Trump signs executive order aimed at shuttering the Education Department

Elon Musk received a court summons last week in connection with the SEC’s lawsuit over his alleged failure to properly disclose purchases of Twitter stock in 2022 before bidding to buy the company, according to a filing on Thursday.

A process server delivered the civil summons to Musk on March 14, at the headquarters of SpaceX in Brownsville, Texas, the filing said. The server noted that upon his arrival at the SpaceX facility, three different security guards refused to accept the documents, and one told him he was trespassing. He “placed the documents on the ground,” and left while the guards photographed him and his car.

The summons pertains to a case concerning Musk’s eventual purchase of Twitter, now known as X, for $44 billion in 2022. Prior to the acquisition, Musk built up a position in the company of greater than 5%, which would’ve required disclosing his holdings to the public within 10 calendar days of reaching that threshold.

According to the SEC’s civil complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., in January, Musk was more than 10 days late in reporting that material information, “allowing him to underpay by at least $150 million for shares he purchased after his financial beneficial ownership report was due.”

Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., opted to skip a town hall this afternoon organized by his constituents and local Democratic groups at a library in Eau Claire.

Van Orden was invited to participate but never confirmed his attendance. Instead, he chose to host a virtual town hall on Facebook, where he answered submitted questions read aloud by a staffer. 

House Republican leaders have advised their members against town hall events amid backlash to the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency.

Republican lawmakers, including Van Orden, have argued that people protesting Trump's agenda at town halls are paid protesters. He repeated the claim during today's virtual event.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is stepping into the Democrats’ leadership void, picking up her powerful megaphone to channel the base’s anger — toward both President Donald Trump and her own party. 

Some of the initial skepticism in the party around the progressive star when she first arrived in Washington six years ago has started to fade as she has established herself as a political player on Capitol Hill and demonstrated a unique knack for communicating with a younger generation. 

As Democrats scramble to find an authentic and effective messenger for the second Trump administration, there is a growing desire to elevate Ocasio-Cortez, 35, within the party in some way, according to interviews with a dozen Democratic lawmakers, aides and strategists — especially after last week’s government spending showdown left the base enraged.

Ocasio-Cortez was one of the most outspoken Democrats in torching Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., for allowing a Republican funding bill to advance in the Senate to avoid a shutdown. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif, publicly urged Ocasio-Cortez to launch a primary challenge against Schumer in 2028 if he runs for re-election, and several House Democrats told NBC News that her colleagues also privately pushed her to do so at a party retreat last week. 

Trump has withdrawn an executive order targeting an international law firm after the firm agreed to review its employment practices and provide the equivalent of $40 million in free legal services to support certain Trump administrative initiatives.

The White House sought to punish the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison because of the work of one of its former lawyers, Mark Pomerantz, who oversaw an investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office into Trump’s finances in between his first and second terms in office.

The White House agreed to withdraw the order against the law firm because of commitments that the firm had made, including that it would not use DEI in its hiring and promotion practices.

The Trump administration’s effort to abolish the Education Department through an executive order was quickly met by promises of legal challenges.

Skye Perryman, president of the advocacy group Democracy Forward, promised to sue.

“We will use every legal tool to ensure that the rights of students, teachers, and families are fully protected,” Perryman said.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, made a similar pledge even before the order was signed.

Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who chairs the  Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said this afternoon this afternoon that he planned to soon introduce legislation to eliminate the Education Department.

“I agree with President Trump that the Department of Education has failed its mission,” Cassidy said in a statement. “Since the Department can only be shut down with congressional approval, I will support the President’s goals by submitting legislation to accomplish this as soon as possible.”

His statement came almost immediately after Trump signed an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education.

Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Wis., who chairs the House Education and Workforce panel, also offered his support for Trump's order.

After sinking more than a quarter-billion dollars into the 2024 election and then taking a central role in President Donald Trump’s administration, billionaire Elon Musk is demonstrating that he’s not done with his efforts to reshape American politics.

The public face of Trump’s attempts to take a chainsaw to the federal bureaucracy, Musk is a constant fixture on White House grounds and on his social media platform X. Meanwhile, the super PAC he founded is the top outside spender in the April 1 election that will determine the majority on Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court, and Musk is also demonstrating his willingness to use his wallet to reward Trump loyalists in Congress — and, some fear, to punish others — as he closely watches the political landscape.

It all makes Musk a megadonor without much parallel in modern political history — someone who not only can fundamentally reshape a campaign with a single check but is also a prominent political figure in his own right, both as a business executive and as the de facto leader of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency.

Read the full story here on NBCNews.com.

A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from Social Security systems that hold personal data on millions of Americans, calling their work there a “fishing expedition.”

The order also requires the team to delete any personally identifiable data in their possession.

U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander in Maryland found that the team got broad access to sensitive information at the Social Security Administration to search for fraud with little justification.

“The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion,” she wrote.

A federal judge Thursday blasted the Justice Department's latest response to his demand for more information about deportation flights that were carried out under a wartime law known as the Alien Enemies Act as "woefully insufficient."

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg wrote in a three-page ruling that the government "again evaded its obligations" to provide information that he had been demanding for days about the timing of the Saturday flights. President Donald Trump had invoked the rarely-used law to deport people the administration claimed were members of a Venezuelan gang deemed a “foreign terrorist organization.”

At an emergency hearing on Saturday, the judge had directed that any deportation flights being carried out under the AEA authority to immediately return to the U.S. Two flights landed in Honduras and El Salvador within hours of the judge's order.

Read the full story here on NBCNews.com.

Trump has just signed an executive order aimed at shutting down the Department of Education. It is among a flurry of orders and actions he has signed during the early days of his administration. Here is a full breakdown of what he has signed so far:

Ahead of his signing of the order dismantling the education department, Trump introduced his education secretary, Linda McMahon, as "hopefully our last" secretary of education.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said President Donald Trump’s escalating attacks on the judiciary have resulted in a constitutional crisis in the United States.

In an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” Schumer assailed Trump’s recent calls to impeach a judge who ruled against him in a case involving his efforts to deport Venezuelan migrants. Judges and plaintiffs in some cases have accused Trump of violating or sidestepping court orders as he faces a litany of legal challenges to his executive actions.

When asked if he agrees with scholars who say the U.S. is in a constitutional crisis, Schumer responded, “Yes, I do.”

Sensitive personal information including Social Security numbers was unveiled in the newly unredacted John F. Kennedy assassination documents released this week.

White House officials say the administration will offer credit monitoring to those whose information was disclosed and will screen the records to identify all the Social Security numbers that were released. Officials also say new Social Security numbers will be issued to those affected.

The White House did not respond to questions about why the personal information was unredacted.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says “the National Archives and the Social Security Administration immediately put together an action plan to proactively help” those affected.

Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman faced a torrent of heckles and boos during a town hall in deep red Wyoming as she repeatedly tried to downplay constituents' concerns about the Trump administration's actions.

Hundreds of people attended the town hall for their sole House member, jeering Hageman throughout her comments on issues including cuts to the federal government spearheaded by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.

"It’s so bizarre to me how obsessed you are with federal government," Hageman told attendees, prompting more outbursts from the crowd.

"You guys are going to have a heart attack if you don’t calm down," she added. "I’m sorry, your hysteria is just really over the top."

Judge James Boasberg had ordered the government to provide, by noon today, "the information discussed in the Minute Order of March 18, 2025, or to invoke the state-secrets doctrine and explain the basis for such invocation.” 

As of 1 p.m. ET, the government had not posted to the docket the information requested in five questions, nor had they posted to the docket invoking the state-secrets doctrine.

Members of the American Postal Workers Union, or APWU, rallied across the country this morning for a nationwide "Day of Action" in response to proposed changes to the United States Postal Service.

The union says the protests are a response to what they describe as a "hostile takeover" of the Postal Service. In February, Trump announced plans to consider moving USPS under the control of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Postal workers in North Texas rallied at two main post office locations in Dallas and Fort Worth. NBC DFW has more here.

American George Glezmann was freed Thursday from Afghanistan after being held for more than two years in Taliban captivity, Secretary of State Rubio said Thursday in a statement. The release was brokered by Qatar.

Glezmann, who was a Delta Airlines mechanic, has left Kabul and is now on his way to be reunited with his wife, Aleksandra, Rubio said. U.S. officials traveled to Kabul to bring Glezmann home, a U.S. official said.   

Trump administration officials were engaged with representatives of the Taliban to secure Glezmann’s release, according to a U.S. official with direct knowledge of the discussions, but he was not freed as part of a larger prisoner exchange.   

A spokesperson for Afghanistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released photos on social media Thursday of Trump Senior Adviser Adam Boehler and former U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad meeting with the Taliban.

Vice President JD Vance said “terrorism is not cheap” as he speculated that the continuing vandalism of Tesla automobiles is being coordinated.

He said Thursday during an interview on “The Vince Show” that the focus should be on “the guy at the top writing the checks,” not on the “foot soldiers” trashing the cars.

“My guess is that if we do get to the bottom of this, we’re going to find out that there are some very crazy, very deranged, but very wealthy left-wing people who are funding this stuff,” he said.

Tesla owner Elon Musk has become a target as he cuts federal spending and slashes the workforce at Trump’s behest.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said today that “critical functions” of the Department of Education — specifically student loans and Pell grants — will remain under the department’s purview — will be “much smaller” but stopped short of saying they will be eliminated.  

This contradicts what Trump said earlier this month in the Oval Office — when he suggested that student loans and federal grants would be moved to a different department — specifically suggesting the Small Business Administration, Treasury or Commerce.  

"That would be brought into either Treasury or Small Business Administration or Commerce, and we've actually had that discussion today," Trump said to reporters earlier this month. "I don't think that Education should be handling the loans. That's not their business. I think it'll be brought into Small Business, maybe."

Leavitt on Thursday said, "The Department of Education will be much smaller than it is today ... when it comes to student loans and Pell grants, those will still be run out of the Department of Education."

A fact sheet says Trump’s executive order also directs Secretary Linda McMahon to “ensure the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely” while facilitating the closure.

The department manages $1.6 trillion in federal student loans and billions of dollars in programs for colleges and school districts, from school meals to support for homeless students to civil rights enforcement.

It adds up to roughly 14% of public school budgets, often for supplemental programs for vulnerable students, across school systems that advocates say remain fundamentally unequal.

“This isn’t fixing education. It’s making sure millions of children never get a fair shot. And we’re not about to let that happen without a fight,” the National Parents Union said in a statement.

Billionaire CEO Elon Musk, Trump’s right-hand adviser, made several maximum-allowable hard-dollar donations to members of Congress who expressed support for impeaching judges who have ruled against or halted elements of Trump’s agenda, a source familiar confirmed to NBC News. 

The news was first reported by The New York Times on Wednesday.

The members of Congress include Reps. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., Derrick Van Orden, R-Wisc., and Brandon Gill, R-Texas, as well as Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. 

Musk’s contributions, which he made Wednesday, were for $6,600 to each member’s campaign. They came after the president and his allies railed against a Saturday ruling from Judge Jeb Boasberg, chief justice of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C..

Rep. Bobby Scott, the top Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee, criticized Trump's plans to abolish the Department of Education, calling the move "reckless."

"I am adamantly opposed to this reckless action," said the Virginia Democrat. "I am also disappointed, although not surprised, that Secretary McMahon’s first order of business after her confirmation is capitulating to the President’s dangerous, and illegal demands."

Scott said he thinks Trump's expected executive order "will be used to distract Americans from the fact that Republicans are not working to address the real problems facing students and families: widening academic achievement gaps, school shootings, and the burden of student loans."

Trump is expected to sign an executive order aimed at abolishing the Department of Education later today. However, formally shuttering the department requires congressional action.

The acting administrator of the Department of Government Efficiency, Amy Gleason, shed some light on the agency's structure in an overnight court filing in a case brought by Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington seeking the disclosure of its records.

DOGE has 79 employees who were directly appointed to it and 10 detailees from other agencies, but no formal front office or organizational chart, Gleason said in the filing.

“Every member of an agency’s DOGE Team is an employee of the agency or a detailee to the agency,” Gleason wrote. “The DOGE Team members — whether employees of the agency or detailed to the agency — thus report to the agency heads or their designees, not to me or anyone else at USDS.”

Gleason said she reports to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and noted that she does not report to tech billionaire Elon Musk, whom Trump put in charge of efforts to cut the government under DOGE, nor does Musk report to her.

Gleason said DOGE has an obligation to maintain records under the Presidential Records Act and will transfer records to the National Archives and Records Administration “at the appropriate time.” 

The new Department of Government Efficiency leadership of the U.S. Agency for International Development sent a letter to the remaining staff last night about their plan to “lead USAID through a responsible, safe, and cost-efficient process to transfer USAID operations to the State Department.”

About 83% of foreign aid programs have been cut, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier this month. The approximately 1,000 remaining programs will be transferred to the State Department, the USAID email said.

"Our remaining programs exemplify the promise of responsible American foreign assistance: they invest in partners, deliver real and measurable impact for people in need, and further the foreign policy objectives of the country and President," the email said.

DOGE senior official Jeremy Lewinsky and Ken Jackson, who were made deputy administrators this week, committed in the email “to ensure the safety, dignity, and productivity of USAID personnel during this transition period,” adding that they “aim to share additional details soon on what this process will mean for USAID personnel.”

President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order closing the Department of Education. Trump will hold an event at the White House to sign the order. NBC News' Garrett Haake has the latest on the announcement. 

The department began laying off around 1,300 employees, cutting nearly half the staff in its Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and over 100 fromthe Institute of Education Sciences, according to information released by American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, the union for department staff members.  

The cuts in those two divisions mean there will be far fewer staff members to finish the 12,000 pending federal investigations into allegations of civil rights violations at schools — roughly half of which involve disability issues — and fewer employees to review and distribute government-funded research into effective ways to educate children with autism or severe intellectual disabilities. 

The agency's main role is financial. Annually, it distributes billions in federal money to colleges and schools and manages the federal student loan portfolio. Closing the department would mean redistributing each of those duties to another agency.

The Education Department also plays an important regulatory role in services for students, ranging from those with disabilities to low-income and homeless kids.

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President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order Thursday calling for the shutdown of the U.S. Education Department, according to a White House official, advancing a campaign promise to eliminate an agency that's been a longtime target of conservatives.

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity before an announcement.

Trump has derided the Department of Education as wasteful and polluted by liberal ideology. However, finalizing its dismantling is likely impossible without an act of Congress, which created the department in 1979.

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