‘They go hard’: Trump and Vance release official portraits
Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The official portraits of President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance were released Thursday by the Trump transition team.
“And they go hard,” a press release from the transition said about the portraits.
The statement added, “In just four days, Donald J. Trump will be sworn in as the 47th President of the United States and JD Vance as the 50th Vice President of the United States — and their official portraits are here.”
Trump and Vance will be sworn-in on Monday, Jan. 20.
President Joe Biden will be in attendance as his successor is sworn in, resuming a tradition of American democracy that Trump himself sidestepped in 2021.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos will also be in attendance.
Biden/X/President Joe Biden awarded the Medal of Freedom to former Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards, pictured here with Kirk Adams and First Lady Jill Biden, in a photo posted to his X account, Nov. 20, 2024.
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — President Joe Biden on Wednesday awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to former Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards at a private ceremony, the White House said.
Richards, the daughter of the late Texas Gov. Ann Richards, left the reproductive health care organization in 2018 after leading it for 12 years. Earlier this year, Richards revealed she was battling glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer – the same that killed Biden’s son Beau.
Biden posted on X that it was his “honor” to award Cecile Richards the Medal of Freedom, and shared a photo of him, first lady Jill Biden, Richards and Richards’s husband, Kirk Adams.
The following commendation praising Richards’s work was delivered at the ceremony, the White House said.
“Carrying her parents’ torch for justice, she’s led some of our Nation’s most important civil rights causes – to lift up the dignity of workers, defend and advance women’s reproductive rights and equality, and mobilize Americans to exercise their power to vote,” the commendation stated. “A leader of utmost character, she has carved an inspiring legacy that endures in her incredible family, the countless lives she has made better, and a Nation seeking the light of equality, justice, and freedom.”
The Presidential Medal of Honor is the nation’s highest civilian honor. At a White House ceremony in the spring, Biden awarded the honor to 19 Americans, including former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, former Vice President Al Gore, Olympic swimmer Katie Ledecky and Oscar-winning actress Michelle Yeoh.
(WASHINGTON) — South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds introduced the “Returning Education Back to Our States Act” on Thursday, signaling a commitment to deliver on President-elect Donald Trump’s vow to dismantle the Department of Education.
In the conservative movement to return education back to local control, Rounds said the legislation would “eliminate” the department while redistributing all critical federal programs to other agencies.
Rounds’ announcement was first reported by Fox News.
“For years, I’ve worked toward removing the federal Department of Education,” the Republican senator wrote in a statement, adding “I’m pleased that President-elect Trump shares this vision, and I’m excited to work with him and Republican majorities in the Senate and House to make this a reality. This legislation is a roadmap to eliminating the federal Department of Education by practically rehoming these federal programs in the departments where they belong, which will be critical as we move into next year.”
In his statement, Rounds said the United States spends too much on education for students’ test scores to be lagging behind other countries in standardized assessments. He called the DOE ineffective and earmarked the department’s responsibilities for the Departments of Interior, Treasury, Health and Human Services, Labor and State, according to the bill text.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and aid programs under Title VIII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act will be transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services, the Office of Indian Education of the Department of Education will be transferred to the Department of the Interior, the Federal Pell Grant and other higher education loan programs will be transferred to the Department of the Treasury.
According to the bill, the treasury department will allocate Block grants to states for K-12 and postsecondary education. The treasury secretary also has the power to withhold these funds if they are mishandled by the states. The Justice Department will oversee federal civil rights laws that were previously under Title VI.
Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie told ABC News Thursday morning that he would also bring forward legislation to abolish the DOE within the “first few weeks” of the 119th Congress.
“There’ll be one sentence – only thing that will change is the date: The Department of Education shall terminate on December 31, 2026,” Massie told ABC News.
Massie has been pushing to defund the U.S. Department of Education since the start of 2023 when he introduced H.R. 899. Massie’s bill wasn’t voted on in the House last year.
However, education analyst Neal McCluskey at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, argued Massie’s one-sentence bill was not realistic.
“You’ve got to figure out what to do with all the legislation that feeds into the Department of Education,” McCluskey said.
“If Congress were to pass that law that says, abolish the Department of Education, technically the department would go away, but then you’d have all sorts of questions, well, who’s going to administrate or be administrator for all these programs,” he said.
In March 2023, Massie wrote an amendment H.Amendment 124 in H.R. 5, the “Parents Bill of Rights Act” – the House’s signature K-12 education policy – to abolish the department. That amendment failed as all Democrats and 60 House Republicans voted against it.
Here are ways to gut the department
Even as Republicans hold majorities in both chambers next Congress, the Senate typically needs 60 votes to do anything, according to McCluskey. McCluskey said, “There’s no chance they’re going to be at 60, and so it’s going to be tough [to abolish the department legislatively].”
“The Department of Education administers a whole lot of laws, and then those laws have to be changed about who runs student aid and who is tasked with making decisions about canceling student debt, and who decides or who administers Title I and lots of these other federal programs,” McCluskey told ABC News.
“He [President-elect Trump] can certainly use the bully pulpit to drive this a lot. He could provide legislative blueprints if he wanted to. But ultimately this has to come through Congress,” McCluskey underscored.
Meanwhile, Augustus Mays, vice president for partnerships and engagement at the advocacy group The Education Trust, told ABC News that the president-elect could also ask Congress to gut federal programs like Title 1, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), and others, in his congressional budget request.
Public education, particularly in high-need districts, would effectively be drained of millions of dollars, according to Mays.
“It would really cripple the ability to function and aid the support that these students need to really succeed from an academic standpoint,” Mays said.
(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump said this week he plans to attend former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral following a history of mutual criticism.
Carter, who died on Dec. 29 at the age of 100, will be honored with a state funeral at Washington National Cathedral on Thursday, Jan. 9. President Joe Biden is expected to deliver the eulogy.
“I’ll be there. We were invited,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday night, though he declined to say if he’d spoken with any members of the Carter family.
Trump’s attendance at the funeral will come after a years of public sniping between Trump and Carter, including Trump’s recent jabs at Carter on the 2024 campaign trail.
Though after the 39th president’s passing, Trump issued a statement praising Carter’s service to the country.
“The challenges Jimmy faced as President came at a pivotal time for our country and he did everything in his power to improve the lives of all Americans. For that, we all owe him a debt of gratitude,” Trump wrote. “Melania and I are thinking warmly of the Carter Family and their loved ones during this difficult time. We urge everyone to keep them in their hearts and prayers.”
In another post, Trump commended Carter as a “truly good man” and praised his humanitarian work post-presidency.
“While I strongly disagreed with him philosophically and politically, I also realized that he truly loved and respected our Country, and all it stands for. He worked hard to make America a better place, and for that I give him my highest respect,” Trump wrote of Carter. “He was a truly good man and, of course, will be greatly missed. He was also very consequential, far more than most Presidents, after he left the Oval Office.”
But previously, Trump had labelled Carter as the country’s “worst president.”
Trump also repeatedly criticized Carter as he lashed out at President Joe Biden when the two were opponents in the 2024 race before Biden dropped out.
“Crooked Joe Biden is the worst president in the history of our country. He’s the most incompetent and he’s the most corrupt president in the history of our country,” Trump said last January as he ramped up campaign events. “And it’s not even close. In fact, I said, today, the happiest person alive today is Jimmy Carter because his presidency looks brilliant. Brilliant by comparison.”
Carter, who had been in hospice care since early 2023, was out of the public eye during the presidential race but his family said he was trying to live until he could cast his ballot for Vice President Kamala Harris — which he did in mid-October.
During the presidential transition, Trump’s denounced a signature achievement of Carter’s presidency — the Panama Canal Treaty that gave the Central American nation eventual control of the critical waterway. Trump recently said the U.S. “foolishly” ceded the Panama Canal and suggested his incoming administration might try to regain control of it.
During Trump’s first term, Carter didn’t mince words when discussing what he thought about his presidency.
Carter told the Washington Post in 2018, “I think he’s a disaster.”
“In human rights and taking care of people and treating people equal,” Carter said of Trump.
Carter also casted doubt at one point on Trump’ s 2016 victory, suggesting that a full investigation into Russian election interference would show Trump “didn’t actually win.” Trump hit back to those comments by saying Cater was “a nice man” but “a terrible president” who was “trashed” by his own party.
Though notably the two men spoke in 2019 when Trump called Carter to discuss China and trade negotiations. Prior to the call, Carter had sent a “beautiful” letter to Trump sharing some advice on the diplomatic relationship between the U.S. and Beijing, Trump’s White House said at the time.
