At a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, President Trump and Secretary Linda McMahon spoke about Harvard University.
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00:00Hello. Well, Mr. President, I don't think I've ever worked so hard to try to fire myself.
00:07We're certainly making great strides in that. We've reduced the folks over at the Department of Education by about 50% now through our RIP program.
00:18And so we've closed a lot of the district offices, consolidating, so there are fewer people working a lot more efficiently in the Department of Education.
00:29The commissioners of education in every state, and I was at a meeting with them not too long ago for not only our states but our territories,
00:38they are thrilled with the opportunity now to be able to have more control over the education in their states,
00:44to get rid of a lot of the red tape and regulation that's kept them from doing what they're doing.
00:49So we're seeing, I think, great improvements. We'll see test scores, I believe.
00:53It'll take a bit for them to be able to go up, but I think now that they're going to have the opportunity
00:57to put in their own programs, what we'll see that grow.
01:01At the same time, we've been focused on higher education for our universities.
01:08We've returned proper enforcement of Title IX protections to schools.
01:14We have stopped funding to Columbia, for instance, and some other schools for not only Title IX, but Title VI infractions.
01:23And those are moving along. I think we've brought people to the table.
01:26They know that you're serious. You meant what you said.
01:29They're going to make changes. They're making their campuses safer again.
01:34Anti-Semitism was just out of control in many of our universities.
01:38And so some tried to, in fact, target a suit, and they're saying that it's, you know, First Amendment infraction.
01:44No, this is civil rights safety on our campuses for our young students, you know, who are there.
01:50And with Pam's help and the task force that we formed with HHS, with GSA, with other agencies,
01:57we're going to make sure that our campuses are safe.
02:00And so there's a lot of good work going on.
02:02I think one of the biggest things, you'll be very happy to hear this, Mr. Boat,
02:06that we are putting back into place collecting on our student loans that have been delinquent since March of 2020.
02:17There's been no effort to recollect from those loans.
02:19So as of May 5th, the letter goes out that the loan recollection is beginning again.
02:25So for those people who have borrowed money and who have not been paid, that's just not to be punitive.
02:31There are many ways that they can go online to understand how they can get back into the right payment structure
02:37because when they're in default, they can't buy a house, they can't buy a car because their credit scores are down.
02:42So it's helpful to them as well as to get this money back into the country.
02:46I mean, $60 billion of increased student loan debt since 2020.
02:53And in total, we've got almost $1.7 trillion in student loan debt.
02:58So we're going to start getting it back.
03:01And Scott and his team have been incredibly helpful.
03:04We appreciate that so very, very much.
03:06And so a lot's going on in the department.
03:09And what I would really like, as I'm firing myself, I'd like for you to be known as the education president
03:17because of the best-in-practice systems that we want to put in every state to incorporate AI
03:25so that we are training these new entrepreneurs and business leaders in our country.
03:30We can't do it with the infrastructure we have in place today.
03:33So we have to be working on that at the same time.
03:36So we're going to be doing that.
03:37So thank you for your charge to elevate education so that we are providing for every student access to excellent education.
03:47Thank you, sir.
03:48Thank you very much, Linda.
03:49And what's going on with Harvard and some of these colleges that are taking vast amounts of money,
03:55who also have vast amounts, they've got $52 billion,
03:58and really scamming the public and hiring people like de Blasio and Lori Lightfoot,
04:07who are certainly two of the worst mayors in the history of our country,
04:11paying them a fortune of salary and having them teach our children how to manage cities and how to manage government.
04:20What's the word, as of this morning, on, let's say, Harvard?
04:24Well, we're negotiating with them.
04:26When we went back to them to say we welcomed them back to the negotiating table,
04:30their response was a lawsuit.
04:32So Pam and her team are helping work with that.
04:36And I am, you know, enjoying the fact not only am I firing myself,
04:39but I'm now being sued very regularly by different departments of education.
04:45But we're staying tough with them.
04:46The other thing that we're looking at also are the 117 violations of these big universities like Harvard and others
04:56who are not reporting, as they're required to do by the law,
05:00foreign money that comes in and how much that is and where it comes from.
05:04And so that is important.
05:05And students.
05:06Yeah, and it's very serious.
05:06Where are these people coming from?
05:08Yeah, sir, we pulled back their grants because Harvard isn't responding to us,
05:13criminal activity by their students.
05:14And until they give us that list, they're not getting any more grants from Homeland Security.
05:18Good. I think you should pull it back.
05:19We did.
05:20The students they have, the professors they have, the attitude they have is not American.
05:26And I think you should.
05:27A grant is a grant.
05:28We don't have to give grants.
05:29That's right.
05:30So we'll pull back the grant.
05:31All right.
05:32Very good.