Order challenged by Democratic state attorneys general as NAACP says it is a ‘dark day for millions of American children’
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news over the next couple of hours.
We start with news that president Donald Trump will sign a long-anticipated executive order on Thursday that aims to shut down the Department of Education, acting on a key campaign pledge, according to a White House summary seen by Reuters.
Even before it was signed, the order was being challenged by a group of Democratic state attorneys general, who filed a lawsuit seeking to block Trump from dismantling the department and halt the layoffs of nearly half of its staff announced last week.
The NAACP, a leading civil rights group, also blasted the expected order as unconstitutional.
“This is a dark day for the millions of American children who depend on federal funding for a quality education, including those in poor and rural communities with parents who voted for Trump,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement.
Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk have attempted to shut down government programs and institutions such as the US Agency for International Development without congressional approval, but abolishing the Department of Education would be Trump’s first bid to shut down a cabinet-level agency.
Trump cannot shutter the agency without congressional legislation, which could prove difficult. Trump’s Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, but major legislation, such as a bill eliminating a cabinet-level agency, would need 60 votes and thus the support of seven Democrats to pass.
Senate Democrats have given no sign they would support abolishing the education department.
In other news:
Speaking from the podium of the White House briefing room, Donald Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, accused federal judges of ruling against the president for partisan reasons.
The Washington Post reports that the Trump administration is working on a plan to create a buffer zone along the southern border in New Mexico that would be occupied by active-duty US troops, empowered to detain migrants who cross into the United States unlawfully.
A federal judge on Wednesday denied a request for a restraining order to block Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” from taking over of the US Institute for Peace, after the institute accused Musk’s team of occupying the building by force.
Republican senator Lisa Murkowski said she was “disturbed” by the way federal workers have been treated but would not be “cowed” by the threat of a well-funded primary challenger backed by Musk’s fortune.
A North Dakota jury found Greenpeace liable for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages to an energy company over protests against a pipeline being constructed in the state. Greenpeace said they will appeal the order for them to pay more than $660m in damages.
Officials at the US Federal Reserve cut their US economic growth forecasts and raised their projections for price growth as they kept interest rates on hold.
