billion of aluminum last year, according to data from the US Commerce Department. (The government data groups iron and steel together.)

Canada was the top source of iron, steel and aluminum sent to the US last year, with the US importing $11.4 billion worth of aluminum and $7.6 billion worth of iron and steel from there.

Here’s a breakdown of where it comes from:

CNN’s Elisabeth Buchwald contributed reporting.

President Donald Trump is forging ahead with his tariff strategy, imposing a new 25% tariff on all steel and aluminum imports. The European Union responded will billions of dollars in countermeasures, while Canada announced 25% retaliatory tariffs on about $20 billion of US imports.

A 56% majority of the public disapproves of Trump’s handling of the economy, worse than at any point during his first term in office, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS.

The president’s aggressive and volatile trade policy is also creating a growing concern on Wall Street. Economists at JPMorgan Chase say there’s a roughly 40% chance the US economy stumbles into a recession this year due to “extreme” policies.

Here’s what some experts are saying:

• Possibility of recession: JPMorgan economists wrote in a note to clients on Friday that they “see a material risk (40%) that the US falls into recession this year owing to extreme US policies.” That’s up from JPMorgan’s previous forecast of a 30% risk of a recession when the year started. Bruce Kasman, chief economist and head of global economic research at JPMorgan, on Wednesday said risks would likely rise to 50% or higher if Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs meaningfully come into force, Reuters reported.
• Other similar forecasts: Former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers told CNN on Monday it’s “getting close to 50/50” that there will be a 2025 US recession. Kent Smetters, faculty director of the nonpartisan Penn Wharton Model, said it’s a “toss-up” at this point whether there will be a recession. Goldman Sachs raised its recession odds on Friday due to tariffs, but the Wall Street firm only sees a 20% chance of a downturn over the next 12 months, up from 15%.
• Business leaders also feeling less confident: The CEO Economic Outlook Index released by the Business Roundtable dropped by seven points during the first quarter. The dip was tied to several factors, “including signs of economic headwinds and an atmosphere of uncertainty in Washington,” Business Roundtable CEO Joshua Bolten said. The survey found that CEOs have sharply cut their plans for hiring and also indicated scaled-back plans for capital investment and sales expectations.

CNN’s Elise Hammond and Ariel Edwards-Levy contributed to this post.

President Donald Trump defended his shifting timeline on tariffs as a sign of “flexibility,” rather than “inconsistency,” but warned of “very little flexibility” after April 2, the date the administration said reciprocal tariff actions will be announced across many countries.

“I have the right to adjust,” Trump said in remarks to reporters in the Oval Office.

Referring to his exemption on auto tariffs for one month, after a conversation with the Big Three automakers, Trump said he did them “a favor” so they wouldn’t be “driven into a little bit of a disaster.”

“They actually love what I’m doing, but they had a problem,” Trump said. “I’m not like a block that just, ‘I won’t delay.’ I have, it’s called flexibility. It’s not called inconsistency.”

While Trump said that “flexibility” will remain as his ongoing view toward tariffs, he said that changes in April.

“I’ll always have flexibility, but there will be very little flexibility once we start. April 2 is going to be a very big day for the United States of America. The United States of America is going to take back a lot of what was stolen from it by other countries and by, frankly, incompetent US leadership,” Trump said.

President Donald Trump again tried to insult Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday by calling him “a Palestinian.”

The New York Democrat is the highest-ranking Jewish official in the country.

“We are planning to lower taxes, yeah, if the Democrats behave, but the Democrats have no clue,” Trump said during a bilateral meeting with Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin from the Oval Office. “You’re going to have some very bad things happen, and people are going to blame the Democrats, and Schumer is a Palestinian, as far as I’m concerned,” the president added.

“You know, he’s become a Palestinian, he used to be Jewish, he’s not Jewish anymore, he’s a Palestinian,” Trump said.

Throughout his 2024 campaign, Trump repeatedly attacked Schumer for his criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war in Gaza. Trump falsely said the senator was “like a Palestinian” and claimed he was a “proud member of Hamas.”

In February after retaking office, Trump claimed in a Truth Social post that Gaza would be handed over to the US “at the conclusion of the fighting,” and added that “the Palestinians, people like Chuck Schumer,” would be resettled.

A goodwill St. Patrick’s Day visit to the White House by Ireland’s leader could not avoid the ongoing trade tensions that have been roiling markets and causing strain, even with the staunchest of US allies.

Sitting alongside Taoiseach Micheál Martin in the Oval Office, Trump accused the European Union — of which Ireland is a member — of treating the US “very badly.” And he lamented Ireland’s use of tax policies to lure away American drug-makers.

The object of his ire was not necessarily his guest, who sat alongside the president and mostly listened, a sprig of shamrock pinned to his jacket.

“I’m not upset with you,” Trump clarified.

Martin did interject to list Irish companies that have created American jobs, including the low-cost carrier Ryanair, which has purchased airplanes from Boeing. The president seemed mildly interested, but responded by noting the “massive deficit” that still exists between the US and Ireland.

“We do have a massive deficit with Ireland because Ireland was very smart,” Trump said. “They took our pharmaceutical companies away from presidents that didn’t know what they were doing and it’s too bad that happened.”

Ireland has long leaned on favorable corporate tax structures and exports to drive growth. But Trump said the US should have responded with tariffs to protect US workers.

“I have great respect for Ireland and what they did. And they should have done just what they did, but the United States shouldn’t have let that happen,” he said.

Asked if Ireland was taking advantage of the US, Trump suggested the answer was obvious.

“Of course they are,” he said.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the ball is in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s court after Ukraine accepted a US-proposed 30-day ceasefire on Tuesday.

“We’re going to have to see. It’s up to Russia now,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when asked if he had a meeting or call scheduled with Putin, adding that US representatives are headed to Russia “right now as we speak.”

He declined to comment on whether he has a meeting with Putin scheduled.

Special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to travel to Russia later this week, though it is unclear whether he plans to meet with Putin, with whom he met last month. Vice President JD Vance, speaking in the Oval Office, noted that conversations are happening “on the phone and in person with some of our representatives over the next couple of days.”

Pressed on whether he believed Putin would keep a ceasefire given he’s broken them in the past, Trump said, “We haven’t spoken to him yet, with substance, because we just found out and we just were able to get Ukraine to agree. We’re going to know very soon. I’ve gotten some positive messages, but a positive message means nothing.”

Trump reiterated his belief that Ukraine has been “the more difficult party.” But when asked, he also said he could slap additional sanctions on Russia, though suggested he does not want to do so.

“There are things you could do that wouldn’t be pleasant, in the financial sense. I can do things financially that would be very bad for Russia. I don’t want to do that because I want to get peace, I want to see peace,” he said, adding, “We are getting close to getting something done.”

President Donald Trump praised his Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon as the agency is slashing nearly half of its workforce, claiming his administration is “keeping the best people,” while cutting those he claims have poor performance or don’t show up to work.

Asked if he feels any responsibility toward the civil servants who have lost their jobs, Trump offered some sympathy before quickly claiming without evidence that many of them don’t work.

“Sure, I do. I feel very badly,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “But many of them don’t work at all.”

“We’re keeping the best people. And Linda McMahon is a real professional, very actually, very sophisticated businessperson. She cut a large number, but she kept the best people, and we’ll see how it all works out,” he said.

McMahon, a Republican donor and former pro-wrestling executive, previously served as Small Business administrator during the first Trump term and board chair of the America First Policy Institute.

Reiterating his goal to eliminate the Department of Education entirely, Trump said he wants to give individual states and parents power over education.

“We have a dream. And you know what the dream is, we’re going to move the Department of Education, we’re going to move education into the states, so that the states — instead of bureaucrats working in Washington — so that the states can run education,” Trump reiterated.

Trump also praised the education systems of other countries, including Norway, Demark, Sweden, Finland and China.