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Claim: President Trump can cut off funding for schools. Fact check: Mixed

President Donald Trump
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President Trump cannot unilaterally cut federal funding for schools, as highlighted by House Democrats on June 8.

"Congress provides federal education funding to support some of the most vulnerable young people in our country," said Evan Hollander, a spokesman for the Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee. "The president has no authority to cut off funding for these students, and threatening to do so to prop up his flailing campaign is offensive."

However, Trump could restrict some pandemic relief funding and decline to sign or veto future legislation for federal grants and bailouts for schools.


Trump and his administration have previously proposed cutting federal grants for schools as well as reducing the Education Department's budget, but Congress, which has oversight power when it comes to federal grants, has continued to reject these proposals.

"As with all legislation generally, Congress oversees the grant's implementation to ensure that the federal administrating agency is held accountable," as stated in a 2019 report from the Congressional Research Service on federal grants.

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Draining the Safeguards

Donald Trump

Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Draining the Safeguards

A loyalty-forward government has formed right before our eyes. Jared Kushner has been tapped to help lead the Israel–Hamas talks. He wasn’t chosen for his expertise in delicate diplomacy; he was chosen because he’s the president’s son-in-law—and because some around him seem to treat his Jewish identity as if that alone were a qualification aligned with a pro-Israel posture. Identity and proximity are not expertise. That’d be like putting Linda McMahon in charge of the Department of Education because she once (seemingly!) went to school. Oh wait, we did that too. What are we doing here?

Zoom out from the Kushner headline and the method snaps into focus. First, elevate friends, family, donors, and media allies into roles once filled by deeply vetted and experienced professionals. Second, lean on “acting” titles and novel personnel rules to dodge scrutiny and degrade accountability. Third, purge the referees—advisory boards, inspectors general, nonpartisan civil servants—so the only guardrail left is personal loyalty. It’s governing by who you know, not what you know.

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Dwight Eisenhower
Without leaders like Dwight Eisenhower we will once again find ourselves on the precipice of a "world devoid of hope, freedom, economic stability, morals, values and human decency," writes M. Dane Waters.
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The General's Warning: What Eisenhower Knew About Power

On September 28, 2025, President Trump ordered the deployment of National Guard troops to American cities for domestic law enforcement, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth authorizing 200 Oregon National Guard members for a 60-day deployment to Portland. A federal judge temporarily blocked the move, calling the justification for military deployment "simply untethered to the facts." When the administration tried to circumvent the order by sending troops from other states, the judge expanded her ruling, blocking any federalized National Guard deployment to Oregon.

That declaration marks a break with the boundary Dwight Eisenhower insisted upon between national defense and domestic politics. His 1961 farewell address warned against exactly this misuse of power.

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The politics of Donald Trump’s war on cities

An armed law enforcement agent sits in an armored vehicle as residents of Chicago's Brighton Park neighborhood confront law enforcement at a gas station after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents allegedly detained an unidentified man riding in his car, in Chicago, Illinois, on Oct. 4, 2025.

(AFP via Getty Images)

The politics of Donald Trump’s war on cities

A masked, federal agent in combat uniform leans out the passenger window of a Jeep and points a military rifle directly at the face of a U.S. citizen in Chicago, simply for recording him.

It should send a chill down every American’s spine. President Trump’s revenge on America’s liberal cities is an authoritarian abuse of power. Americans in 2025 should not have to live in police states or with the National Guard patrolling their streets or pointing weapons at them.

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Trump Declares War on Democratic Cities

People rally around a group of interfaith clergy members as they hold a press conference downtown to denounce the Trump administration's proposed immigration sweeps in the city on Sept. 8, 2025 in Chicago.

Scott Olson, Getty Images

Trump Declares War on Democratic Cities

When presidents deploy the National Guard, it’s usually to handle hurricanes, riots, or disasters. Donald Trump has found a darker use for it: punishing political opponents.

Over recent months, Trump has sent federalized Guard units into Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Memphis, and now Chicago—where roughly 300 Illinois Guardsmen have been federalized and another 400 troops brought in from Texas. He calls it “law and order,” but the pattern is clear: Democratic-led cities are being targeted as enemy territory. Governors and mayors have objected, but Trump is testing how far he can stretch Title 10, the section of U.S. law that allows the president to federalize the National Guard in limited cases of invasion or rebellion—a law meant for national crisis, not political theater.

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