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President Donald Trump could decide this week to take the first steps to eliminate the Department of Education, people familiar with the matter said, as he looks to dramatically shrink the size of the federal government.

White House officials have prepared an executive order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin the process of dismantling the agency, the sources said.

Trump has long signaled his intention to close the department, but fully eliminating it will require Congress to act, McMahon said during confirmation hearings earlier this year. She was confirmed Monday.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have cautioned about the ramifications of eliminating the department. Here’s what they’re saying:

• Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, the ranking member on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, called Trump’s order to dismantle the Education Department a “disaster” for working class families and children with disabilities. “There are programs in the Department of Education which provide substantial amounts of help to low income and working class communities, communities where it is hard, where the tax base is very, very low,” the independent Vermont senator said. “Through the Department of Education, kids with disabilities — and there are millions of them in America — get the help that they need.”
• Republican Sen. Susan Collins told reporters that she does not support eliminating the Education Department, pointing to critical programs for children with disabilities and those who come from low-income families. The Senator from Maine also argued that Trump does not have the authority to eliminate the department. “There are synergies that occur having them all in one department. There may be a case for spinning off some programs, there may be a case for downsizing the department, but those are decisions that the new secretary should make,” Collins said.
• GOP Sen. Thom Tillis told reporters he learned in his experience in the North Carolina legislature and in a parent-teacher association that “the federal government has an outsized influence over controlling the classroom.” He said Trump is trying to return power to state and local governments, which he supports, and pointed to current “missed opportunities” for states to be “laboratories of education,” adding, “but they’ve got to be careful.” Asked if he thinks the Trump administration can dismantle the Education Department without congressional action, Tillis said he thinks “most of it is going to require statutory authority, but not all of it.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford says his province is implementing a 25% tariff on electricity exports to Minnesota, Michigan and New York next week.

“As of Monday, we’re putting a 25% tariff on the electricity to the 1.5 million homes and businesses in those three states,” Ford told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Thursday.

“It really bothers me we have to do this,” he added.

Ford threatened on Monday to cut off Ontario energy exports to the United States “with a smile on my face” if US President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canadian goods remained in place.

According to Canadian government numbers from 2023, Ontario exports more electricity to the US than any other province.

The House Freedom Caucus is filing a resolution to strip Democratic Rep. Al Green of his committee assignments after Green interrupted President Donald Trump’s speech to Congress earlier this week. The House voted to censure Green today, with 10 Democrats voting with Republicans.

The Freedom Caucus said they expect House Speaker Mike Johnson to bring the resolution to the floor next week. The resolution to strip Green of his committee assignments would require a floor vote.

It’s a move that lawmakers have used in the past. Democrats voted to strip GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee assignments in 2021 in the wake of unearthed incendiary and violent past statements from the congresswoman. Republicans later restored Greene’s committee assignments.

Green, who sang “We Shall Overcome” while he was being censured, said Thursday he has “no reason in (his) heart to be upset.”

“I have no ill feelings toward the speaker, none toward the persons that escorted me away from the floor, because I did disrupt. And I did so because the president indicated that he had a mandate. And I wanted him to know that he didn’t have a mandate to cut Medicaid,” he said in a speech on the House floor.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said that he is trying to get “clarification” from Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins about news of 70,000 pending layoffs at his department.

“We have people who were have been talking to the secretary about it and the issue was raised yesterday at the luncheon with Elon Musk as well. So I’m hoping there’ll be some clarification on that issue soon,” Thune told reporters in the Capitol. He did not respond when asked if he thought this cuts were too steep.

Separately, in a post on X, GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski warned against eliminating the United States Agency for International Development, saying that her conversations with Alaskan USAID employees have “painted an incredibly troubling picture of what the world looks like without humanitarian assistance from the United States.”

She added that they also told her about the “confusing and callous handling of personnel matters” by the Office of Personnel Management and Department of Government Efficiency.

“Although I support measures to find inefficiencies within the agency, USAID’s mission to keep people healthy and safe in even the most remote corners of the world should not be eliminated,” she wrote.

Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso said there is a “lot of fat” in the VA and Republicans want to cut that out, but also ensure veterans get the care they need.

Barrasso, a doctor who has worked at VA hospitals during his career, would not comment on if 70,000 cuts would be too high until he confirms that figure with the VA.

American and Ukrainian officials are planning to meet next week in Saudi Arabia, a person familiar with the matter said. The two sides are working to put the relationship back on solid footing following last week’s Oval Office blowup between Presidents Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky.

Since the debacle of a meeting, top US officials have been working to re-right ties. National security adviser Mike Waltz said Wednesday that discussions were intensifying on a new round of talks.

“We are having good talks on location for the next round of negotiations, on delegations, on substance. So, just in the last 24 hours since the public statement from Zelensky, and then the subsequent conversations which I’m going to walk inside and continue, I think we’re going to see movement in very short order,” Waltz said.

In a social media post Tuesday, Zelensky said he was ready to come to the negotiating table, voiced regret for how the Oval Office meeting devolved, expressed gratitude to Trump for providing weapons, and said he was ready to sign a minerals deal whenever was convenient for Trump.

Trump welcomed the message in his Tuesday speech to Congress. “I appreciate that he sent this letter,” he said.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has said that “virtually all” of Mexico’s trade with the United States is included in the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, known as USMCA, which will be exempt from US tariffs until next month.

“Practically all the trade we have with the United States is within the Mexico, United States, Canada Agreement. There is a part that has to do with rules of origin, but everything is practically within the trade agreement,” Sheinbaum said at a news conference Thursday.

US President Donald Trump announced earlier on Thursday that Mexico will be exempt from tariffs on goods covered by the USMCA until April 2.

Sheinbaum said she had an “an excellent and respectful call,” with Trump on Thursday, with both leaders agreeing that “our work and collaboration have yielded unprecedented results.”

“It was a very respectful call. That must be highlighted. It has always been done with respect. We may not agree on things but it must be highlighted that we had a respectful conversation,” she added.

The Mexican president said she will continue to work with Trump on migration and security issues, “which include reducing the illegal crossing of fentanyl into the United States, as well as weapons into Mexico.” That echoed an earlier statement by Trump on the leaders’ shared goals.

Asked about the possibility of a four-week tariff pause for treaty-complaint Canadian goods, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that all his country’s retaliatory measures would remain in place unless the United States completely rolls back its tariffs.

News of a pause “aligns with some of the conversations we have been having with administration officials,” Trudeau told reporters on Thursday. “But I am going to wait for an official agreement to talk about (a) Canadian response.”

“It’s promising, but I would highlight that it means the tariffs are still in place,” Trudeau continued. “And therefore, our response will remain in place.”

Canada implemented a 25% tariff on over 1,200 US goods this week and has threatened to levy tariffs on over 4,000 more by March 25 unless the US removes its taxes on Canadian goods.

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC on Thursday morning that tariffs on treaty-compliant Canadian products will probably be paused. US President Donald Trump announced a pause on Mexican products later in the morning.

Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called Republicans “thin-skinned” after the House passed a GOP-led resolution to censure Democratic Rep. Al Green for his protest during President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress.

“For Republicans and a party that love to talk about protecting free speech, they are swift and they love to lay down the hammer in order to punish anyone whose speech they disagree with,” she told CNN’s Manu Raju on Thursday.

The New York Democrat, who did not attend Trump’s speech on Tuesday, said Green’s censure occurred because Republicans are “very thin-skinned and they’re very sensitive, and their feelings are very easily hurt.”

Divide among Democrats: Pressed by Raju on if Democratic leadership, which had urged members against staging disruptive protests during the speech, should be more encouraging of demonstrations against Trump, Ocasio-Cortez said, “I think that the Democratic coalition is really diverse,” and she trusts Green’s “discernment” in representing his constituents.

Ten House Democrats — several of whom represent red or swing districts — joined Republicans in voting to censure Green on Thursday, a step that was once considered rare but has been used more frequently in recent years.

One of them, Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, said he voted to censure Green out of “reverence for this institution.” Himes said he would oppose disruptions during speeches by a president from either party to Congress.

CNN’s Veronica Stracqualursi contributed reporting to this post.

After President Donald Trump on Thursday announced a nearly one-month tariff delay on all products from Mexico, negotiations were ongoing with Canada, and it remained unclear whether a deal would ultimately be accomplished, a senior Canadian government source told CNN.

Although the Trump administration and Canada continue to have discussions, “there is no clarity on whether or not the tariffs will be lifted for Canada,” the source said.

While the US president struck a conciliatory tone with Mexico’s leader Thursday, he had harsher words for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, with whom he has publicly feuded in recent weeks. Trump accused Trudeau of using trade disputes for political gain.

“Believe it or not, despite the terrible job he’s done for Canada, I think that Justin Trudeau is using the Tariff problem, which he has largely caused, in order to run again for Prime Minister,” Trump wrote in a separate Truth Social post. “So much fun to watch!”

Trudeau announced in January his decision to resign, saying, “I cannot be the one to carry the Liberal standard into the next election.” Canada’s Liberal Party will select its new leader on Sunday.

Elsewhere in Canada on Thursday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford called for the countries to drop the threats and renegotiate the trade pact.

“Let’s just drop these tariffs. Let’s renegotiate the USMCA deal that he created,” Ford told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, referring to Trump. “It hasn’t changed since he was in office, and he said it was the greatest deal ever.”

Trump indeed called the USMCA “the largest, most significant, modern, and balanced trade agreement in history” when he signed it in January 2020.

CNN’s Max Saltman contributed reporting to this post.

Special counsel Hampton Dellinger says he is dropping his lawsuit to try to keep his job after President Donald Trump fired him.

His decision comes a day after the federal appeals court in Washington temporarily removed him from the position, and ends what was poised to be a major test of Trump’s power to fire officials with some independence in the federal government.

Dellinger’s case had the potential of rewriting the law around Congressionally approved protections for the federal civil service. But it is no longer going to move forward in the court system, removing the possibility of the Supreme Court to revisit Dellinger’s job’s independence from the president’s wishes.

The case had been the first to land before the Supreme Court with emergency proceedings challenging Trump’s executive power, and at the moment was winding its way back through lower courts.

Dellinger said he was dropping his case on Thursday after the federal Circuit Court in Washington, DC, sided with Trump’s Justice Department to keep him out of the special counsel role for now.

“This new ruling means that (the Office of Special Counsel) will be run by someone totally beholden to the President for the months that would pass before I could get a final decision from the US Supreme Court,” Dellinger said in a statement on Thursday. “I think the circuit judges erred badly because their willingness to sign off on my ouster – even if presented as possibly temporary – immediately erases the independence Congress provided for my position, a vital protection that has been accepted as lawful for nearly fifty years.”

He added that he thought the Supreme Court might ultimately side against him and with Trump.

Some background: Dellinger was appointed to the job a year ago and was to continue in the role for five years, before Trump removed him.

The special counsel — who investigates worker complaints from across the federal civil service and is different from the more high-profile Justice Department special counsels — has been arguing in recent weeks to reinstate probationary workers at many agencies that the Trump administration has fired en masse.

Those petitioners so far have been successful, bringing nearly 6,000 Agriculture Department workers back to their jobs this week, and Dellinger had been continuing work on federal firing cases for others large groups that have been laid off from agencies under the Trump administration. A workers’ board, called the Merit Systems Protection Board, was still hearing the cases before making final decisions.

President Donald Trump announced Thursday that Mexico will be exempt from tariffs on goods covered by the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement until April 2.

“After speaking with President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico, I have agreed that Mexico will not be required to pay Tariffs on anything that falls under the USMCA Agreement. This Agreement is until April 2nd,” Trump wrote on social media Thursday, after a phone conversation with the Mexican president.

Trump said the decision was made as a gesture of respect and accommodation to Sheinbaum. He praised their strong working relationship, saying they were moving forward with joint efforts to address border security, including stopping illegal immigration and fentanyl trafficking. He also thanked the Mexican president for her cooperation and hard work.

Sheinbaum thanked Trump for what she called a “respectful” discussion about the tariffs.

This post has been updated with comment from Sheinbaum. CNN’s Ivonne Valdés contributed reporting.

GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, who chairs the panel that has oversight of the Department of Education, expressed support for letting states have more jurisdiction over education systems, but said he needed to see more details of the Trump administration’s plan to cut the federal agency.

Asked if he generally supports taking steps to eliminate the Department of Education, Cassidy told CNN: “I think you need to define what is meant by ‘winding down.’”

“Returning control to the states and localities is I think, technically, a good idea,” he said.

CNN previously reported the administration was drafting an executive order to launch the process of closing the Department of Education. Trump also plans to push for Congress to pass legislation to end the department.

It’s not clear when Trump would sign the order, but White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on X that it would not be Thursday.

Dr. Martin Makary, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the US Food and Drug Administration, said in a confirmation hearing Thursday that he would personally review staffing at the agency if confirmed as FDA commissioner.

It comes as the Trump administration and Elon Musk — under the Department of Government Efficiency — have been carrying out an overhaul of the federal workforce.

During the hearing, held by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said: “In February, we learned that hundreds of probationary employees at FDA were dismissed. And this really concerns me, because we need a flow of young new scientists and researchers, especially since we’re seeing retirements and resignations.”

“Ironically, more than half of the FDA employees are funded under various industry user fee agreements. So, there is revenue coming into the FDA to pay for these employees. If confirmed, will you — not an outside force — but you have full authority over FDA staffing decisions?” Collins asked Makary in the hearing.

Makary answered: “Senator, if confirmed as commissioner, you have my commitment that I will do an assessment of the staffing and personnel at the agency. I have not been involved in any of the decisions regarding any of the personnel changes recently, but if confirmed, you have my commitment that I will do an assessment.”

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has asked about 180 employees to return to their jobs after they were fired last month, a CDC source told CNN.

Most of the employees were involved in outbreak response and included fellows in prestigious training programs including the Laboratory Leadership Service and Public Health Associate Program, said the person, who declined to be named because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the cuts.

CNN previously reported that some employees have declined to return because of the “unstable” environment at the agency.

The cuts were part of more than 700 at the CDC, which is helping with an outbreak of measles in Texas, as well as monitoring the risk of H5N1 bird flu and a seasonal flu season that was the worst in 15 years. Employees at the CDC are still bracing themselves for the prospect of greater job cuts under a Reduction in Force, another source told CNN, speaking anonymously for fear of retribution.

CNN’s Nick Valencia contributed reporting.

Dr. Martin Makary, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the US Food and Drug Administration, said in a confirmation hearing Thursday that, if confirmed as the agency’s commissioner, he would build an “expert coalition” to review data on the abortion pill mifepristone.

“I have no preconceived plans on mifepristone policy except to take a solid, hard look at the data and to meet with the professional career scientists who have reviewed the data at the FDA, and to build an expert coalition to review the ongoing data, which is required to be collected as a part of the REMS program, the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy,” Makary said in the hearing, held by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

“If we’re going to collect data, I believe we should look at it,” he said.

Mifepristone is a pill used in a medication abortion, and it has been a focus of several abortion restrictions in some states. Mifepristone was approved by the FDA decades ago and has been shown to be safe and effective.

Senate confirmation votes for FDA commissioner and director of the US National Institutes of Health are both scheduled for next Thursday, as is the confirmation hearing for Trump’s pick to head the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A federal judge declined on Thursday to block the Trump administration from firing scores of contractors working for the US Agency for International Development.

The decision by US District Judge Carl Nichols is the latest ruling from the judge against efforts by unions representing aid workers who want to pump the brakes on President Donald Trump’s plans to dismantle USAID. Last month, Nichols cleared the way for the administration to terminate direct hires of the agency.

Nichols, a Trump appointee, said during a hearing on Thursday that a union representing personal services contractors employed by USAID had not demonstrated that any of its members would suffer “imminent irreparable harm” from the government’s actions absent the temporary restraining order it was seeking.

The judge rejected an argument from the union that the case was not a contractual dispute, but rather a broader constitutional case challenging the administration’s authority to fire the contractors.

At one point, he described their case as “essentially a federal contract dispute” and said they were unlikely to prevail at a later stage in the litigation because he believed their claims should be funneled through the Court of Federal Claims or the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals.

“The (Personal Service Contractor Association) has not carried its burden of establishing the court’s subject-matter jurisdiction here,” Nichols said.

There are more than 1,000 personal service contractors both in the US and abroad, and the Trump administration has already approved the termination of nearly 800 of the contractors working in middle- and high-income countries like the US and Moldova, and Thailand.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said Thursday he believes the House GOP will pass a stopgap funding bill on their own next week to avoid a government shutdown — without Democratic votes.

“I believe we’ll pass it along party lines, but I think every Democrat should vote for the CR,” Johnson told reporter, referring to a continuing resolution. “A clean CR with a few minor anomalies is not something they should vote against.”

Johnson’s leadership team plans to unveil stopgap bill text this weekend, with plans to vote early next week.

Asked about Trump’s plan to unwind the Department of Education, Johnson said he hasn’t yet seen the executive order but is generally supportive.

“I haven’t had a chance to review it yet. But I’ll tell you that the more we push control of education down to parents and local school board and authorities, the better off we are,” he said.

What Dems are saying: But the idea didn’t have the support of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who said Thursday that Democrats remain opposed to the plan.

“If Republicans decide to take this approach, as Speaker Johnson indicated, it’s his expectation that Republicans are going it alone,” Jeffries told reporters.

Asked afterward if he believed Johnson could pull off the government funding vote next week, Jeffries responded bluntly: “No.”

Jeffries said House Democrats will speak about the funding plan at their weekly gathering on Tuesday morning, but he stressed that his leadership team opposes the GOP’s plan.

The funding measure, which would extend current government funding through September 30, is anticipated to be officially unveiled over the weekend. House GOP leaders expect to pass the bill on Wednesday, sending it to the Senate just days before the March 14 deadline.

This post has been updated with the Democratic House leader’s response.

The US House of Representatives on Thursday censured Rep. Al Green for his protest during President Donald Trump’s address to Congress this week — a formal condemnation of the Texas Democrat’s actions.

The final vote to censure Green was 224-198, with 10 Democrats joining with Republicans to censure Green. Among the Democrats voting to censure were: Reps. Tom Suozzi of New York, Jim Himes of Connecticut, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, Jared Moskowitz of Florida and Marcy Kaptur of Ohio.

Himes said he supported the censure out of “reverence for this institution,” telling CNN’s Pamela Brown that while he has “no love for Donald Trump,” he thinks disruptive behavior in Congress during a speech from a president of either party sets a bad precedent.

House Speaker Mike Johnson called the House into recess Thursday following Green leading a group of Democrats in singing “We Shall Overcome” in response to the censure.

Censure amounts to a significant rebuke of a member of Congress, though it does not carry an explicit penalty beyond a public admonition of a lawmaker and is not as severe as expulsion. Censure, which was once considered rare in the House chamber, has been used more frequently in recent years.

Democrats previously failed to kill the effort.

Green, 77, disrupted Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night, prompting Johnson to remove the Democratic lawmaker from the chamber. Green on Wednesday told reporters he’d “suffer the consequences” of his protest and that he would do it all again.

The House speaker earlier Thursday criticized Green’s behavior during the speech as “shameful and egregious,” saying it “disgraced the institution of Congress.”

“He deliberately violated House rules, and an expeditious vote of censure is an appropriate remedy. Any Democrat who is concerned about regaining the trust and respect of the American people should join House Republicans in this effort,” Johnson said in a morning post on X.

This post has been updated with additional reporting on the censure vote.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Thursday that President Donald Trump will likely announce later in the day a one-month tariff delay on all products that are covered by the USMCA free trade treaty.

In an interview with CNBC, Lutnick said tariffs on all treaty-compliant products will probably go into effect on April 2 unless Mexico and Canada show significant progress in fighting fentanyl crossing the border to the United States.

A federal judge issued a scathing opinion Thursday extending his block on the Trump administration’s attempt to enact a government-wide freeze on federal grants and assistance programs.

“Without the injunction, Congressional control of spending will have been usurped by the Executive without constitutional or statutory authority,” Judge John J. McConnell Jr. wrote, granting a preliminary injunction sought by several Democratic state attorneys general.

The administration’s funding freeze — which it attempted to implement via a sweeping memo from the Office of Management and Budget — has been put on hold by courts for several weeks. The administration also rescinded the memo on its own in an apparent effort to head off the litigation. There have also been disputes in the legal challenges over whether the administration was fully complying with the previous orders halting the grant freeze.

“In light of the unrebutted evidence that the States and their citizens are currently facing and will continue to face a significant disruption in health, education, and other public services that are integral to their daily lives due to this overly broad pause in federal funding, the Court finds that the public interest lies in maintaining the status quo and enjoining any categorical funding freeze,” McConnell wrote Thursday.

His ruling found the challengers were likely to succeed in their arguments that the OMB memo violated a federal law known as the Administrative Procedure Act which sets certain standards for how agencies carry out executive branch policy.

But McConnell, an Obama appointee who sits in Rhode Island, also framed the dispute as one striking at the heart of the balance of powers and Congress’ authority over spending.