House Dems barred from entering Education Department as rumors swirl its next on Trump’s chopping block

WASHINGTON — A handful of House Democrats were barred from entering the Department of Education’s DC headquarters Friday, after President Trump talked up plans to bypass Congress and unilaterally close the agency down, returning its power to the states.

Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) and 95 of his fellow partisans had demanded an “urgent meeting” Thursday with acting secretary Denise Carter before taking matters into their own hands Friday — only to be halted by security who “locked” the building doors, a congressional aide told The Post.

Video footage shows an officer informing the lawmakers that their meeting request had not been “accepted” and there was “no business purpose” for their visit.

“Get out of the way!” erupted Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.). “We pay for your job!”

Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-NY) and Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) were also there to protest the move.

The congressional aide noted that the department’s office of legislative affairs had “acknowledged receipt of the letter,” with no further response.

“President Donald Trump has promised to abolish the Department of Education. He believes that he can do this through Executive Order,” Takano told his fellow reps and reporters outside the building. “And we are here to remind him: He cannot!”

“The Department was created through an Act of Congress. It cannot be abolished except through an Act of Congress,” he said.

The late President Jimmy Carter signed legislation setting up the modern Department of Education and making it a cabinet-level agency in 1979, but early iterations had overseen the nation’s schools since 1867.

Trump, 78, has made clear one of his top objectives for Education Secretary-designate Linda McMahon is to wind down the department — and is reportedly mulling an executive order to that effect.

“I told Linda — ‘Linda, I hope you do a great job and put yourself out of a job,’” the president told reporters Tuesday. “I want her to put herself out of a job [in the] Education Department.”

Musk posted a meme on his X platform after Trump’s 2024 electoral win in November with a picture of Carter that stated: “In 1979, I created the Department of Education. Since then, America went from 1st to 24th in education.”

Trump earlier this week claimed the US was “rated last in the world in education of the top 40.”

It’s unclear to which data sets either was referring. Last year, the US ranked 20th out of 41 countries, according to an analysis by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, falling well behind Canada and many European countries.

While prominent Republicans have called for axing the department almost since its creation by Carter, any such move by Trump would be challenged in court.

“I think I’d work with Congress,” Trump acknowledged, before adding: “We’d have to work with the teachers union because the teachers union is the only one that’s opposed to it.”

“I think that if you moved our schools into some of these states that are really well-run states, they would be as good as Denmark and Norway and Sweden,” he also said. “But you’d have the laggards, the same laggards that are laggards with everything else, including crime.”

The DOE’s budget was around $241.66 billion last fiscal year, according to data from USASpending.gov, of which about $180 billion went toward the Office of Federal Student Aid, which deals with student loans.

Those loan forgiveness dollars went out the door despite much larger cancellation efforts by former President Joe Biden being blocked by federal courts.

Friday’s fracas comes after tech billionaire and so-called “special government employee” Elon Musk has toured agencies at will with a team of Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) engineers to audit potentially wasteful federal spending.

“Today we are demanding that the Acting Secretary meet with us and agree: Donald Trump and Elon Musk cannot, must not, and will not destroy the Department of Education on a whim,” Takano had told reporters.

The DOGE team had barged into the US Agency for International Development (USAID) last weekend and clashed with security officials at the Ronald Reagan Building after reportedly being denied access to classified material.

The two officials were later placed on leave and USAID chief of staff Matt Hopson subsequently resigned.

On Monday, all USAID staff were barred from returning to the agency’s headquarters for work.

Dozens of Education Department employees were also placed on administrative leave the same day, according to a federal union that reps them.