Trump hijacks Tulsi Gabbard's swearing-in with rant on closing Department of Education ‘immediately'

Independent

12-02-2025

President Donald Trump used a swearing-in ceremony for Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard as a jumping-off point for a nearly hour-long question-and-answer session with reporters that included a call for shuttering the Department of Education post haste and a return to years-old grievances about the method by which American aircraft carriers launch their fighter aircraft.
Speaking in the Oval Office on Wednesday during a hastily-assembled ceremony following Gabbard's confirmation by the Senate earlier in the day, Trump told reporters he was planning to sign an order for unilateral tax increases on Americans in the form of tariffs on imports from countries that have their own tariffs on American imports.
He then proceeded to launch into a winding description of how 'billions and billions of dollars' were being 'thrown away illegally' through unspecified 'fraud' in government expenditures and praised Elon Musk's 'Department of Government Efficiency' for rooting out the alleged 'massive fraud' while complaining about his efforts being stymied by 'judges that are activists.'
He then turned to the subject of the Department of Education, which he said was 'going to be a disaster' and compared the department to the longstanding effort to replace the Boeing 747 aircraft used for presidential transport.
'We signed a very strong contract. I signed a guaranteed maximum contract, which they haven't seen in a long time, and they're saying they're getting hurt by it, but they have to produce the product, and we expect them to produce the product. They have to produce the product. They agreed to build planes at a certain price. They're not used to that. They're used to having time and material contracts where whatever it costs, time and material, no dates, no anything, it ends up costing five times more,' he said.
Trump also complained about the electromagnetic elevators used in the country's Gerald R Ford class aircraft carriers and the cost of those massive ships, which he said had ballooned from $3 billion apiece to $18 billion apiece.
'This is one of the biggest ships in the world. It's like landing at LaGuardia Airport, but you look at the kind of waste, fraud and abuse that this country is going through, and we have to straighten it up,' he said.
Asked whether he wants the Education Department — which has nothing to do with the cost of aircraft carriers — to be shuttered, Trump replied: 'I'd like it to be closed immediately' and called the department 'a big con job.'
'So they ranked the top 40 countries in the world. We're ranked number 40th, but we're ranked number one in one department, cost per pupil, so we spend more per pupil than any other country in the world, but we're ranked number 40. We've been between 38 and 40. The last time I looked, it was 38 and then I looked two days ago, it came out the new list. It came out at number 40. So we're ranked 40,' he said.