In one of the most disturbing events in recent history, a generation of American schoolchildren was forced out of the classroom for months, in many places, years, by adults who ignored available facts and abused public trust regarding COVID-19. These children lost irreplaceable time learning, socializing, and developing. Many still have not recovered, and some never will.
Anthony Fauci may be the one making headlines now, and for good reason. But amid the fervor, we cannot forget the person bearing equal responsibility for this catastrophe when it comes to American children: Randi Weingarten.
Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), can keep insisting, “<a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/04/dont-let-them-rewrite-the-pandemic/">We</a><a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/04/dont-let-them-rewrite-the-pandemic/"> spent every day from February on trying to get schools open</a>,” just as Fauci can keep demanding, “<a href="https://nypost.com/2023/04/25/fauci-absolves-himself-of-responsibility-for-lockdowns-in-testy-interview/">Show </a><a href="https://nypost.com/2023/04/25/fauci-absolves-himself-of-responsibility-for-lockdowns-in-testy-interview/">me a school that I shut down</a>,” but parents remember what happened. Their children were the collateral damage of a reckless alliance in which Weingarten weaponized Fauci’s rhetoric and recommendations as scientific cover to exercise enormous control over when, how, and whether schools reopened.
Fauci did little to help his own case by invoking the Fifth Amendment 111 times as senators asked him under oath to explain his COVID-era decisions. That alone carried obvious implications of wrongdoing, or at least an effort to conceal the full extent of his role in the damage that followed. And now, thanks to his newly released diaries, we know that in private he practically bragged about his influence over initial school closures and early reopening decisions that would set the course for the rest of the country.
Whatever justification existed for that initial caution disappeared by the summer of 2020, when <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6914e4.htm">evidence </a>increasingly showed that children faced far lower risks of hospitalization and death than adults, and early reports from reopened schools suggested that classrooms were not major drivers of community transmission. By May, <a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/05/25/10-key-education-recommendations-for-reopening-the-k-12-classroom/?_gl=1*1ydi0ty*_gcl_au*MzQzMzgyMTgzLjE3ODY1NTYzODE.*_ga*NjQ5NDA4OTQ5LjE3ODY1NTYzODE.*_ga_W14BT6YQ87*czE3ODY1NTYzODAkbzEkZzAkdDE3ODY1NTYzODAkajYwJGwwJGgw">organizations </a>such as the Heritage Foundation released guidance on how schools could reopen safely, with states prioritizing a back-to-school plan that had students physically present, since closures were already harming children.
That should have been the end of the shutdown debate. Weingarten, however, made sure it was not. She capitalized on Fauci’s public words, using his authority to legitimize an ever-expanding list of union demands that kept her members home for as long as possible, children be damned.
In July 2020, the AFT threatened lawsuits and “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/28/aft-strikes-school-reopening-384133">safety </a><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/28/aft-strikes-school-reopening-384133">strikes</a>” against reopening plans, declaring that “nothing is off the table” in its fight to keep schools closed. It then demanded community positivity below 5%, transmission below 1%, surveillance and contact tracing, accommodations for high-risk employees, and authority to close schools again if their conditions were not met.
That same month, Weingarten brought Fauci before the AFT’s convention, where he warned educators that if they returned to their classrooms, they would become “<a href="https://www.aft.org/news/dr-anthony-fauci-calls-safety-paramount-reopening-schools">part </a><a href="https://www.aft.org/news/dr-anthony-fauci-calls-safety-paramount-reopening-schools">of the experiment</a>” in determining what would happen. With the country’s most recognizable public-health figure validating her “caution,” Weingarten could present the AFT’s growing list of demands as reliably rooted in science.
By February 2021, the AFT, a labor union with no scientific or public-health authority, was actively shaping federal reopening policy behind closed doors. In the weeks before the CDC released its February 2021 guidance, Weingarten and other AFT officials <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/06/02/texts-reveal-exchange-between-cdc-director-teachers-union-boss-before-school-reopening-memo/">spoke </a><a href="https://nypost.com/2023/06/02/texts-reveal-exchange-between-cdc-director-teachers-union-boss-before-school-reopening-memo/">repeatedly</a> with CDC Director Rochelle Walensky on her direct phone line, persuading the agency to adopt two proposed changes that gave unions and school districts more grounds to delay full reopening or close classrooms again. They thanked the CDC for treating the union as a “<a href="https://californiapolicycenter.org/science-with-the-union-label/">thought </a><a href="https://californiapolicycenter.org/science-with-the-union-label/">partner</a>.”  
Through it all, the AFT dismissed the documented academic, developmental, and psychological <a href="https://abcnews.com/US/school-closures-put-children-risk/story?id=70329613">damage </a>inflicted on children by prolonged school closures. They simply did not care.
Weingarten would not call for schools to reopen fully, five days a week, until May 2021. By then, millions of children had already lost more than a year of learning and social development they could never get back.
And for more than six years now, parents have been forced to watch the consequences of Weingarten’s selfish and baseless decisions play out in our own children’s academic struggles, mental health challenges, and delayed development.
The 2022 Nation’s Report Card recorded some of the largest declines in student achievement ever measured. Four years later, national reading and math scores still <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/teens-reading-and-math-scores-have-stagnated-us-test-results-show">remain </a>below pre-pandemic levels. As of 2025, more than <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/658100/pandemic-hurt-children-social-skills-mental-health.aspx">one </a><a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/658100/pandemic-hurt-children-social-skills-mental-health.aspx">in five parents</a> said the damage to their children’s mental health or social development still had not gone away.
Fauci may be the one invoking the Fifth now, but it was Weingarten who used his warnings as cover to hold school reopenings hostage to her union’s demands. Millions of families are still dealing with the ramifications of her influence. Her unscientific, entirely political power plays must not go unanswered, and Weingarten needs to be held accountable for continuing to prioritize political agendas over children.
***
Alleigh Marré is the executive director of American Parents Coalition and a mother of four.

Florida Schools Prepare To Open

The Generational Toll Of Randi Weingarten’s Pandemic Politics

American Federation of Teachers

Anthony Fauci

COVID-19

DW Opinion

Randi Weingarten

School closures

Anthony Fauci sat before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on July 29 and declined to answer more than 100 questions. He invoked the Fifth Amendment. On Thursday, the committee voted 8-5 to hold him in contempt of Congress, setting up a referral to the Justice Department.
Millions of American schoolchildren got no hearing, no appeal, and no protection of any kind when the public health establishment he personified locked them out of their classrooms.
The people responsible are counting on you to move on. I refuse.
Fauci was the face of that establishment. The paper trail on school closures runs through two other addresses: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).
In December 2024, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released its final report after a two-year investigation. Its findings on schools should have ended careers. The Biden administration&#8217;s CDC broke precedent by giving a political labor organization privileged access to its supposedly scientific reopening guidance. The agency solicited edits from the AFT and accepted them.
Read that again. A federal health agency let Randi Weingarten&#8217;s operation help write the document that decided whether your child sat in a classroom or stared at a laptop in a bedroom.
The subcommittee found that the AFT opposed reopening and conditioned its cooperation on demands with no scientific footing, including an automatic closure &#8220;trigger&#8221; that could shutter buildings on command. Investigators concluded schools remained closed longer than necessary because of union interference. They also confirmed what millions of parents had already worked out on their own: children faced little risk of severe illness, and the evidence never justified keeping doors locked for a year or more.
The guidance was corrupted. The closures dragged on. The wreckage is measurable.
The 2024 Nation&#8217;s Report Card delivered the verdict. Reading scores for fourth- and eighth-graders are five points below where they stood in 2019. A third of eighth graders perform beneath the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Basic level, the largest share ever recorded. High school seniors posted an average reading score 10 points below the first assessment in 1992, and 45% of them landed below Basic in math weeks before walking across the graduation stage. Congress spent $189.5 billion on school relief. Achievement fell anyway.
The human cost runs past any test. During a four-week stretch of early 2021, emergency room visits for suspected suicide attempts among girls ages 12 to 17 ran 50.6% above the same weeks in 2019. Stanford economist Eric Hanushek estimates pandemic-era learning loss will drain roughly $31 trillion in lifetime earnings across this century, with individual students forfeiting between 2 and 9% of their income depending on how long their state kept buildings dark.
Kids who learned to read over Zoom will still be paying in 2070. The adults who made that happen will be comfortably retired.
Not one of them has faced a consequence.
Weingarten certainly hasn&#8217;t. Last month delegates at the AFT&#8217;s 89th convention in Washington re-elected her to another two-year term atop a union of 1.875 million members. She spends her days promoting a book called “Why Fascists Fear Teachers.” The leader whose organization helped shape the guidance that emptied American classrooms now casts herself as democracy&#8217;s last defender. The audacity is remarkable. The impunity is worse.
Here is the lesson we cannot let fade. Health guidance was handed down as decree. A union with a direct stake shaped that decree behind closed doors. Parents who objected were branded enemies of science. School board meetings filled with mothers and fathers pleading for their children, and officials waved them off. The National School Boards Association wrote the White House, suggesting confrontations with parents might qualify as domestic terrorism. The group apologized weeks later. Attorney General Merrick Garland had already ordered the FBI to get involved.
That is how power gets used against children. Quietly, through email chains and edited drafts, by officials who never face a ballot.
Accountability has to mean more than one contempt vote. Congress should subpoena all communications between federal health agencies and teachers unions from 2020 through 2022 and publish them all. State legislatures should bar any agency from handing unions a seat at the table on closure policy. Governors should pull that authority from bureaucrats and give it to officials who answer to voters.
Families should keep the exits open too. Every state that expanded education savings accounts, charter access, or open enrollment after 2021 gave parents something no committee can hand down: the power to walk away from a system that failed them.
Fauci has lawyers, a presidential pardon, and the right to say nothing. The class of 2033 has none of it. Those students carry gaps in reading and arithmetic that grown men and women chose to inflict on them, and they are owed the truth about who made the call.
We are not going to forget. We will keep saying their names.
***
Ryan Walters is the CEO of the Teacher Freedom Alliance and former State Superintendent of Public Instruction in Oklahoma.

Coronavirus Pandemic Causes Climate Of Anxiety And Changing Routines In America

Fauci Took The Fifth. America’s Kids Never Got That Option.

COVID

A teachers&#8217; union boss said during a keynote speech at an American Federation of Teachers (AFT) conference that President Donald Trump makes her reach for the alcohol.
Rhonda “Randi” Weingarten, the president of AFT, routinely — and publicly — disagrees with Trump and many other top Republicans, and she said as much in her keynote speech.
After welcoming the crowd, she mocked the White House’s Independence Day celebration, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/weingarten-gestures-wildly-anti-trump-rant-later-says-drives-her-drink">according</a> to Fox News. “While you missed the UFC cage fight on the White House lawn, it’s not too late to check out the tire marks in the Reflecting Pool,” Weingarten said.
During the following <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNWaPpSIm5o">panel discussion</a>, Weingarten asked what keeps them up at night with the many things “confronting the country.”
“Because part of what authoritarians do — and also part of what Donald Trump does — whether you consider him an authoritarian or not, is the throwing out of so much stuff that people just throw up their hands and say: ‘Oh no, what are we going to do? All I want to do is stay home and’ — for those of us who drink — ‘have a glass of wine’ — or for me, some vodka,” she said.
Weingarten became progressively more upset as she ranted about Trump and “oligarchs” such as Elon Musk.
“But this is what they don’t have: the power of the people,” she said, becoming increasingly animated.
“That is not a mere slogan. It is the potential to work together, to bargain together, to protest together, to vote together, to act together, to bring about change — real, lasting, life-improving change,” Weingarten said.
“That is the power and potential of our movement and of the A – F – T,” she said, lengthening the organization’s acronym dramatically as she claimed that the AFT could work for “good” against “corruption.”
Weingarten went on to say that she wants an America built where “the trans nurse, the Palestinian teacher, the Jewish student, and every person, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, gender, or place of origin, feel welcome, safe, and valued.”
“And one more thing: We get sh*t done,” Weingarten said. “My apologies to the children.”

Teachers Union Boss’s Trump Confession? Pass The Vodka

Alcohol

donald trump

Education

politics

The school year is over, report cards are coming home, and parents are asking the same questions they ask at the end of every school year: Is my child learning? Are they better prepared for the future?
For far too many families, the honest answer is no. According to the <a href="https://www.nagb.gov/news-and-events/news-releases/2025/declines-in-8th-grade-science-and-12th-grade-math-and-reading.html">National Assessment of Educational Progress</a>, fewer than one in three American students can read at grade level, fewer than one in three eighth graders are proficient in science, and only 22% of high school seniors are proficient in math. Yet public school spending is approaching $1 trillion a year, nearly 60% higher than in 2013, when student performance was significantly stronger.
New York City, for example, spends roughly $44,000 per student each year, about 30% more than other large school districts without producing better outcomes. The disconnect has become so absurd that even Jeff Bezos recently <a href="https://x.com/DefiantLs/status/2059358911480709283">weighed in</a>. As Bezos <a href="https://x.com/DefiantLs/status/2059358911480709283">put it</a>, if Amazon operated the same way, “packages would take six weeks to arrive, we would charge you a $100 delivery fee, and when the package did finally arrive, it would have the wrong item.”
Parents and taxpayers have every right to wonder where all that money is going.
If you follow the dollars, the answer leads straight to Randi Weingarten and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).
Parents are constantly told that teachers’ unions exist to support educators and improve schools. A closer look at how the union spends its money and exercises its influence, however, tells a very different story.
According to federal filings analyzed by the Illinois Policy Institute, AFT spent more than $277 million in fiscal year 2024. Only $100.7 million of that, barely 36 cents on the dollar, went toward representing teachers, the union’s supposed core function. The rest flowed into politics, administration, and union leadership priorities. That includes $38 million in political activities and lobbying alone. The Better Business Bureau recommends nonprofits devote at least 65% of their resources to their core mission. By that standard, the AFT falls dramatically short. Meanwhile, Weingarten herself collected more than $500,000 in salary and reportable compensation in FY2024, while the average teacher earns around $72,000.
When those factors are combined with the union’s overwhelmingly one-sided political spending, the picture becomes even more troubling. During the 2024 election cycle, 99.89% of AFT Political Action Committee (PAC) contributions went to Democrats and allied causes. In fact, the union’s PAC spent $15.6 million supporting Kamala Harris and Democratic congressional candidates.
That may come as a surprise to the millions of Americans who still assume teachers’ unions are primarily focused on improving schools and supporting educators. Then again, consider how Weingarten uses her platform.
She called Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act a “gross political attack” because it gave parents a clearer view of what young children are taught about gender and sexuality. She welcomed the Biden administration’s effort to rewrite Title IX in ways that allowed biological males to compete in girls’ sports and access private female spaces. At the 2024 AFT Convention, she invoked the specter of fascism to warn members about the consequences of the “wrong” election outcome. As American Enterprise Institute scholar Robert Pondiscio put it, her social media is “a litany of hot takes on politics and current events. Effective teaching? Barely a whisper.”
More recently, an investigation by Defending Education uncovered an AFT affiliate connected to a Minnesota network that promoted parent-alert systems designed to counter ICE operations. Separate research found DEI provisions embedded in AFT-affiliated union contracts nationwide, including race-conscious programming and ideological trainings unrelated to pay, benefits, or classroom conditions.
As parents, we have been told to stay in our lane. We’ve been told that questioning curriculum is book-banning, that wanting a say in our children’s education is extremism, and that the union knows best.
All the while, academic performance continues to deteriorate across nearly every subject and grade level, even as one of the most powerful organizations in American education pours millions of dollars, countless hours, and enormous political influence into elections, activism, and ideological causes that have little to do with helping students learn.
Parents have every right to expect better.
***
Alleigh Marré is the executive director of American Parents Coalition and a mother of four.

Kamala Harris – Teachers Convention

Another School Year, Another Teachers’ Union Cash Grab To Pet Political Causes

Perhaps no person more frequently represents themselves as the spokesperson for educators than Randi Weingarten, the infamous president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).
With her tenure at the helm of the nation’s second-largest teachers union approaching two decades and no term limits for AFT officers, Weingarten has had ample opportunity to entrench herself as a key player in the progressive media and political apparatus.
But as can occur in the classroom — or any institution, for that matter — lengthy tenure untethered from performance and accountability breeds hubris and entitlement. And the greater the power, the greater the opportunity to abuse it.
To that end, two new reports released this week provide fresh evidence of Weingarten using her perch at AFT to leverage members’ dues for her own personal benefit.
The <a href="https://www.freedomfoundation.com/national/sparing-no-expense-how-aft-members-unknowingly-financed-randi-weingartens-literary-vanity-project/">first analysis</a>, produced by my organization and first <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/05/19/us-news/aft-boss-randi-weingarten-tapped-union-resources-worth-over-1-4m-to-write-manifesto-book/">reported on</a> by the New York Post, examined AFT’s most recent annual financial disclosure to the U.S. Department of Labor and discovered that the union appears to have financed the production, publication, and promotion of Weingarten’s recent book, Why Fascists Fear Teachers (WFFT), entirely with members’ dues.
Among other things, AFT footed the bill for Weingarten’s apparent ghostwriter — progressive commentator and communications consultant Sally Kohn — who received more than $400,000 from AFT during the year Weingarten’s book was in production.
In response to inquiries from the New York Post, AFT argued that not all the payments to Kohn were related to WFFT. That may be technically true, but the most Kohn had previously been paid by the union in a year was only $125,000, and Weingarten herself described Kohn in her book’s acknowledgments as “indispensable as a day-to-day thought partner and collaborator.”
Other payments associated with WFFT were beyond even such minor quibbles.
AFT did not dispute paying $6,000 to an editor in Montana to fact-check WFFT, nor did it deny paying $5,200 to a Juilliard-trained celebrity photographer for the black-and-white author photo appearing on the inside dust jacket at the back of Weingarten’s book.
The union’s members also unwittingly funded $64,000 in payments to Weingarten’s literary agent, to say nothing of the untold thousands of dollars expended on her cross-country book tour, or the time invested by dozens of AFT personnel in assisting in Weingarten’s literary pursuits.
That AFT members were not asked whether they wanted to underwrite Weingarten’s self-promotional work of antifascist political commentary in the first place is bad enough. But the real kicker is what happened to the proceeds.
In past comments, Weingarten emphasized that half of the royalties from WFFT would be donated to two AFT charities under Weingarten’s control, but never indicated she would benefit financially from the book sales.
In reality, the $375,000 in advance royalties from the book were divided into thirds among AFT, two Weingarten-controlled charities, and an opaque Delaware-registered LLC. When pressed by the Post about the Freedom Foundation’s analysis, AFT <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/05/19/us-news/aft-boss-randi-weingarten-tapped-union-resources-worth-over-1-4m-to-write-manifesto-book/">admitted</a> that the LLC served as a conduit for payments to Weingarten herself.
Weingarten already receives a compensation package worth <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/360725240/202501219349302720/full">nearly $600,000</a>, and it’s not clear how leveraging members’ dues for Weingarten’s personal pecuniary benefit aligns with AFT officers’ <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/29/501">legal obligation</a> to hold the union’s “money and property solely for the benefit of the organization and its members.”
Similarly, a second <a href="https://networkcontagion.us/reports/mission-aborted-a-report-on-institutional-governance-financial-transparency-and-policy-influence-in-major-teachers-unions/">report</a> released this week documenting the pervasive progressive political advocacy of the AFT and its larger counterpart, the National Education Association, flagged a $10,000 contribution by AFT to Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, which it describes as “a New York-based synagogue led by Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum (now Rabbi Emerita), Randi Weingarten’s wife.”
Taxpayers have also been left holding the bag for Weingarten’s union activism.
In 2023, the Freedom Foundation <a href="https://www.freedomfoundation.com/labor/aft-president-randi-weingarten-qualified-for-public-pension-for-years-spent-out-of-the-classroom-on-union-leave/">documented</a> that Weingarten’s time as a New York City public school teacher — which she often hearkens back to in her writing and speeches — amounted to a grand total of three years full-time and three years as a substitute.
Her limited classroom tenure was not enough to qualify her for pension benefits, but thanks to a sweetheart deal with the city, her 11 years as president of the United Federation of Teachers were credited toward her pension seniority, securing her a taxpayer-funded retirement potentially worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Weingarten may want to pose as the champion of American educators, but unfortunately, her track record at AFT starkly illustrates the need to empower educators with alternatives to her corrupt enterprise.
Through projects like <a href="https://www.optouttoday.com/">OptOutToday.com</a>, teachers can take steps to cancel their membership in far-left unions like the AFT and the NEA. Conservative educators seeking support can turn to non-union professional associations such as the <a href="https://www.teacherfreedomalliance.com/">Teacher Freedom Alliance</a>.
For their part, policymakers should follow the example of states like Idaho, which recently <a href="https://www.freedomfoundation.com/press-release/idaho-ends-taxpayer-support-for-teachers-unions/">adopted legislation</a> prohibiting direct and indirect taxpayer support for teachers&#8217; unions.
Until union executives like Weingarten and the organizations they steer face meaningful accountability, it should be no surprise that they continue to exploit their members and taxpayers alike.
***
Maxford Nelsen is director of research and government affairs at the Freedom Foundation.

How Randi Weingarten Wrote Herself A Fat Paycheck And Left Taxpayers With The Bill

Teachers Unions

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten resigned from the board of the Democratic National Committee after more than 23 years, citing disagreements with new leadership.
“I appear to be out of step with the leadership you are forging, and I do not want to be the one who keeps questioning why we are not enlarging our tent and actively trying to engage more of our communities,” Weingarten wrote in her June 5 <a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000197-75eb-da2a-a9bf-7feba2f90000" target="_blank" rel="noopener">resignation letter</a>.
Weingarten, who leads the nation’s second-largest teachers’ union, opposed DNC Chairman Ken Martin in February’s election. Upon becoming chair, Martin removed Weingarten from her longstanding position on the Rules and Bylaws Committee.
Weeks before Weingarten resigned, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees President Lee Saunders also stepped down from the DNC. On May 27, Saunders wrote that “public service workers are facing unprecedented attacks,” a challenge which “demands unwavering focus.”
“In that spirit, and with deep respect, I must decline your nomination to the DNC,” Saunders wrote, according to The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/06/15/randi-weingarten-democratic-national-committee/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Washington Post.</a>
Saunders further <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/15/us/politics/randi-weingarten-dnc-ken-martin.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">explained</a> his decision to resign in a statement to The New York Times, saying, “We must evolve to meet the urgency of this moment. This is not a time to close ranks or turn inward.”
“This amounts to the exit of two of the highest-profile union leaders aligned with the Democratic Party,” The New York Times’ Shane Goldmacher <a href="https://x.com/ShaneGoldmacher/status/1934441042016645243" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted</a> on X.
The two resignations are the latest signs of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dei-claims-another-scalp-dnc-diversity-rules-oust-david-hogg?author=Hank+Berrien&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=DEI+Claims+Another+Scalp%3A+DNC+Diversity+Rules+Oust+David+Hogg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">internal conflict</a> at the DNC. Two vice chairs were voted out last week, including 25-year-old activist David Hogg, whose controversial $20 million project to back younger Democratic candidates over their “out-of-touch, ineffective” incumbent seniors was supported by Weingarten.
This caused tension between Hogg and the chairman, who told the Gen Z activist he would have to leave if he wanted to continue with the project.
“If you want to challenge incumbents, you’re more than free to do that, but just not as an officer of the DNC, because our job is to be neutral arbiters,” Martin said. “We can’t be both the referee and also the player at the same time. You have to make a decision.”
In leaked video footage of a Zoom meeting, Martin told Hogg, &#8220;The other night I said to myself for the first time, ‘I don’t know if I want to do this anymore&#8217;&#8230;you essentially destroyed any chance I have to show the leadership that I need to.”
This feud led to Hogg’s removal, though the DNC claimed the vote was occasioned by a failure to adhere to gender diversity protocols in the previous election.
“I ran to be DNC Vice Chair to help make the Democratic Party better, not to defend an indefensible status quo that has caused voters in almost every demographic group to move away from us,” Hogg said.
Saunders and Weingarten aren’t the only ones souring on the Democratic Party. According to a recent <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/16/politics/cnn-poll-democrats" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CNN poll</a>, more than half of “Democratic-aligned adults” say the party is heading “in the wrong direction.” When asked which Democratic leader best represents the values of the party, “More than 30% didn’t offer a name in response.&#8221;
“No one,” one respondent answered. “That’s the problem.”

Teachers’ Union President Randi Weingarten Resigns From DNC

David Hogg

democratic national committee

The bosses of the nation&#8217;s biggest teachers unions and progressive congresswoman Pramila Jayapal <a href="https://www.c-span.org/program/public-affairs-event/rally-in-protest-of-immigration-raids/660984">showed</a> up outside the Department of Justice on Monday to protest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in Los Angeles, shouting and cursing about &#8220;justice&#8221; and the Constitution.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, bounced up and down as she led a chant, &#8220;The people united will never be defeated!&#8221;
At one point, Weingarten apologized to God for cursing about the ICE raids.
&#8220;Fix the godd*** immigration laws! Don&#8217;t arrest workers!&#8221; Weingarten said. &#8220;Sorry, God. Sorry. Sorry, God.&#8221;
Riots erupted in Los Angeles over the weekend in response to ICE raids. Rioters burned multiple cars and smashed windows at the Los Angeles Police Department headquarters as police struggled to respond.
The Trump administration has sent 2,000 National Guardsmen and hundreds of U.S. Marines to Los Angeles to respond to the riots.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat from Washington, spoke at the protest outside the DOJ and said illegal immigrants are &#8220;keeping this country going&#8221; while &#8220;we are villainizing and demonizing them under this president, and that has to stop!&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
✏️Here&#39;s the boss of the biggest teacher&#39;s union, Becky Pringle of the National Education Association going hard
&quot;Enough of the ICE raids! Enough of the cruelty and the hate!&quot;
What&#39;s the teacher&#39;s unions&#39; interest in this, you might ask🤔 <a href="https://t.co/7fyklxwiOT">pic.twitter.com/7fyklxwiOT</a>
&mdash; Mairead Elordi (@maireadelordi) <a href="https://twitter.com/maireadelordi/status/1932187789812236778?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
🤝More union bosses — here&#39;s Liz Shuler, prez of the AFL-CIO speaking Spanish to rile up the crowd.
&quot;Now! Ahora!&quot;
&quot;Shame! Shame! Shame!&quot; <a href="https://t.co/NXW8kChLkW">pic.twitter.com/NXW8kChLkW</a>
&mdash; Mairead Elordi (@maireadelordi) <a href="https://twitter.com/maireadelordi/status/1932188664366354528?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&nbsp;
Meanwhile, protesters in the background chanted, &#8220;Enough is enough!&#8221; and &#8220;What do we want? Stop ICE raids!&#8221;
Some held signs reading, &#8220;No ban. No wall. No hate. Sanctuary for all!&#8221; and &#8220;Today&#8217;s lesson plan: human rights.&#8221;
The protest focused on David Huerta, a prominent California union leader who was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/08/us/david-huerta-union-leader-arrest-la-protests.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">arrested</a> by federal agents on Friday as he joined an immigration protest in downtown Los Angeles.
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/gift/?utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=wisepops&amp;utm_campaign=dad&amp;utm_content=fathersdaygiftpopups" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gift Dad an All Access Membership. Use code DAD40 at checkout to save 40%!</a>
&#8220;We all collectively have to object to this madness because this is not justice. This is injustice,&#8221; Jayapal shouted into the loudspeaker. &#8220;So today, we are here to say, free David Huerta! We are here to say, free the immigrants that have been arrested! We are here to say, end the ICE raids! We are here to say, stand up for our protected Constitutional rights to free speech, to due process, to a democracy that works for all of us!&#8221;
The boss of the largest teachers union, Becky Pringle of the National Education Association, spoke at the protest as well.
&#8220;Enough! Enough! Enough of the ICE raids! Enough of the cruelty and the hate! Enough of the division and the disrespect!&#8221; Pringle shouted.
&#8220;We know what this administration is doing, so we are saying to Donald Trump and all of his allies, we will not scapegoat immigrants!&#8221; Pringle said.
Pringle mentioned the recent Pride festivities in Washington, D.C., and paraphrased writer Audre Lorde, a self-described &#8220;black, lesbian, feminist, socialist, mother, warrior, poet.&#8221;
&#8220;Deliberate and unafraid, we will say, everyone is welcome here!&#8221; Pringle said. &#8220;Deliberate and unafraid, we will fight for justice everyday, all day, for everyone. Deliberate and unafraid, we will stand united until this country listens to the poetry of its Constitution.&#8221;
&#8220;We the people! We the people! We the people! All of us! All of us have that right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of justice!&#8221; Pringle shouted.
It was not just the teachers unions that showed up — other labor unions did as well.
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL–CIO, which represents nearly 15 million union workers, also spoke at the protest and spoke Spanish to emphasize her point.
&#8220;End these unjust ICE raids now! Ahora!&#8221; Shuler said.
&#8220;Our country suffers when we see weapons of war used against peaceful protests in the streets!&#8221; she said. &#8220;Shame! Shame! Shame!&#8221;

Demonstrators Rally Outside Department Of Education

Here Are The Craziest Moments From Monday’s Anti-ICE Protest In DC

illegal immigration

Immigration

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

U.S.

Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum&#8217;s patience ran out during a Wednesday segment when American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten interrupted her — and called her &#8220;sweetheart&#8221; — before she was forced to backpedal and eventually apologize.
MacCallum brought Weingarten in as a guest on &#8220;The Story,&#8221; where she asked about issues raised by a current case before the United States Supreme Court — Mahmoud v. Taylor — that involves a group of parents demanding an &#8220;opt out&#8221; for certain LGBTQ-themed lessons in the Montgomery County School District in Maryland. While Weingarten said that she could not comment directly on the case, she said that she was happy to talk about the broader issues at hand.
The Fox News anchor pointed to the dismal test scores recorded across the board at that particular school district, and asked why the schools were more worried about mandating books about pronouns than about ensuring that kids were actually learning to read, write, and understand mathematics.
&#8220;Look at this. I mean this — if this isn’t a failure that needs to be so much more important than whether or not you’re reading a book about your pronouns. This is the Maryland rankings,&#8221; MacCallum said. &#8220;Fourth graders, these same little kids who’ve had these books, you know, fed to them at a very young age, their reading ranked in 2013, they were second in the nation in Maryland. 2024, 20th. Math, 16th in the nation, plummeting down to 39th. So if I were a parent in this district, I would be saying, &#8216;Please, please leave these books out of the picture teach my child to read and to do math okay, and let’s focus on why we’re there.'&#8221;
Weingarten argued that scores were going up in Massachusetts and down in Florida — which she claimed was proof that Florida&#8217;s anti-&#8220;woke&#8221; model was not working and that throwing more money at education was the answer. MacCallum pushed back, saying that Newark, New Jersey — where per capita student funding was among the highest in the nation — suggested otherwise.
WATCH;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
After repeating over and over that she&#39;s fighting for respect for women, awful union boss Randi Weingarten then sounds like an old 1970&#39;s Lou Grant calling Martha McCallum &quot;sweetheart&quot;:<a href="https://t.co/YgsD5JHDC1">pic.twitter.com/YgsD5JHDC1</a>
&mdash; MARK SIMONE (@MarkSimoneNY) <a href="https://twitter.com/MarkSimoneNY/status/1914825498934288838?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 22, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
But as MacCallum was trying to make her point, Weingarten attempted to shut her down: &#8220;Martha, Martha, sweetheart, sweetheart, listen to me —&#8221;
&#8220;Please don&#8217;t call me sweetheart,&#8221; MacCallum objected, clearly fed up.
&#8220;I’m sorry — my bad,&#8221; Weingarten backpedaled, but continued to claim that education problems could be fixed with more money.
MacCallum, referencing the state of Mississippi, pointed out that what was done with that money was also important. &#8220;Well, one of the things that they’ve done in Mississippi is to expand choice. They’re also doing something really important in Mississippi, which is to expand teacher training,&#8221; she said.

Walker Hayes Visits “The Story With Martha MacCallum”

‘Don’t Call Me Sweetheart’: Disgusted Fox News Anchor Fires Back At Teachers Union Prez

'Don't Call Me Sweetheart': Disgusted Fox News Anchor Fires Back At Randi Weingarten

fox news

Martha MacCallum

media

Unsurprisingly, there is tremendous fearmongering marked by falsehoods from the opposition regarding President Trump’s <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/improving-education-outcomes-by-empowering-parents-states-and-communities/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">executive order</a> to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. Public school personnel are already claiming that special education funding has been cut and that closing the department will devastate their ability to educate students. These claims are unfounded.
Amongst the loudest clamoring are the teachers union bosses. Randi Weingarten, head of the second largest teachers union, the American Federation for Teachers, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/randi-weingarten-spitting-mad-about-evisceration-education-department" target="_blank" rel="noopener">in her own words</a>, is “spitting mad.” Note this is the Weingarten who leveraged her political power to <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/05/biden-believes-in-science-so-long-as-the-teachers-unions-approve/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">directly influence the CDC</a> to keep public schools closed to children outrageously far longer than necessary.
Following the signing of the executive order, the American Federation for Teachers issued a <a href="https://www.aft.org/press-release/educators-professors-school-districts-unions-unite-challenge-trump-attempt-dismantle" target="_blank" rel="noopener">press release</a> announcing the filing of a lawsuit by a coalition of educators, school districts, and unions against the Trump administration. Regarding the recent cutting of the massive bureaucracy bloat within the federal department and those responsible for woke DEI initiatives, the press release <a href="https://www.aft.org/press-release/educators-professors-school-districts-unions-unite-challenge-trump-attempt-dismantle" target="_blank" rel="noopener">read</a>: “Mass firings of these hardworking people planned by the Trump administration will harm students and schools.”
Clearly overlooking the reality that public education is failing to effectively educate <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-national-test-scores-make-undeniable-case-for-school-choice" target="_blank" rel="noopener">seven out of ten</a> schoolchildren in the basics of reading and math, the teacher union is rushing to legal action in an attempt to maintain the status quo, which is a death sentence for children’s futures.
John B. King Jr, who was the U.S. Secretary of Education for a stint during the Obama administration, is another Democrat working overtime to dispense fear to Americans over the plan to dismantle the disastrous Department of Education. In a recent short <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/03/28/nx-s1-5341462/trump-education-department-financial-aid-layoffs-arrests-international-students" target="_blank" rel="noopener">interview with NPR</a>, King kept his main talking point on repeat, asserting that “People are very worried.” Continuing, he commented about the things he’s “most worried about.” King went on, “…I’m very worried…” The painful and brief interview concluded with a final question to which King tripled down on his anxiety-spreading effort. “I’m really worried….I’m worried…I’m worried…”
The fearmongering is unfounded. President Trump, in his address prior to signing the “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/improving-education-outcomes-by-empowering-parents-states-and-communities/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities</a>” executive order into law, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjnoGgEJvLs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">communicated</a> that “Pell Grants, Title I funding, resources for children with disabilities and special needs will be preserved — fully preserved.” He explained that those programs would be “redistributed to various other agencies and departments that will take very good care of them.”
More specifically, special education programs will <a href="https://www.c-span.org/program/white-house-event/president-trump-and-defense-secretary-hegseth-deliver-remarks-on-f-47-fighter-jet/657517" target="_blank" rel="noopener">move to</a> the Department of Health and Human Services. Student loans will <a href="https://www.c-span.org/program/white-house-event/president-trump-and-defense-secretary-hegseth-deliver-remarks-on-f-47-fighter-jet/657517" target="_blank" rel="noopener">head to</a> the Small Business Administration (SBA), which is a commonsense change from education policy personnel managing the <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article/40-18-trillion-student-loans-late-payments-trump-seeks-abolish-dept-ed/27711" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$1.8 trillion loan portfolio</a>. And, importantly, states will be freed from the red tape of Washington D.C., empowering them to make decisions concerning how best to educate the children of their state.
So, what is being cut? Simply put, the billions of dollars spent fueling the promotion of radical ideologies to children, such as gender ideology, Critical Race Theory, and an anti-American worldview. As one example, on January 23, the U.S. Department of Education, under the president&#8217;s direction, <a href="https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-takes-action-eliminate-dei" target="_blank" rel="noopener">began taking action</a> to “eliminate harmful Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives.” That <a href="https://www.chalkboardnews.com/issues/cultural-issues/article_89d2f95a-da74-11ef-881f-c31173f69a5c.html?seyid=48320" target="_blank" rel="noopener">included</a> placing personnel who lead DEI initiatives on administrative leave, the deletion of more than 200 webpages of DEI resources that “promote or endorse” the “harmful ideological programs,” and ending DEI contracts totaling over $2.5 million.
Then, on January 29, President Trump signed the “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-indoctrination-in-k-12-schooling/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling</a>” executive order. It <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-indoctrination-in-k-12-schooling/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">noted</a> that “In recent years…parents have witnessed schools indoctrinate their children in radical, anti-American ideologies while deliberately blocking parental oversight.” Specifically, the Secretary of Education, Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Health and Human Services must consult with the Attorney General to <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-indoctrination-in-k-12-schooling/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">create a plan</a> within 90 days to end indoctrination and protect parental rights.
Additionally, federal bureaucrats pushing paper in Washington D.C. have been cut. Already, <a href="https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-initiates-reduction-force" target="_blank" rel="noopener">half of the positions</a> within the U.S. Department of Education have been eliminated as education rightfully returns to the states. Big government control of K-12 education has been a massive failure and has not increased student learning. Block granting the money back to the states will enhance efficiency and effectiveness while also providing increased accountability for student academic learning.
Don’t listen to the lies or anxiety-induced talking points. Dismantling the U.S. Department of Education is a win for America and a much-needed step forward toward the goal of successfully educating our future generation.
Hats off to President Trump for taking this longtime-coming, much needed action to ensure that gone will be the days of only three out of ten public school children learning to read or do math proficiently.
* * *
Dr. Keri D. Ingraham is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute, Director of the American Center for Transforming Education, and a Senior Fellow at Independent Women’s Forum.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Rally Held In Support Of Department Of Education And Schools

Fearmongering And Falsehoods Over Education Dept. Shutdown

Department of Education

opinion

Parental Rights in Education

President Trump

Public Schools

Student Loans

Students

Trump Signs Executive Order To Begin Dismantling Education Department

All The Reasons Why Abolishing The DOE Is A Great Move By Trump

Federal Government

Matt Walsh

Republicans

Donald Trump has fired nearly 50% of the staff of the Department of Education, sending waves of shock and outrage through 50% of the staff of the Department of Education. And maybe a few other people; I’m not sure.
The president took the drastic step of canning 13-thousand DOE employees after finding out that — one — the DOE has been spending more than $250 billion a year which is some 4%of all federal spending and — two — American students’ math and reading skills have plummeted into an abyss of mental darkness and — three — there is not really a clause in the Constitution that allows the president to have DOE employees executed, but only in the make-believe Constitution that Elon Musk doodled on a stall in a White House restroom as a joke. So firing these people turned out to be the best Trump could do.
Outraged Democrats held a protest in a broom closet in the Capitol, and spoke with a reporter from the Associated Press who was hiding there from Karoline Leavitt lest she strike again. Democrat congressman Fidel Mohammed Jihad Mao Mohammed Jihad told the reporter, “This assault on our beloved education department has angered every single American in this broom closet. Trump is trying to ruin our schools and trap our children in ignorance and poverty — and that’s the job of the Teachers Unions, so not only is he a tyrant, he’s actually a scab as well. Democrats should take to the streets to protest this action just as soon as they finish protesting the disempowerment of sexual psychopaths and drastic cuts to a vast network of waste and fraud that has taken us years of work to build. Trump is destroying America or, anyway, our version of America which, okay, isn’t “America” America, but we still call it America, so when we say Trump is destroying America, that is technically something that almost sounds true.”
Teachers Union President Randi Weingarten also protested the job cuts. Appearing in an interview on CNN after rising from a flaming crevice in the earth in a yellow cloud of sulfurous smoke, Ms. Weingarten said “The Department of Education has spent literally hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars doing the all-important work of buying union support for Democrats. This money is carefully doled out to ensure that every child in America has a teacher whose union representative is driving a Mercedes after doing an hour of paperwork to prove their schools are following a federal recipe for success that has already raised the reading skills of eighth graders to a third grade level. Trump’s secret plan is evil, and believe me, I know something about evil. I mean, just look at me. Look at my golden eyes. Trump’s plan is to allow poor minority students to choose their own schools. That’s insane! These children are languishing in a seething hell of illiteracy, damning them to a jobless future in which their only consolation will be the false comfort of drugs and children born out of wedlock ultimately leading to yet another generation of crushing poverty. They’re not educated enough to choose their own schools. We need to keep spending taxpayer’s money until they’re completely ignorant. Then at least when they have school choice, they might choose public schools.”
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Andrew Klavan Show</a></h3>
As if Trump’s cuts to the DOE weren’t bad enough, the president further outraged educators by arresting and threatening to deport a Palestinian Columbia student who led illegal demonstrations on college campuses in support of Hamas and who belongs to an organization dedicated to “the total eradication of western civilization.”
CNN Anchorwoman Shapely Nudnick objected to the move, saying, “Just because a man shuts down a university and persecutes Jewish students to support mass-murdering terrorists, that doesn’t make him a bad person. I’m afraid by having him arrested, this administration is distracting federal law enforcement officers from their important work of investigating parents who want to keep pornography out of elementary schools and spying on Catholics who attend Latin Mass.”
With that, the anchorwoman was surrounded by a sulfurous cloud of yellow smoke and dragged down into a flaming crevice in the earth, where she joined the Teacher’s Union.
* * *
This excerpt is taken from the opening satirical monologue of “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Andrew Klavan Show</a>.”
The views expressed in this satirical article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Andrew Klavan is the host of “The Andrew Klavan Show” at The Daily Wire. Follow him on X: @andrewklavan
Klavan is the bestselling author of numerous books, including the Cameron Winter Mystery series. The fourth installment, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1613165536?ref_=dbs_m_mng_rwt_calw_thcv_3&amp;storeType=ebooks" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A Woman Underground.</a>” His most recent nonfiction release is “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Kingdom-Cain-Finding-Literature-Darkness/dp/0310368340/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_w=nMYjR&amp;content-id=amzn1.sym.bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&amp;pf_rd_p=bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&amp;pf_rd_r=133-8344803-2786917&amp;pd_rd_wg=7a8J3&amp;pd_rd_r=5791ea0f-6d96-4732-9d6a-3a4e6b348bb5&amp;ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Kingdom of Cain: Finding God in the Literature of Darkness.</a>” (May 2025, Zondervan/HarperCollins).

TOPSHOT-US-POLITICS-TRUMP-ECONOMY-CLIMATE-ENERGY

Trump Fires Half Of DOE, Outraging Half Of DOE

Andrew Klavan

Humor

Satire

The leaders of America&#8217;s two largest teachers unions, which fought to keep public schools closed during <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/covid" target="_blank" rel="noopener">COVID</a> and have pushed to bring radical leftist ideology to the classroom, spoke at the final night of the Democratic National Convention Thursday.
American Federation For Teachers president Randi Weingarten <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6_mEFVYca0">claimed</a> that former President Donald Trump and Ohio Senator J.D. Vance &#8220;can&#8217;t claim they&#8217;re pro-child while gutting funding for public schools,&#8221; and that &#8220;being pro-family means we support access to good union jobs, affordable housing, health care, and higher education.&#8221;
Weingarten, who <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/teachers-union-boss-randi-weingarten-mocked-for-unhinged-politicized-speech-warning-of-fascism">claimed</a> last month that Trump was an &#8220;existential threat to democracy,&#8221; heads the nation&#8217;s second-largest teachers union. The labor leader has come under fire in recent months for asserting that she fought to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/randi-weingarten-is-gaslighting-us-she-fought-to-keep-schools-closed-not-open">keep schools open</a> during the coronavirus pandemic, when in fact she did the exact opposite. Weingarten in 2020 called the Trump administration&#8217;s push to reopen schools “reckless,” “callous,” and “cruel.”
Though research showed as early as 2020 that children could safely return to the classroom, teachers unions fought to keep schools closed. School closures caused significant learning loss across the country, studies have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/teachers-union-exec-suggests-learning-loss-made-us-all-equal">shown</a>.
Joining Weingarten on stage was National Education Association President Becky Pringle, who told the crowd in Chicago that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are the best hope for American students.
<a href="https://www.amiracist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amiracist.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1723831707612000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0pyrv88A5nsmWM2F2Wr9As">Tickets for “Am I Racist?” are on sale NOW! Buy here for a theater near you.</a>
&#8220;They will strengthen our schools, support our educators, and help our students live into their brilliance,&#8221; Pringle said, hours before the vice president is slated to officially accept the Democratic presidential nomination. &#8220;Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are not just wrong — they&#8217;re dangerous,&#8221; Pringle said.
Pringle last month was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/teachers-union-head-mocked-for-totally-unhinged-speech">slammed</a> for delivering a &#8220;totally unhinged speech&#8221; in which she said &#8220;we have to transform&#8221; the public education system &#8220;into something it was never designed to be — a racially and socially just and equitable system that prepares every student!&#8221; A known partisan, Pringle heads the nation&#8217;s largest teachers union, which in 2022 gave <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nations-largest-teachers-unions-dump-at-least-2-25-million-on-michigan-gov-whitmer-re-election-campaign">$1 million</a> to Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer&#8217;s (D) re-election campaign.
Whitmer was one of several Democratic governors who pushed to keep schools closed during COVID. She was joined in those efforts by Walz, who as Minnesota governor instituted some of the nation&#8217;s strictest COVID lockdowns.
Walz, who in March 2020 <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/flashback-walz-implemented-covid-hotline-to-snitch-on-neighbors">established</a> a hotline and encouraged Minnesotans to snitch on neighbors who violated lockdowns by attending worship services, kept schools closed and mandated students wear masks well into the COVID pandemic. Critics <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/walzs-covid-emergency-powers-were-challenged-as-overreaching">challenged</a> those restrictions in court, though the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled they were constitutional.
Pringle pointed to Walz&#8217;s work as a public school teacher to underscore her claim that the Harris-Walz ticket is the best thing for American students.
The Daily Wire reported this week that Walz has made <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/tim-walzs-misleading-claims-about-winning-teaching-awards">misleading claims</a> about winning &#8220;teacher of the year awards,&#8221; just days after he caught flak for making similarly misleading claims about his military service and his wife&#8217;s use of in vitro fertilization.
The Harris campaign has emphasized Walz&#8217;s work as a teacher, though his positions on education as governor have come under scrutiny. As governor, Walz signed legislation requiring that Minnesota public schools put <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/did-tim-walz-really-put-tampons-in-the-boys-bathroom">tampon dispensers</a> in boys bathrooms, and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/former-public-teacher-walz-attacked-school-choice-schemes-that-leaves-our-teachers-in-the-short">slammed school choice</a> as a &#8220;scheme&#8221; that &#8220;leaves our teachers in the lurch.&#8221;

Teachers Union Heads Who Fought To Keep Schools Closed During COVID Speak At DNC

Democratic National Convention

Elections

Kamala Harris

National Education Association

Menu