In a bizarre appearance on FOX News today, Donald Trump sat on a small couch with the network’s hosts and gave a jarring answer when posed with a scenario about what to do with schools that teach the truth about American history.
“So let’s say you have a liberal city,” said FOX host, Brian Kilmeade.
“Let’s let’s say it’s Los Angeles, San Diego, and they just decide … ‘Oh, we’re gonna get rid of…history,” Kilmeade posed. “We got new history. This is America built off the backs of slaves on stolen land, and that curriculum comes in.”
“We don’t send them money,” Trump responded. “We would save half of our budget.”
Trump’s threat to withhold funding from schools that taught about slavery being central to American history was part of a larger pitch he made during the segment about closing down the U.S. Department of Education. The former president’s promise matches up with one of the major policy proposals presented in Project 2025 — a policy document Trump has repeatedly denied having any knowledge of or connection to, despite former Trump officials being key leaders of the Project 2025 initiative.
Project 2025 has aimed to diminish federal involvement in education and return control to state and local governments. The “power to states” rhetoric has historically been used to undermine civil rights advancements and legislation by allowing states to resist change. Trump and Project 2025’s proposal to shut down the Department of Education would dramatically impact the education landscape, particularly for America’s most vulnerable students, who are Black and brown.
Trump’s strategy to withhold money from schools teaching about slavery also reflects larger attacks on DEI that the former president has endorsed and his view that DEI is anti-white racism.
“I think there is a definite anti-white feeling in this country, and that can’t be allowed,” Trump once told TIME Magazine.
The Department of Education is responsible for more than 50 million students in 18,200 school districts nationwide.