Blog Betty (Thomas Friedman is a Great Man was an online novel): That crooked and scary Supreme Court

Tuesday, July 15, 2025

That crooked and scary Supreme Court

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Pam Tries Another Lie"

I love that comic.

At the start of the month, Michael Waldman wrote a really important piece at The Brennen Center for Justice:

The 14th Amendment guarantees that all children born in the United States are citizens. It aimed to undo the notorious Dred Scott ruling, which held that some people born here -- Black people, to be precise, free and formerly enslaved -- nevertheless were not citizens. As you’ll recall, just hours into his term, President Trump signed an executive order purporting to end birthright citizenship. The order was, and remains, unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court chose this case, out of all the possible cases, to strip judges of a key power used to stop illegal actions.

Instead of ruling on the merits in Trump v. CASA, the justices chose to rule on the legality of universal injunctions, among the strongest tools that lower courts use to block flagrantly unconstitutional policies like these from taking effect while cases play out. These injunctions grant relief not only to the person who brought a lawsuit, but to all affected by the ruling. Instead of every soon-to-be parent affected by the order having to bring a lawsuit to secure citizenship for their baby, only one litigant would have to obtain a universal injunction — guaranteeing relief from an unconstitutional order for all. The six justices of the conservative supermajority decided that such rulings go beyond the power of federal courts when they’re not necessary to give the plaintiffs themselves full protection of the law.

By allowing Trump’s order to partially take effect in 30 days absent further action by the lower courts, the Court has effectively resuscitated Dred Scott, at least for some people, at least for now.

In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned, “No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates. Today, the threat is to birthright citizenship. Tomorrow, a different administration may try to seize firearms from law-abiding citizens or prevent people of certain faiths from gathering to worship.”

We at the Brennan Center are still analyzing the ruling. It’s vague at key points. In some respects, it is as great a gift to executive overreach as last summer’s ruling on presidential immunity. On the other hand, alternative avenues to obtain nationwide relief from illegal conduct remain.

Read on and grow more depressed.

I really can't forgive US House Trash Rashida Tlaib. She destroyed our country -- it's her country too. She destroyed it. And she's done nothing to take accountability.

She worked to defeat Kamala Harris.

We all knew by November 2024 that the presidential race ended only one of two ways -- Kamala was our president or we were putting The Convicted Felon back in the White House. And we knew about Project 2025. Black women had told us about it. C.I., for example, had sounded the alarm in 2023 and kept sounding it. Taraji P. Henson warned us.

But Black women? Oh, they never listen to us or respect us. Which was why it was so easy for White people -- and, yes, Rashida is White -- to trash Black women and, specifically, to trash one Black woman.

We could've had Kamala. But Rashida didn't want Kamala.

So we got Chump.

Someone please break the news to Rashida, Palestinians are still being killed in Gaza.

So she didn't save the Palestinians and she didn't save the US. She screwed us both over.

Maybe Rashida should now spend time brushing up on Japanese rituals? Specifically:

"Hari-kari" and "seppuku" refer to the same traditional Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment, historically practiced by the samurai warrior class. While both terms are sometimes used interchangeably in the West, the preferred and more formal term in Japan is "seppuku". "Hari-kari" is a less formal term that means "belly-cutting," while "seppuku" translates to "self-disembowelment" and is typically reserved for documents and formal situations.

Might as well. Her actions have pretty much killed democracy.

We have got to win in the mid-terms -- we, the Democrats. That's the only way to save this country.

And we've got to get serious about saving the Court. And that means if we take back the Senate, we Merrick Garland any and every Supreme Court Justice that Chump nominates. None go through. Not one. We can't afford it.

"The Snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Tuesday, July 15, 2025. Grifters fall in line with Chump, his crooked administration continues to prove that they are the dumbest and the dimmest, GOP take our John Kerry please, and much more.

MORNING JOE today exposes the grifters.

Are they all as feckless as Charlie Kirk and Laura Ingraham?

Chump gives the marching orders to drop the topic and they fall in line.

I'm sorry, it's not that simple. If they're going to finally drop the lies, fine. Honestly fine. Right after you acknowledge you have been lying for a decade about this bulls**t and after you apologize for these years of lying and after you tell us how you're going to prevent yourself from taking part in a massive lie like this again.

Hillary Clinton.

Joe's talking about "men." No, the lies also dragged Hillary Clinton into this nonsense, the lie called her a pedophile. It's hilarious, isn't it, how they spent the 90s forward calling Hillary a "cold fish" and making her out to be sexelss only to turn around and start up nonsense about her being in an EYES WIDE SHUT pedo ring. And Stanley Kurbrick! Your lies had Stanley murdered. Remember that? Your lies had brave Stanley Kubrick making EYES WIDE SHUT as an expose and being murdered for it.

But EYES WIDE SHUT wasnt about a pedo ring, was it?

No.

It was a really bad movie that was dead if it wasn't one of the few minutes Nicole Kidman was onscreen. Tom Cruise was never so sexless onscreen.

You lied.

Over and over you lied. You dragged innocents like Tom Hanks into your lies.

And they were lies.

Right, Charlie? Right, Laura?

You were lying.

And you knew it.

Otherwise, you wouldn't be dropping it now, right?

Unless, oh, my goodness, are Charlie Kirk and Laura Ingraham part of a pedo ring! Are they Epstein enablers!!!!! They are!!! That's why they're covering up now!!!!

You want people to drop the topic of Epstein. Then explain why. Explain to your audiences that you lied. Explain that you lied because you will say anything to distort reality and to advance your right wing goals. Confess that you're just cheap little hustlers who actively set out to deceive people in order to influence them.

You know, I had more respect for these whores when they were lying that Tom Hanks was molesting and sacrificing children. Tom Hanks. If Tom Hanks has a flaw, its that he's too damn nice.

But that's how insane you were and what big liars you were.

I get it. You had a product to sell: Donald Chump.

A non-Christian, failed businessman with multiple bankruptcies repeatedly accused of sexually assaulting women and beating a wife.

That was the product that you were selling. To sell that garbage, you had to invent something worse. So you lied bout people and smeared them with the worst lies you could think of.

And now that these lies no longer help Chump and now that he's ordered you to drop the subject, you think you can. In front of everyone, you think you can just drop it and act like it never happened.

It's not that easy and you stand exposed for the cheap liars you truly are, you stand exposed in front of the world.

And guess what? You can cave all you want but it's not going to go away just because you caved for Chump.

Next topic, Barack has spoken.

Early on when Barack Obama was campaigning for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, he offered tough talk that sometimes rubbed those of us in the Black community wrong. We would wonder if, for example, certain remarks about Black fathers were being made more because his own father abandoned him. Those remarks were never really forgotten and they popped up throughout his presidency. I'm not rehashing this, I'm bringing it up for a reason. In the lead up to the elections, Barack spoke to and of young Black men and the need for them to turnout. I didn't call him out and I didn't defend him. I didn't highlight those calling him out over this because to me, his words were straightforward and needed. But, again, I did understand the reaction because of past reactions when the topic was Black males. Barack's offered some tough talk again -- for all genders and races. Arlette Saenz (CNN) reports:

Former President Barack Obama issued a call to action for Democrats at a private fundraiser in New Jersey on Friday evening, urging those frustrated by the state of the country under President Donald Trump to “stand up for the things that you think are right.”

“I think it’s going to require a little bit less navel-gazing and a little less whining and being in fetal positions. And it’s going to require Democrats to just toughen up,” Obama said at the fundraiser, according to excerpts of his remarks exclusively obtained by CNN.

“You know, don’t tell me you’re a Democrat, but you’re kind of disappointed right now, so you’re not doing anything. No, now is exactly the time that you get in there and do something,” he said. “Don’t say that you care deeply about free speech and then you’re quiet. No, you stand up for free speech when it’s hard. When somebody says something that you don’t like, but you still say, ‘You know what, that person has the right to speak.’ … What’s needed now is courage.”

Obama’s comments come as the Democratic Party searches for its path forward in the second Trump term and beyond. Many in the party’s base have called for a more forceful response from Democratic leaders at a time when the party is locked out of power.

As Democrats debate who should lead the party, Obama encouraged them to channel their energy into the governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia, saying the off-year elections could be “a big jumpstart for where we need to go.”

I agree with one caveat. Black women. We were attacked and we were disrespected. From the right? Oh, always. It doesn't even surprise us anymore at this late date. But in 2024, we were attacked by others on the left. We were savaged and attacked. Tabitha at TABITHA SPEAKS POLITICS has documented this at length. So my caveat is that if you're a Black woman and you're taking time to heal and focus on other things after the attacks we suffered, you continue to take care of yourself. When you're ready to come back, you can. And that day may never come. If so, I understand.

For those of us who are back in the battle, I think there's a great deal of wisdom in Barack's words.

“Stop looking for the quick fix. Stop looking for the messiah. You have great candidates running races right now. Support those candidates,” Obama said, calling out the New Jersey and Virginia elections, according to the excerpts of his remarks.

“Make sure that the DNC has what it needs to compete in what will be a more data-driven, more social media-driven cycle, which will cost some money and expertise and time,” he continued.

Now let's move to a telling statistic. Andrew Goudsward (REUTERS) reports:

The U.S. Justice Department unit charged with defending against legal challenges to signature Trump administration policies - such as restricting birthright citizenship and slashing funding to Harvard University - has lost nearly two-thirds of its staff, according to a list seen by Reuters.

Sixty-nine of the roughly 110 lawyers in the Federal Programs Branch have voluntarily left the unit since President Donald Trump's election in November or have announced plans to leave, according to the list compiled by former Justice Department lawyers and reviewed by Reuters.

The tally has not been previously reported. Using court records and LinkedIn accounts, Reuters was able to verify the departure of all but four names on the list.

They've left because of the unconstitutional actions of this administration. Gabe Whisnant (NEWSWEEK) reports on a firing:

Attorney General Pam Bondi has dismissed the Justice Department's top ethics lawyer, Joseph Tirrell, according to a post he shared on LinkedIn.

Tirrell, a Navy veteran, posted a copy of his termination letter on the platform Friday, noting that it resembled notices received by other DOJ employees. The letter included a typo, misspelling his name as "JOSPEH."

Well, I think we always suspected -- and certainly expected -- that Pam Bondi is illiterate and doesn't know how to read. That may be why she has her 'vetting' problems. Back to the article:

"Until Friday evening, I was the senior ethics attorney at the Department of Justice responsible for advising the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General directly on federal employee ethics," he wrote, in part, on LinkedIn. "I was also responsible for the day-to-day operations of the ethics program across the Department.

"I led a small, dedicated team of professionals and coordinated the work of some 30 other full-time ethics officials, attorneys, paralegals and other specialists across the Department of Justice, ensuring that the 117,000 Department employees were properly advised on and supported in how to follow the Federal employee ethics rules."

She'll run everyone out that she can and, all the while, pretend she's doing her job. I really marvel, by the way, and I've noted this before, over all the sex whispers that attach to her in DC. Is the really the dominatrix that rumos insist she is?

Related, Little Marco's on a firing drive at the US State Dept.

That was Friday evening on NBC NIGHTLY NEWS. Thursday night/Friday morning, Mike posted "RAW STORY better stop publishing COMMON DREAMS whoring plus FettyCrap, John Crap Kerry."

Speaking of stupid, John Kerry. May he rot in hell for this. He's a back stabber and he always has been (he was my US senator for years). He cheats on his wife and pretends he's so moral. All he ever does is stab the backs of people who've helped him. That's his wife, that's the voters, that's the Democratic Party. He'll turn 82 years old this year. It's time for him to sit his tired ass down. It's also past time for him to stop having plastic surgery. It was bad in 2013 but his work since then is only more ridiculous.

And if John Kerry wants to flap his useless gums again, how about he call out the way Rubio's destroying the Secretary of State post? Or has John forgotten he himself was once Secretary of State? He's forgotten a great deal as he rushes to praise Chump.

John is a backstabber to the extreme. He hasn't been so disgusting since his I-was-for-the-war-before-I-was-against-it b.s. He was Secretary of State. He needed that post after his stupid mouth ensured he would never be president. Following his 2004 run, Kerry went to California and made a 'joke' in his mind about how students better do well in high school or they'd end up in Iraq and since the country was still actively deploying to Iraq, his remarks offended many. As we noted the day he pulled that nonsense, his chance to ever be president was gone. He could have ended up just a senator who tried but never moved beyond that; however, Barack made him Secretary of State. And last week, when John should have been defending the State Dept employees, he was instead found praising Donald Chump.

John Kerry owed it to them to stick up for them. Instead, he wasted his time defending Chump. We see you, John. And you're someone who disgusts so many of us who are Democrats with your actions that always advance you and not the party.

Chump has the worst and most unqualified administration of all time. The worst and the dimmest? The dumbest and the dimmest.

Economists Robert Reich and Dean Baker both weighed in yesterday. Robert writes:

The conventional explanation for why Trump’s second term is far more extreme than his first (which was extreme enough) is that the guardrails are now gone.

The people who occupied significant roles in the White House and Cabinet during his first administration — who talked him out of (or subverted) his illegal and unconstitutional cravings — are no longer there. In their places are loyalists who will do whatever he wants.

But this conventional view overlooks a more important explanation.

He’s more extreme this time because he’s attracted people around him who are also extreme and pushing him to new levels of malevolence.

I’ve served under three presidents and advised a fourth. In every case, I’ve seen the same pattern: A president acts as a magnet, drawing into the highest levels of his administration people who not only share his values but amplify them.

When a president wants to do a decent job — at the least, respecting democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law — the magnet produces an administration of people who respect our institutions of self-government.

But when a president is malevolent, those drawn to him are among the most fanatical and dangerous in the land.

Richard Nixon — the most malevolent president in recent American history before Trump — drew to the White House a collection of bottom-feeding crooks: H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, Attorney General John Mitchell, Chuck Colson, Egil Krogh, G. Gordon Liddy, and E. Howard Hunt. They amplified Nixon’s worst paranoid and criminal tendencies.

Twisted people who surround a twisted president encourage his malevolence.

They also provide him a chorus of group-think approval.

They embolden one another as they destroy norms for how White House and Cabinet appointees are supposed to behave.

Which describes the Chump administration. Dean offers:

We all know and expect that a president’s top appointees are picked in large part because of their willingness to carry out a president’s agenda. But usually these are people with some experience in the areas that they are overseeing. Insofar as this is not the case, they can generally rely on the high-level career officials in the departments or agencies under their control to make sure that necessary tasks get accomplished.

Unfortunately, this is not the case now. The main and possibly only qualification for Trump’s top appointees is the ability to tell blatant lies with a straight face. He has picked people who not only have no background in the areas they oversee, they don’t even have the most basic understanding of their responsibilities. And in many cases they have fired or marginalized the career people with expertise.

Starting at the top, Trump picked a former Fox talk show host with a drinking problem, Pete Hegseth, to be his Secretary of Defense. Secretary Hegseth apparently didn’t know that he shouldn’t be making war plans on unsecured channels and without knowing who was included in the conversations. He apparently also didn’t know that his wife should not be included in the discussions.

Hundreds of people just died in Texas because of this failure, and we are virtually certain to see far worse in the future.

Trump has a Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, who claims he doesn’t know that tariffs (import taxes) are taxes. Since tariffs are among the oldest form of taxes, long predating the income tax, this is a pretty elementary point that a Treasury Secretary would be expected to know.

Kristi Noem, Trump’s Homeland Security Secretary, didn’t know what habeas corpus is. Since that is basic right guaranteed by the Constitution, it would be rather important for the person controlling the largest federal police force to be familiar with the concept.

While knowledge of their areas may not be a strong point for top Trump officials, lying in front of TV cameras is an area of real expertise. We see this constantly.

And he's right as well. Again it's not the worst or the dimmest serving in the administration, it's the dumbest and the dimmest.

As Ben notes at MEIDASTOUCH NEWS, Chump is rotting from the inside and out.

Related, David Kurtz (TALKING POiNTS MEMO) also had a solid observation zooming in on just one department of the administration:

The prospect that the Trump-appointed attorney general, FBI director, and his top deputy could be dragged down over Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy theories makes my head hurt.

None of them is fit for office. They’ve ransacked the Justice Department. They remain eager to abuse their offices to curry favor with the White House. But in this era that’s not enough to run them out of town. What might be enough is failing to properly perform one of the MAGA cult’s ritualistic dances. Suddenly Attorney General Pam Bondi is on the outs, with her two top FBI underlings threatening to turn on her and join the mob.

For those of us on the outside looking in, it’s not just baffling but enervating. Watching President Trump try to call off the MAGA mob is surreal.

What’s most important about this whole sordid episode is likely to be the lengths Bondi will go to shore up her position in MAGA world. She seems perfectly willing to and entirely capable of committing further transgressions of the rule of law in order to demonstrate her MAGA bona fides and stave off demands that she be sacked.

It’s difficult to parse which of Bondi’s latest outrages were already in the works and which are self-protective. But credit the national political coverage over the past few days with at least acknowledging that there might be a connection between the Epstein blowback and unusual DOJ moves like confirming the criminal investigations of John Brennan and James Comey.

In addition, Bondi has:

fired another 20 DOJ employees, including prosecutors, support staff, and U.S. marshals, who were involved in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Trump prosecutions
fired without explanation DOJ’s most senior ethics official, Joseph Tirrell, a career employee who had been with the department for nearly 20 years
dropped charges against a Utah plastic surgeon who had become a MAGA darling even though jury selection was already underway for a trial on charges he sold fake Covid-19 vaccine cards.

The traditional tools of the Justice Department are now just baubles to be used for self-preservation by the attorney general and ultimately by the president. We are so deep into not normal.

Chump can't stop attacking the economy. Sarah Fortinsky (THE HILL) reports:

Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.) said he supports Democrats’ threats to shut down the government if Republicans proceed with a planned rescissions package, saying his party should use all the leverage they can to prevent cuts to previously approved funding.

“I say it’s time to stand up for the American people,” Subramanyam said in an interview on NewsNation’s “The Hill Sunday,” when asked what he thinks about a potential shutdown.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or a Republican. I mean, I’m hearing from both sides. They’re fed up with this administration, and they want to see some changes, not just in this administration, but even in the Democratic Party,” he continued.

“And, so, yes, absolutely, the time to fight was yesterday,” he added.

Republicans are ramping up efforts to pass a rescissions package that President Trump requested last month, which includes more than $9 billion in funding cuts for foreign aid and public broadcasting programs.

Where do you stand on it? I support bringing it to a standstill. I support a real and full fight to push back against these cuts. And in terms of public broadcasting, let me note this from a post Ruth did around the 4th:

And you can't talk the economy without talking Chump's war on immigrants. David Edwards reports:

Two Omaha restaurant locations have closed after their owner reported receiving a subpoena from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) seeking the immigration status of its employees.

In a Facebook post on Sunday, Fernando's Omaha said it was cooperating with the DHS inquiry. However, the subpoena resulted in the loss of some workers, causing the two restaurant locations to close temporarily.

Without the employees, they can't keep the restaurants open. How long will the closings last? How many other businesses will be impacted.

Immigration? Ahmad Austin Jr (MEDIAITE) reports:

CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten revealed Monday how President Donald Trump’s polling on immigration has plummeted in recent months.

Last week, a new poll from Gallup showed that Trump’s net approval rating on immigration had dropped to a staggering 27%. Among Republican voters, support for reducing immigration decreased from 88% last year to just 48%.

On Monday morning, Enten broke down several other polls to show that, although the numbers weren’t as extreme as the Gallup poll, Trump has been gradually losing support for his immigration crackdown:

Take a look at this: Trump’s net approval rating on immigration. Got five numbers for you across the screen here. A lot of focus on Gallup of minus 27. That’s horrible. Quinnipiac University — minus 16. That’s awful. Marist is bad at minus 9. IPSOS is minus 8. Fox at minus 7. Bad! So going from your left side, bad to just downright terrible on the right side of your screen.

The American people have turned against President Donald Trump on what was his best issue, one in which he had a positive that approval rating for most of his term and arguably the issue that got him, of course, the GOP nomination all the way back in 2016, and one of the issues, of course, he used last year to quite a successful degree.

Enten then flipped to another image on the digital board showing that Trump’s net approval rating with Hispanics dropped to negative 26. Near the beginning of his term, his net approval rating within the group was only negative 2. That earlier figure, as Enten noted, was historically good for Republican candidates.

Let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warrene's office.

The lawmakers blasted the administration for its abrupt notice and illegal freeze of the funds, which has sent school districts and programs nationwide scrambling.

“We are shocked by the continued lack of respect for states and local schools evidenced by this latest action by the administration… This rash decision will only worsen school working conditions and teacher shortages.”

Text of Letter (PDF)

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) joined Senators Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), along with 28 of their colleagues, in demanding the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought and Department of Education (ED) Secretary Linda McMahon immediately release the nearly $7 billion in funding for K-12 schools and adult literacy programs across America that is currently being illegally withheld by the Trump administration.

The abrupt decision by the Trump administration to withhold this funding has left school districts nationwide struggling to find ways to fill the massive budget hole. School districts have made clear they will have to end after-school programs and have already told parents to prepare backup options, while adult literacy programs have already been forced to lay off staff.

The members note that the 10,000 school programs benefited approximately 1.4 million students across the nation, and the latest report by ED showed significant improvements in student attendance, grades, and teacher reports of student engagement in learning.

“These centers also help working parents by providing a safe and productive place for their children to be after the school day ends and during the summer months,” wrote the lawmakers. “It is beyond comprehension why the administration would want to jeopardize these outcomes.”

The Trump administration has confirmed it is blocking funding for the following programs, all of which are programs President Trump has requested to eliminate in his budget request, raising serious concerns about this administration’s intentions to simply impound the funding:

Supporting Effective Instruction State Grants (Title II-A), which support professional development and other activities to improve the effectiveness of teachers and school leaders, including reducing class sizes.
21st Century Community Learning Centers (Title IV-B), which support high-quality before- and after-school programs focused on providing academic enrichment opportunities for students.
Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants (Title IV-A), which provide flexible funding for school districts for a wide range of activities, including supporting STEM education, accelerated learning courses, college and career counseling, school-based mental health services, and improving school technology, among many others.
English Language Acquisition (Title III-A), which supports language instruction to help English language learners become proficient in English.
Migrant Education (Title I-C), which supports the educational needs of migratory children, including children of migrant and seasonal farmworkers.
Adult Basic and Literacy Education State Grants (including Integrated English Literacy and Civics Education State Grants), which support adult education and literacy programs to provide the basic skills to help prepare adults and out-of-school youth for success in the workforce.

The letter was also signed by Senators Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.).

Senator Warren launched the Save Our Schools campaign in a coordinated effort to fight back against President Trump’s attempts to abolish the Department of Education:

On July 3, 2025, Senator Warren led her colleagues in submitting an amicus brief for NAACP v. US, arguing to the United States District Court District of Maryland that President Trump’s attempts to dismantle the Department of Education (ED) violate separation of powers and lack constitutional authority.
On June 10, 2025, Senator Warren met with Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and delivered over 1,000 letters to McMahon that the senator had received from people in all 50 states who were worried about the Secretary’s efforts to dismantle ED.
On June 9, 2025, Senator Warren led her colleagues in pushing the Acting Inspector General of ED to open an investigation into new information obtained by her office revealing that DOGE may have gained access to two FSA internal systems, in addition to sensitive borrower data.
On May 20, 2025, Senator Warren and 27 other senators pushed for full funding for the Office of Federal Student Aid.
On May 14, 2025, Senator Warren led a Senate forum entitled “Stealing the American Dream: How Trump and Republicans Are Raising Education Costs for Families,” highlighting the consequences of Secretary Linda McMahon’s reckless dismantling of the Department of Education (ED) and President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” for working- and middle-class students and borrowers.
On May 13, 2025, Senator Warren agreed to meet with Education Secretary Linda McMahon and promised to bring questions and stories from Americans across the country to highlight how the Trump administration’s attacks on education are hurting American families.
On May 6, 2025, Senator Elizabeth Warren highlighted the consequences of President Trump and Secretary Linda McMahon’s reckless dismantling of the Department of Education for American families in a Senate forum.
On April 24, 2025, Senator Warren launched a new investigation into the harms of President Trump’s attacks on the Department of Education, seeking information on the impact of the Trump administration’s actions from the members of twelve leading organizations representing schools, parents, teachers, students, borrowers, and researchers.
On April 10, 2025, following a request led by Senator Warren, the Department of Education’s Acting Inspector General agreed to open an investigation into the Trump administration’s attempts to dismantle the Department of Education.
On April 2, 2025, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Mazie Hirono, along with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, sent a letter to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon regarding the Department of Government Efficiency’s proposed plan to replace the Department of Education’s federal student aid call centers with generative artificial intelligence chatbots.
On April 2, 2025, Senator Elizabeth Warren launched the Save Our Schools campaign to fight back against the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the Department of Education (ED) and highlight the consequences for every student and public school in America.
On March 27, 2025, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) led a letter to Acting Department of Education Inspector General (IG) René Rocque requesting that the IG conduct an investigation of the Trump Administration’s attempts to dismantle the Department of Education.
On March 20, 2025, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders led a letter to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon regarding the Trump Administration’s decision to slash the capacity of Federal Student Aid to handle student aid complaints.
On February 24, 2025, in a response to Senator Warren, Secretary McMahon gave her first public admission that she “wholeheartedly” agreed with Trump’s plans to abolish the Department of Education.
On February 11, 2025, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Andy Kim sent Linda McMahon, Secretary-Designate for the U.S. Department of Education, a 12-page letter with 65 questions on McMahon's policy views in advance of her nomination hearing.