A ruckus was reported Friday outside the department of education as Democrat members of Congress attempted to enter the department and were resisted by the security. The department is staring at an imminent shutdown as President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order to dismantle the agency. Trump reacted to the ruckus and said those who are doing it do not love the country. “I see Maxine Waters, a low-life,” Trump said.
The Democrats demanded to meet education secretary Denise Carter but was not allowed to. “We are here to ask her, will you comply with an illegal executive order to shut down the Department of Education?” Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) said. “Although the president is determined to shut Congress out of the process, he will not. We will not allow it. We will not cede the responsibility for our future generations to one man, his ideology and his unelected lieutenants.”
They were told by security that they should get an appointment for meeting Carter. “They have armed officers acting like we’re dangerous,” Florida 10th District representative Maxwell Frost said in a video he filmed standing outside the Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education building. “A year ago, I’d be able to walk into this building and not be locked out.”
“This is what they’re doing. Elon is allowed in but not you, not your elected representatives, not parents, not students. Elon can go in, his goons can go in, but not the representatives of the people,” the Florida Democrat added.
Frost had an alterction with a man who said he was a federal employee and did not make it clear why the lawmakers had not been allowed into the building. Frost asked the man whether he was doing so of his own volition or had been ordered to block the door, to which the man responded that he was doing his job. Ninety-six members of Congress, led by Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., wrote a letter to Carter requesting a meeting. The department acknowledged receipt of the letter but did not set up a meeting.
“The protest was organized by members of Congress who were exercising their First Amendment rights, which they are at liberty to do. They did not have any scheduled appointments, and the protest has since ended,” a spokesperson of the education department said.