(WASHINGTON) — United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele and said the Central American nation has agreed to not only take in deported foreign nationals who committed crimes — but also jailed American citizens and permanent residents.
Rubio called the agreement “an act of extraordinary friendship,” on Monday.
“[Bukele] has agreed to accept for deportation any illegal alien in the United States who is a criminal, from any nationality — be they MS-13 or Tren de Araqua — and house them in his jails,” Rubio declared. “He has offered to house in his jails dangerous American criminals in custody in our country, including those of U.S. citizens and legal residents.”
Rubio called the deal the “most unprecedented and extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world” and said, “no country has ever made an offer of friendship such as this.”
“We are profoundly grateful. I spoke to President Trump about this earlier today. And it’s just one more sign of what an incredible friend we have here in President Bukele and in the people of El Salvador,” Rubio said after they met for more than two-and-a-half hours.
“More details will be forthcoming” about the agreement struck between the United States and El Salvador, said Rubio, before taking an opportunity to praise Bukele’s leadership — describing his polarizing clampdown on El Salvador’s security as “difficult decisions” that had to be made.
President Trump has previously mused about sending repeated offenders abroad, even if they are lawfully in the United States. The president will now need to clear several legal hurdles, given that the Eighth Amendment prohibits “cruel and unusual punishments,” broadly considered to include exile.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is continuing his outreach to Senate Republicans — critical to advancing his Cabinet nominees and aggressive agenda.
ABC News has exclusively obtained an invitation sent to GOP senators and their spouses to have dinner with Trump at Mar-A-Lago on Friday while they are in town for the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s Annual Winter Meeting.
The NRSC, chaired by South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, is set to host its annual winter meeting at The Breakers, a hotel in Palm Beach, Florida, on Feb. 7-9. The event is expected to have a record attendance of both Republican senators and donors.
Although the dinner will be with Trump, the Republican National Committee is paying for the event.
The dinner comes following the NRSC announcing in a memo to Republican Senate chiefs of staff Monday morning that it broke a fundraising record in January with $8.5 million raised — more than any other January off-year in committee history.
The memo also noted that the committee is entering the cycle with nearly $24 million in debt and unpaid bills from last cycle and limited cash on hand.
The 2024 election cycle was a good year for Republicans, securing the Senate’s majority by flipping seats in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Montana.
The memo also expressed the committee’s gratitude to White House political staff for briefing the group and shared their hopes of a partnership with them through the cycle.
“We appreciate James [Blair] and Matt [Brasseaux] for making the time to speak with us and we look forward to continuing to partner with them throughout the cycle.”
Blair is currently Trump’s deputy chief of staff at the White House and Brasseaux serves as the Trump administration’s director of the Office of Political Affairs. Blair served as the Trump’s campaign political director and Brasseaux was the deputy political director.
Trump’s invitation to GOP senators is one of many recent efforts to show a strong working relationship. Trump recently hosted breakfast with Republican senators the morning before the inauguration at Blair House and Senate Majority Leader John Thune at the White House just after the inauguration.
With the 2026 midterms a little more than a year and half away, Republicans look to expand their 53-seat majority in the Senate while also defending their seats in the critical states of Maine and North Carolina, represented by GOP Sens. Susan Collins and Thom Tillis.
But the 2026 midterms could prove to be a successful year for the GOP, with chances to flip the Senate seats in Michigan, where Democratic Sen. Gary Peters announced he would not seek reelection and in Georgia, where the race would be made much tighter if GOP Gov. Brian Kemp were to jump in the race against Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump could soon sign an executive order directing the secretary of education to dismantle the federal Department of Education, according to sources briefed on drafts of the order that have circulated among top administration officials.
The proposed order gutting the agency is expected to call for the education secretary to submit a proposal for dismantling the department and for Congress to pass legislation to get rid of it.
The timing on when Trump plans to sign the order remains unclear, but sources familiar with the process told ABC News that conversations about the future of the department have been actively occurring.
Closing down the department would be an extraordinary move that would help Trump inch closer to fulfilling the promise that he made for months on the campaign trail: dismantling it and sending education policy back to the states.
But any executive action is likely to ask for a plan to shut down the department, but not an immediate directive to shut down the department, sources told ABC News.
It’s also unclear how the next education secretary would handle plans to close the department and reallocate its functions. Trump’s education secretary choice Linda McMahon has not yet had a Senate confirmation hearing. A bill in the Senate to shutter the department would likely fail without a two-thirds majority vote.
Trump and department skeptics have said they believe the agency has too much spending power — more than $20 billion in the 2025 fiscal year — without adequate academic results. The Nation’s Report Card highlighted the widening achievement gap and sliding reading scores for fourth- and eighth-grade students.
Trump last week signed executive orders defending parental rights and prioritizing universal school choice, combating antisemitism and cutting federal funding for K-12 “indoctrination.”
Conservatives dating back to President Ronald Reagan have campaigned on the promise of closing the Education Department. It’s also recently become a bicameral push from Republicans on Capitol Hill.
The news comes as dozens of Department of Education employees received letters placing them on administrative paid leave over the weekend as the department takes steps to issue unprecedented reform.
Trump’s rhetoric — including threatening for months to shutter the department — has now made some department employees worried about the agency’s future, according to an employee who said they’ve been placed on administrative leave from their “dream job.”
“It feels like it could happen, so it’s very disturbing,” the employee said.
(WASHINGTON) — The Senate Finance Committee will vote on Tuesday on whether to advance Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s controversial nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services under President Donald Trump.
It would take just one Republican to oppose Kennedy for his nomination to be potentially sunk, assuming all Democrats vote against him — as is expected.
All eyes will be on Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican and longtime physician who, during last week’s hearings, expressed deep concerns about the impact of Kennedy’s past comments casting doubt on vaccines, including saying on a 2023 podcast that “no vaccine is safe and effective.”
Cassidy told Kennedy he was “struggling” with his nomination as those proceedings came to a close. The two spoke more over the weekend, according to one person familiar with the discussion, though it’s unclear what was said.
On Monday, Cassidy would not engage with questions on that conversation or on how he will vote on Tuesday.
“I really am not discussing RFK, I just keep saying that,” Cassidy told reporters.
While Kennedy’s nomination hinges on a single Republican vote in the committee, it’s possible the Senate Finance Committee could hold a second vote to send the nomination to the floor. Such a move would enable the full Senate to decide if Kennedy should be confirmed.
If Kennedy fails to get the support he needs to be reported favorably out of the Senate Finance Committee, there are two other options. The panel could report his nomination out of committee unfavorably or without recommendation, though that, too, would require a majority vote. Or, Senate Majority Leader John Thune could try to advance his nomination on the floor — but that would require an even higher threshold of 60 votes, which Republicans are not likely to get.
Trump said on Monday he’s called senators who have concerns about Kennedy. Vice President JD Vance has also been quietly lobbying senators to line up behind Kennedy, ABC News previously reported.
Questions have continued to swirl around Kennedy’s views on vaccines. He said several times during the hearings last Wednesday and Thursday that he supports vaccines and is not “anti-vaccine” but “pro-safety.”
However, Kennedy has openly questioned the widespread administration of both measles and polio vaccines, and has falsely linked the former vaccine to autism, despite several high-quality studies finding no such link.
He also pointed to a flawed paper to suggest there is evidence to claim that vaccines cause autism. Cassidy, the top Republican on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, said he saw problems with the paper’s methodology upon first look.
Kennedy also cast doubt on the lifesaving benefits of the COVID-19 vaccines, saying he doesn’t think that “anybody” can say the vaccines saved millions of lives.
A 2022 study from the Yale School of Public Health and University of Maryland Medical School estimated the vaccine saved 3 million lives and prevented 18 million hospitalizations.
Senators were also befuddled by comments Kennedy made in the past. Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado read aloud alleged past comments made by Kennedy, including unfounded claims about transgender children.
Kennedy denied making such comments despite repeated an unfounded conspiracy theory during an episode of his podcast in 2022, suggesting endocrine disruptors, including phthalates — which make chemicals more durable — and pesticides, can influence sexual orientation or gender identity.
ABC News’ Anne Flaherty and Will McDuffie contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The Senate Intelligence Committee is expected to vote on former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination for Director of National Intelligence in a closed-door session Tuesday afternoon. The vote follows Gabbard’s at-times contentious confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill on Thursday, where she was grilled over her views on government secrets leaker Edward Snowden and her refusal to label him a traitor.
Gabbard, a former Democratic Hawaii Congresswoman turned Republican, picked up two key Republican votes on Monday from Sens. Susan Collins and James Lankford. Both had previously been critical of her past statements on Snowden and her opposition to government surveillance programs. Gabbard can only afford to lose one Republican vote on the committee.
During Thursday’s hearing, lawmakers from both parties repeatedly pressed Gabbard to disavow her past support of Snowden, a former intelligence contractor who fled the country with more than 1 million classified records. Gabbard previously described Snowden as a “brave” whistleblower who exposed civil liberties violations by the intelligence community. While in Congress, she introduced legislation stating that “Snowden’s disclosure of this program to journalists was in the public interest, and the Federal Government should drop all charges.”
While Gabbard repeatedly stated that Snowden “broke the law,” she did not back away from her previous statements and refused to call him a “traitor” despite being asked several times by senators from both parties.
In an op-ed in Newsweek over the weekend, Gabbard wrote that she explained in the closed session in her confirmation hearing why she refused to call him that.
“Treason is a capital offense, punishable by death, yet politicians like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former US Senator Mitt Romney have slandered me, Donald Trump Jr. and others with baseless accusations of treason. It is essential to focus on the facts, not the label. Snowden should have raised his concerns about illegal surveillance through authorized channels, such as the Inspector General or the Intelligence Committee, instead of leaking to the media.”
Gabbard also presented a four-point plan to prevent future Snowden-like leaks, which includes oversight to ensure there are no illegal intelligence collection programs, minimizing access to sensitive intelligence, informing government workers about legal options for whistleblowers, and creating a hotline for whistleblowers to contact Gabbard directly.
Several senators questioned Gabbard’s past opposition to government surveillance programs under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows the U.S. government to collect electronic communications of non-Americans outside the country without a warrant. Gabbard, who voted against the provision as a member of Congress, said changes made to the program since she left office were enough to earn her support.
Gabbard faces perhaps the most difficult route to confirmation of all of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks. She cannot afford to lose any Republican votes in the committee. Her nomination is expected to be voted on during a closed-door confirmation session on Tuesday.
A source with knowledge of the proceedings told ABC News that newly confirmed CIA Director John Ratcliffe, former NSA adviser Robert O’Brien and former Sen. Richard Burr, a former Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, have been making calls to senators on Gabbard’s behalf. Gabbard has also talked to senators since her hearing, a source said.
Over the weekend, GOP Sen. Todd Young faced pressure from Gabbard and Trump allies. Young is believed to be the final key vote needed for Gabbard’s nomination to move from the committee to the Senate floor.
In a now-deleted tweet on X, Elon Musk tweeted that Young was a “deep state puppet.” However, hours later, Musk deleted the post and tweeted “Just had an excellent conversation with @SenToddYoung. I stand corrected. Senator Young will be a great ally in restoring power to the people from the vast, unelected bureaucracy.”
Meghan McCain, a close ally of Gabbard, also voiced her support over the weekend, tweeting, “Any Senator who votes against @TulsiGabbard for DNI isn’t just going to have a problem with MAGA and Trump – I will make it my personal mission to help campaign and fundraise against you in your next election. And my people are probably a lot like their people,” she added.
Young, who did not endorse Trump in his presidential campaign, had a heated exchange with Gabbard during her hearing.
“Did [Snowden] betray the trust of the American people?” Young asked.
“Edward Snowden broke the law,” Gabbard responded, “and he released this information in a way that he should not have.”
Young declined to tell reporters how he’ll vote for Gabbard on Monday.
ABC News’ Lucien Bruggeman and Allison Pecorin contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at combatting antisemitism calls on institutions of higher education to “monitor for and report activities by alien students and staff” concerning “antisemitism” on college campuses.
Some legal scholars say they’re concerned about what this could mean for free speech on college campuses following more than a year of tension between students, faculty and administrators, while other experts noted that past McCarthy-era cases on communist activity could foreshadow the action’s legal standing.
The main thrust of the executive order’s purpose: “Jewish students have faced an unrelenting barrage of discrimination; denial of access to campus common areas and facilities, including libraries and classrooms; and intimidation, harassment, and physical threats and assault,” the order reads.
The fact sheet released by the White House on the new executive action threatens to “deport” college students in the United States on student visas and other “resident aliens” who expressed “pro-Hamas” or “pro-jihadist” views to “combat antisemitism on college campuses and in communities across the nation.” It calls for immediate action to be taken by the Department of Justice to “quell pro-Hamas vandalism and intimidation, and investigate and punish anti-Jewish racism in leftist, anti-American colleges and universities.”
“It provides like a signaling mechanism and an alibi for university administrators who … want to crack down on Palestinian activism, and now they can point to this executive order and use the government as a further pretext for their actions, even though they’re under no legal obligation to do what the executive order says,” said Darryl Li, a legal scholar at the University of Chicago, in an interview with ABC News.
He added that in his legal opinion, “They’re not under a legal obligation to spy on their students and to report their students to the government. They need not, and they should not, cooperate with this executive order.”
However, past Supreme Court cases — particularly during the McCarthy era and the Cold War — found it is within Congress’ power to deport a legal noncitizen resident for their views, advocacy or membership in a political group if it’s in the interest of national security, Nadine Strossen, a Senior Fellow with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), told ABC News.
These limitations also impact noncitizens attempting to enter the country, Strossen noted.
“There was this distinction; it’s one thing to say, government may not prosecute you, you may not be subject to civil penalties, but you may still be subject to deportation because of this doctrine that Congress has what’s called plenary power, pretty much unchecked power, with respect to matters concerning who is able to be present in this country and not present in this country,” said Strossen.
On Oct. 7, 2023, the Palestinian terror group Hamas attacked Israel, killing roughly 1,200 people, and around 250 others were taken hostage, according to the Israeli government.
Israel then began its monthslong retaliation on the Gaza Strip, killing more than 47,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry.
The United States and the United Nations have not officially declared Israeli action to be a genocide. However, a UN Special Committee report found that Israel’s warfare methods in Gaza were consistent with genocidal tactics.
Protests and around-the-clock encampments concerning the war erupted at colleges and universities around the country.
Pro-Palestinian protesters called for an end to what they called an Israeli “genocide” against Palestinians and criticized the Israeli “occupation” of Palestinian territories. Pro-Israel protesters called for a return of the hostages or were in support of the Israeli effort against Hamas.
Colleges were thrust into the spotlight as they reckoned with charges of antisemitism and Islamophobia, and anti-Israeli, anti-Arab or anti-Palestinian sentiment amid the campus clashes.
Title IV, a law that bans discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in any institution or program that receives federal funding from the U.S. Department of Education, became the center of dozens of investigations across the country.
Students and professors, many of whom were advocating for a ceasefire or pushing for an end to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, were subsequently arrested at universities and protests across the country. Some were suspended or expelled from their universities, others were arrested for trespassing or disturbing the peace, though many charges were later dropped.
Student protesters critical of the Israeli government’s military actions in Gaza continue to face accusations of antisemitism. But many of the student groups behind the protests – including Jewish activists – have said that individuals making inflammatory remarks do not represent their groups or their values concerning the war in Gaza.
Other Jewish or pro-Israel students around the country have spoken out about the pressures they too have faced, including renewed concerns about safety and acts of hate as law enforcement noted a spike in antisemitic incidents.
Trump’s executive order calls on higher education institutions to familiarize themselves with 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(3) — which defines “inadmissible” non-citizens for their relationship to alleged “terrorist activities.”
FIRE released a statement against Trump’s executive order, arguing that college campuses are intended to be places of learning and debate over a wide range of issues: “Advocates of ideological deportation today should not be surprised to see it used against ideas they support in the future.”
“This openness, albeit unpleasant or controversial at times, is a defining strength of American higher education,” an online statement read. “It’s one of the features attractive to students traveling from abroad who may hope to take part in the speech protections Americans have worked so hard to preserve. These are protections that they may very well be denied in their home countries.”
International students, or staff members with visas, are in a vulnerable situation because of their status, legal experts say.
“The potential loss of the visa is something that, of course, is devastating to international students. And if your visa is revoked on sort of security or terrorism grounds, it’s kind of like a lifelong — you’re basically banned from the United States for life, even if you have family who are U.S. citizens who live in the United States,” said Radhika Sainath, a senior staff attorney at Palestine Legal, who has advised hundreds of free speech or censorship cases concerning pro-Palestinian supporters.
Legal experts argue the order’s vague language is strategic to smear pro-Palestinian support — though the order doesn’t explicitly state concerns over support for “Palestinians” — which has long been painted as inherently antisemitic or terroristic.
“This is McCarthyist. It’s authoritarian,” said Sainath. “Students are really feeling the breadth already. Before Trump came in — from their own universities — students have been evicted from student housing and been homeless for minor, minor rule violations. They’ve been suspended, they’ve been expelled, they’ve lost scholarships, they’ve lost financial aid. The harm is really, really great, and many of these students are first-generation students. They are low-income students, and it can be quite harmful to be punished again for speaking out against a genocide.”
Luis Barron/ Pixelnews/Future Publishing via Getty Images
(MEXICO CITY) — The U.S. has paused the implementation of tariffs for a month in both Canada and Mexico following conversations on Monday with President Donald Trump, according to each country’s leader.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a post on social media, writing, “Canada is implementing our $1.3 billion border plan — reinforcing the border with new choppers, technology and personnel, enhanced coordination with our American partners, and increased resources to stop the flow of fentanyl.
Trudeau also added, “Nearly 10,000 frontline personnel are and will be working on protecting the border.” The moves will result in a 30-day delay in the tariffs in order to work out a deal, he said.
The moves mirror similar promises Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum issued earlier in the day after speaking to Trump.
U.S. tariffs imposed on Mexico have been “paused for a month,” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said in a post on X Monday shortly after speaking to President Donald Trump. Trump confirmed the news shortly after in a social media post of his own.
Sheinbaum said Mexico has agreed to “reinforce” the Mexico-U.S. border with 10,000 National Guard troops “immediately.” She also said the U.S. had agreed to work to prevent high-powered weapons from being trafficked into Mexico.
Trump did not mention the U.S. working to prevent weapons from being trafficked into Mexico, but confirmed the 10,000 Mexican troops being deployed to the border “to stop the flow of fentanyl, and illegal migrants into our Country.”
Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Howard Lutnick, Trump’s yet-to-be-confirmed commerce secretary nominee, will negotiate with Mexican leaders in the next month to achieve a permanent deal.
Sheinbaum, who took over as Mexican president in October 2024, said Trump asked her how long she would like the tariffs on Mexico to be paused, and she responded “forever,” before Trump suggested they pause them for a month.
“He insisted on the commercial deficit that the U.S. has with Mexico. I told him it was not a deficit, that we are commercial partners, and it’s the best way to compete with China and other countries,” Sheinbaum said.
“I told him to collaborate,” Sheinbaum said. “He has agreed to the working group.”
Trump had told reporters he would speak on Monday with Sheinbaum and Trudeau prior to imposing import tariffs on their goods. The U.S. president was expected to sign executive orders on Tuesday putting in place 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada and 10% tariffs on those from China, according to the White House.
Trump said Monday afternoon he plans to talk to China in the next day or two about tariffs on that country.
Sheinbaum in a video posted to social media on Sunday said her government was calling for “reason and law” among “individuals as well as among nations.”
‘This measure of 25% tariffs has effects for both countries but it has very serious effects for the U.S. economy,” she said, “because it will raise the costs of all the products that are exported from Mexico to the U.S., it will have a 25% higher cost.”
Trudeau responded to the planned tariffs on Saturday evening, announcing his country will implement 25% tariffs on 155 billion Canadian dollars, or about $107 billion, of U.S. goods. The prime minister said he has not talked to Trump since his inauguration.
Sheinbaum, who was elected in June, offered little detail on how her government’s “Plan B” would respond to the tariffs.
She instructed her economic secretary to “implement Plan B that we have been working on, which includes tariff and non-tariff measures in defense of Mexico’s interests,” she said in a statement written in Spanish and translated by ABC News.
She also sought to remind the White House that the current free trade agreements between the U.S. and Mexico have been in place for about three decades.
“The last free trade agreement was signed by President López Obrador and President Trump himself,” she said.
Trump on Sunday told reporters he was unconcerned about the potential impact of imposing tariffs on close trading partners, saying the American people would understand.
“We may have short term, some, a little pain, and people understand that, but, long term, the United States has been ripped off by virtually every country in the world,” he told reporters on Sunday, as he departed Air Force One at Maryland’s Joint Base Andrews.
He added, “We have deficits with almost every country, not every country, but almost. And we’re going to change it. It’s been unfair. That’s why we owe $36 trillion; we have deficits with everybody.”
Canada has been taking advantage of the U.S., Trump said, calling the relationship with the country a “one-way street.”
“They don’t allow our banks. Did you know that Canada does not allow banks to go in, if you think about it, that’s pretty amazing,” he said. “If we have a U.S. bank, they don’t allow them to go in.”
Trump added, “Canada has been very tough on oil, on energy. They don’t allow our farm products in. Essentially, they don’t allow a lot of things in, and we allow everything to come in. It’s been a one-way street.”
ABC News’ Matt Rivers, Max Zahn, Kelsey Walsh, Victoria Beaule and William Gretsky contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Dozens of Department of Education employees received letters as business hours closed Friday placing them on administrative leave, according to a copy of one letter obtained by ABC News.
While no specific reason was given, some employees told ABC News they believe the only common thread among them is that they attended a voluntary training called the “Diversity Change-Agent Training Program.”
The letter states that the administrative leave notice is not for disciplinary purposes. Rather, it’s being issued under President Donald Trump’s executive order on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and “further guidance” from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, according to the letter.
Per the letter, employees will receive full pay and benefits through the end of the administrative leave.They are not required to do work-related tasks during this time, nor are they required to come into the office. Employees who were placed on leave also had their government email access suspended as they received the letters. There’s no set time for the leave period, according to the letter.
The letters have caused a frenzy throughout the department, as some employees had been locked out of their accounts and had to check their private email addresses for the notice, according to Sheria Smith, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 252.
Smith told ABC News more than 50 employees in “extremely diverse roles” within the department received the email notices to their government email addresses or their private email accounts after regular business hours over the weekend.
ABC News spoke with three Department of Education employees who received the letters and described their leave as “paid administrative hell” since Friday evening.
“It’s very, very, unsettling,” one department employee of over 20 years, who works in Washington, D.C., told ABC News. “I don’t get it. What’s my crime? What have I done?”
Smith said the positions of Department of Education employees placed on leave run the gamut, from senior civil rights attorneys to attorneys for borrower defense to press specialists. She said she feared more letters would be sent in the coming days.
An attorney who works for the department in Washington, D.C., said they were put on leave from their “dream job.” The employee has two children and received the notice after putting them to bed on Friday night, they said. The person said Friday was tough and the news was shocking to receive, but now they’re feeling “different levels” of sadness.
“My mood felt a little bit different just waking up knowing that I wasn’t going to be working,” the employee told ABC News.
“But I just feel like there’s a lot of information that I’m trying to process and, with small kids, it’s like you’re trying to balance a lot,” the employee added.
Trump’s rhetoric — including threatening for months to shutter the Department of Education — has created fear throughout the department, according to Smith.
“People took these jobs because they care about the mission,” Smith told ABC News. “And so it absolutely impacts us. You know, the very thing that brought us to these jobs we’re unable to do.”
The department employee with two small children has worked for the department for just over four years and comes from a family of educators. The employee said education is the “great equalizer,” and the Department of Education benefits everyone.
“I believe in the department,” the department attorney said, adding: “I always wanted to work here.”
In a statement to ABC News, Department of Education Deputy Assistant Secretary for Communications Madi Biedermann said the president was elected to enact “unprecedented reform” that is merit-based and efficient at serving the interests of the American people.
“We are evaluating staffing in line with the commitment to prioritizing meaningful learning ahead of divisive ideology in schools and putting student outcomes above special interests,” Biedermann wrote.
ABC News has reached out to the White House for comment.
Meanwhile, the three department employees who spoke to ABC News said they’re completely stumped on why they were issued administrative leave notices. The department employee with decades of experience in Washington also said it’s puzzling, in part, because during Trump’s first term, managers were evaluated on upholding DEI standards via a department performance rating system.
“We were expected to do DEI,” the employee said. “That’s what Trump and [then-Education Secretary] Betsy DeVos wanted us to do. They wanted to do that. They put it in our [performance] plans. We did not put that in our plans. And not only that, it is in every manager’s plan in the department, not just people that are on administrative leave.”
“Every single person in the Department of Education that’s a supervisor or a manager right now has [DEI] in their performance plan — that is programmed in by the department,” the employee added.
The administrative leave notices may have been tied to a two-day “Diversity Change-Agent Training Program,” a facilitator-led training, according to training document slides obtained by ABC News. The training took place over two days dating as far back as March 2019, under DeVos and during Trump’s first term, according to a February 2019 email obtained by ABC News with the subject “Diversity Change Agent Course.”
The training program aimed to create specific action plans to “drive diversity and inclusion” and increase creativity and innovation. The program also challenged employees to achieve greater results by championing the diversity of its workforce while creating and sustaining an inclusive environment, according to the training document slides.
Another department employee, who took the 2019 training and works remotely out of the New York offices, called the notice “bizarre,” especially since the 2019 training occurred during the president’s first term.
“The whole thing is bizarre,” the department employee told ABC News. “Betsy DeVos — and [Trump’s] prior administration — was a decent champion of these programs, and they didn’t come with any warning to me to say, ‘Hey, taking this training might lead to an adverse personnel action one day,’ right? So it’s just strange how they can retroactively apply something.”
The department employees on leave who spoke to ABC News said they have no official DEI responsibilities in their roles. All three department employees who spoke with ABC News also confirmed the only DEI-like program that would potentially be barred under Trump’s executive order would be the change-agent training sessions.
However, to their knowledge, the three employees on leave said there’s no official list or way of matching the employees on administrative leave with the training programs. Even though they’re convinced these trainings link them to the Trump administration’s definition of DEI, the employees haven’t confirmed why they’re on leave, according to the ones who spoke to ABC News.
The employee who works out of New York has more than a dozen years of experience in administering federal programs. Multiple other employees on administrative leave that this employee spoke to over the weekend said they also took the 2019 training, according to the employee.
“That’s the only thing we can think of that any of us did,” the employee said.
After reaching out to other colleagues with the same titles, the employee in New York said, they “pieced it together.” This employee said they took at least three training programs like the diversity change-agent training program since the initial training.
Luis Barron/ Pixelnews/Future Publishing via Getty Images
(MEXICO CITY) — U.S. tariffs imposed on Mexico have been “paused for a month,” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said in a post on X Monday shortly after speaking to President Donald Trump. Trump confirmed the news shortly after in a social media post of his own.
Sheinbaum said Mexico has agreed to “reinforce” the Mexico-U.S. border with 10,000 National Guard troops “immediately.” She also said the U.S. had agreed to work to prevent high-powered weapons from being trafficked into Mexico.
Trump did not mention the U.S. working to prevent weapons from being trafficked into Mexico, but confirmed the 10,000 Mexican troops being deployed to the border “to stop the flow of fentanyl, and illegal migrants into our Country.”
The tariffs on Canada remain in place, however, Trump is expected to speak with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at 3 p.m. ET.
Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Howard Lutnick, Trump’s yet-to-be-confirmed commerce secretary nominee, will negotiate with Mexican leaders in the next month to achieve a permanent deal.
Sheinbaum, who took over as Mexican president in October 2024, said Trump asked her how long she would like the tariffs on Mexico to be paused, and she responded “forever,” before Trump suggested they pause them for a month.
“He insisted on the commercial deficit that the U.S. has with Mexico. I told him it was not a deficit, that we are commercial partners, and it’s the best way to compete with China and other countries,” Sheinbaum said.
“I told him to collaborate,” Sheinbaum said. “He has agreed to the working group.”
Trump had told reporters he would speak on Monday with Sheinbaum and Trudeau prior to imposing import tariffs on their goods. The U.S. president was expected to sign executive orders on Tuesday putting in place 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada and 10% tariffs on those from China, according to the White House.
Sheinbaum in a video posted to social media on Sunday said her government was calling for “reason and law” among “individuals as well as among nations.”
‘This measure of 25% tariffs has effects for both countries but it has very serious effects for the U.S. economy,” she said, “because it will raise the costs of all the products that are exported from Mexico to the U.S., it will have a 25% higher cost.”
Trudeau responded to the planned tariffs on Saturday evening, announcing his country will implement 25% tariffs on 155 billion Canadian dollars, or about $107 billion, of U.S. goods. The prime minister said he has not talked to Trump since his inauguration.
Sheinbaum, who was elected in June, offered little detail on how her government’s “Plan B” would respond to the tariffs.
She instructed her economic secretary to “implement Plan B that we have been working on, which includes tariff and non-tariff measures in defense of Mexico’s interests,” she said in a statement written in Spanish and translated by ABC News.
She also sought to remind the White House that the current free trade agreements between the U.S. and Mexico have been in place for about three decades.
“The last free trade agreement was signed by President López Obrador and President Trump himself,” she said.
Trump on Sunday told reporters he was unconcerned about the potential impact of imposing tariffs on close trading partners, saying the American people would understand.
“We may have short term, some, a little pain, and people understand that, but, long term, the United States has been ripped off by virtually every country in the world,” he told reporters on Sunday, as he departed Air Force One at Maryland’s Joint Base Andrews.
He added, “We have deficits with almost every country, not every country, but almost. And we’re going to change it. It’s been unfair. That’s why we owe $36 trillion; we have deficits with everybody.”
Canada has been taking advantage of the U.S., Trump said, calling the relationship with the country a “one-way street.”
“They don’t allow our banks. Did you know that Canada does not allow banks to go in, if you think about it, that’s pretty amazing,” he said. “If we have a U.S. bank, they don’t allow them to go in.”
Trump added, “Canada has been very tough on oil, on energy. They don’t allow our farm products in. Essentially, they don’t allow a lot of things in, and we allow everything to come in. It’s been a one-way street.”
ABC News’ Matt Rivers, Max Zahn, Kelsey Walsh, Victoria Beaule and William Gretsky contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump’s administration is filling one of the State Department’s top positions with a controversial conservative journalist who has promoted conspiracy theories related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and was fired as a speechwriter by the first Trump administration when it was revealed that he had spoken at a conference tied to White nationalists, sources familiar with the move told ABC News.
The sources said that the man, Darren Beattie, will now be the acting Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, a so-called “Top 10” position that, as the State Department’s website describes it, “leads America’s public diplomacy outreach, which includes messaging to counter terrorism and violent extremism.”
“The Under Secretary oversees the bureaus of Educational and Cultural Affairs and Global Public Affairs, and participates in foreign policy development,” the website adds.
Beattie is slated to start in the position on Monday, sources said. He was already serving in another senior role within the State Department, but the new move to such a high-level position has raised concerns among many of its employees, sources said.
More than two years ago, Beattie launched a right-wing media outlet called Revolver News, which has raised funds in part by selling pro-Trump apparel and merchandise.
“It’s OK to deny 2020,” reads two shirts still being sold on the outlet’s website. Another shirt promotes the refuted claim that Jan. 6, 2021, was an “FBI setup to frame Trump supporters as insurrectionists,” as the shirt says.
And Beattie has become a frequent guest on other right-wing media, often promoting conspiracy theories related to Jan. 6.
On Donald Trump Jr.’s podcast last month, Beattie repeated his claims that the FBI knows who’s behind the pipe bombs left at DNC and RNC offices on Jan. 6 but “what they found out was profoundly embarrassing to the government and to the narrative that the Biden regime wanted to promote, and so instead of following that investigation further, they basically just killed it,” Beattie said.
Beattie also claimed that surveillance video released by the FBI to seek help in identifying the perpetrator was “clearly tampered with.”
In mid-August 2018, he made national headlines, with the Washington Post reporting then that he “was terminated last week after revelations that he had spoken at a conference attended by well-known white nationalists” two years earlier.
According to the Washington Post, Beattie – who is Jewish – insisted that he was not racist and said in a statement.
“In 2016 I attended the [H.L. Mencken Club] conference in question and delivered a stand-alone, academic talk titled ‘The Intelligentsia and the Right.’ I said nothing objectionable and stand by my remarks completely,” the statement said. “It was the honor of my life to serve in the Trump Administration. I love President Trump, who is a fearless American hero, and continue to support him one hundred percent.”
At the end of the Trump administration, in November 2020, the Trump White House appointed Beattie to a three-year term with the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, which helps preserve sites related to the Holocaust.
The Anti-Defamation League strongly objected to the appointment, issuing a statement at the time saying, “It is absolutely outrageous that someone who has consorted with racists would even be considered for a position on a commission devoted to preserving Holocaust memorials in Europe.”
The New York Times then asked Beattie for comment, and he told the paper: “The ADL pretends to be an organization that protects Jews, but it really exists to protect Democrats. As a Jewish Trump supporter, I consider it an honor to be attacked by the far-left ADL and its disgraced leader, Jonathan Greenblatt.”
Asked about Beattie’s new position at the State Department, a White House spokesperson referred ABC News to the State Department. First reached on Friday, the State Department has so far not commented.
On Sunday, Beattie did not immediately respond to a request for comment by ABC News.
