Audience Cheers As Cory Booker Torches Linda McMahon, Trump, Over Cuts To Education Department

4/7/2025

During a town hall on Saturday, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) spoke about the Trump Administration's cuts to the Department of Education.

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Transcript

00:00Our next question here, Senator, from our friend, Anne-Marie.

00:06Hi. Hi, Senator Booker. My name is Anne-Marie Bersetti.

00:16I live all the way south.

00:19First of all, I want to thank you for your 25-hour speech on the Senate floor.

00:29I'm the Vice President of the New Jersey Association for the Deaf.

00:35And on behalf of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and DeafBlind community in New Jersey,

00:39I am writing to express my grave concern that Linda McMahon, President Trump,

00:45and the Department of Government Efficiency, DOE, are taking steps to abolish the Department of Education

00:51and eliminate the educational opportunities for millions of students across the country,

00:55especially the impact this will have on students who are Deaf, Hard of Hearing, and DeafBlind.

01:01With the termination of over 1,300 workers at the Department of Education,

01:06our country is left with a skeleton of an essential department under our federal government.

01:11In this termination, Linda McMahon inappropriately included the liaison to the special institutions

01:17who works in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, OSERS, supporting students most in need.

01:28The U.S. Department of Education has made significant cuts affecting key programs and positions

01:34that serve Deaf and Hard of Hearing individuals.

01:37This reduction in force impacts HRSA, Early Childhood Education, birth to three programs nationwide,

01:46K-12 Deaf education, post-secondary programs, interpreter training programs,

01:53liaisons to special institutions which support places such as Gallaudet University.

02:00I ask that you take immediate action to have Linda McMahon correct her mistake

02:05and reinstate the employee who serves this position.

02:36Specifically affecting Early Childhood Education, HRSA, K-12 education, teacher services,

02:43programs with interpreter training programs, and responsibility of special institutions

02:50specifically like Gallaudet University.

02:58Without the department, we're not able to satisfy and meet the needs,

03:02the very serious needs and serious functioning.

03:08And we need to run the programs continually at Gallaudet without interruption.

03:14And immediate action needs to happen.

03:19And Linda McMahon needs to... I'm sorry.

03:24Stop!

03:41I agree with you all that Linda McMahon must go, but the actual person who put Linda McMahon in that position has to go.

03:55So I want to make sure that my team who's here talks to her more,

04:01because we are already doing a lot to write about these specific people and programs that are under assault,

04:08but we take a lot of strength from New Jerseyans who know these issues.

04:13Literally there are New Jerseyans who help us write bills, write public statements,

04:18and it sounds like you could really be a partner with us in fighting back.

04:24So thank you.

04:29My Chief of Staff Veronica Ron, I'm going to make you stand up because I want to embarrass you really quick.

04:32Stand up Veronica.

04:33She's one of the first Latina Chiefs of Staff in all of the Senate.

04:40And in order to get here, after we finished the three or four last night, she's the one that drove me up here.

04:46But the reason why I want to embarrass her is because this was her advice to the town hall.

04:50Cory, you've already proven to people that you can speak for 25 hours.

04:54Prove to me that you can give answers to questions that are only one minute.

05:00So I'm going to try to need my Chief of Staff to try to go shorter so we can get more people into our, to get more questions asked.

Audience Cheers As Cory Booker Torches Linda McMahon, Trump, Over Cuts To Education Department

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