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(WASHINGTON) — Education Secretary Linda McMahon interrupted a press conference by House Democrats outside the Department of Education to give an impromptu statement after they met in a closed-door meeting earlier Wednesday.

With about a minute’s notice, the secretary’s team told some attendees that McMahon would be making a statement.

Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., was speaking at the podium as the secretary appeared at the press conference.

“We are extraordinarily grateful that the secretary gave us the space to have these conversations, but with all due respect, madam, I think my biggest concern is that the states will not be able to protect the programs and services that you would like to devolve with them,” she said before ceding the microphone, noting that the mood during the meeting was “collegial.”

Then, the secretary stepped to the podium in front of the group of Democratic lawmakers, who had met with her in her office for about an hour.

“I just want to express my gratitude to all of these folks who came today so we can have an open discussion about what I believe is one of the most important things that we can have a discussion on or action on in our country, and that is the education of our young people,” McMahon said upon taking the podium.

“This is not a partisan issue. This is about the children of America and its next generation after that, and if we want to have our leaders and if we want to have that next group of engineers and doctors and lawyers and plumbers and electricians and HV/AC operators, then we need to focus on how they can best have their education,” she added.

“And I believe, and I know the president believes as well, the best education is that that is closest to the child where teachers and parents, local superintendents, working together and local school boards to develop the curriculum for those students is the best way that it can happen,” she said.

Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., who spearheaded the effort to meet with McMahon, and several reporters peppered the secretary with questions.

“When are you going to shut down the department?” Takano asked.

“We had our discussion,” McMahon replied.

She declined to answer any further questions before exiting the presser.

Takano and a coalition of lawmakers had requested the meeting after the secretary was sworn into office last month.

“She came down here to upstage the news press availability, trying to give the impression that she’s trying a different approach — that she’s actually meeting with members of Congress,” Takano told ABC News after the event.

Later Wednesday, McMahon posted on X about the meeting.

“This morning, I hosted a meeting with House Democrats to hear their concerns,” she said. “Our collective goal should be to support students, not the broken bureaucracy.”

The meeting comes after weeks of confusion in Washington as the Department of Education slashed nearly half its workforce and lawmakers have been demanding answers from the Trump administration.

Reps. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., Don Beyer, D-Va., and Greg Casar, D-Texas, also attended the meeting..

Chaos ensued outside the agency the last time Democrats tried to meet with department officials as Takano and around two dozen lawmakers were rejected access inside the building.

This time they met with McMahon amid the administration’s attempt to dismantle and spearhead the historic overhaul of the department as directed by President Donald Trump.

The members said McMahon took the right step in meeting with them and that she assured them she would work with Congress to move statutory functions to other agencies and follow federal law. However, Wilson said McMahon indicated she is following the president’s directive in moving the student loan portfolio for more than 40 million people to the Small Business Administration.

McMahon also told the Democratic lawmakers in the meeting that there will be additional workforce cuts at the department, Takano said.

Meanwhile, the meeting seemed to leave many with unanswered questions, and after McMahon left the podium, Stanbury said the secretary has no plans that she shared with them.

Casar, the Congressional Progressive Caucus chairman, said he grew frustrated and even more alarmed during the meeting because he suggested McMahon’s mission will gut public schools.

“What she tried to say, in the nicest of terms, is that she wants to get rid of the guardrails and protections for all of our kids and instead say, No, we can have it set up so that states can give money to the private schools that we like and take away money from the public schools that we may not like,” Casar said.

Wilson, a senior member of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, passionately defended public education.

“For the Department of Education to be dismantled, it is going to bring a shock to this nation,” said Wilson, a former principal and lifelong educator. “Schools are the bedrock of this nation. When schools are working, our country is, too.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Democratic Rep. Brittany Pettersen, who on Tuesday held her newborn son during a speech on the House floor in support of a bipartisan effort to allow proxy voting for new lawmaker parents, said the decision to bring her 9-week-old was “difficult,” but illustrated the need to pass the petition.

“We have the ability in 2025 to make sure that our voices and our constituents’ voices are represented here, even when we have a medical reason for not being able to be here in person,” Pettersen, holding her son Sam, said in an interview on ABC News Live on Wednesday. “You know, this is the way things were done hundreds of years ago, I think that we can accommodate for the new workplace challenges here in Congress to make sure more women and in young families can be represented here now.”

On Tuesday, a bipartisan group of lawmakers came together over proxy voting for new parents. Nine Republicans joined Democrats to tank a procedural rule that would have blocked a petition to allow new mothers and fathers to vote by proxy.

With her newborn in her arms, the Colorado Democrat on Tuesday spoke in support of a resolution that would allow new parents — both mothers and fathers — the ability to vote by proxy up to 12 weeks after the birth of a child. In her speech — during which Sam cooed, squealed and squeaked — Pettersen pleaded for bipartisan cooperation on a measure that she said addressed life events such as parenthood for lawmakers.

“It was a very difficult decision to fly across the country with Sam, and it’s just a decision that nobody should have to make,” said Pettersen, who added that returning to Washington to work after her son was born prematurely put her in an “impossible” situation where she had to both care for a vulnerable newborn and do her job.

Pettersen is only the 13th member of the House to have given birth while serving in Congress. Fellow new mom, Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna — who had a child in August 2023 — introduced the petition.

The House voted to torpedo the procedural rule that would have blocked Luna’s proxy vote measure — throwing the House into disarray and paralyzing the chamber. The vote also called into question Speaker Mike Johnson’s ability to control Republicans’ razor-thin majority.

House Republican leaders, including Johnson, had said they would take the unprecedented step to block Luna’s petition

After the vote, Johnson said because it failed, “we can’t have any further action on the floor this week.”

Johnson has said proxy voting is unconstitutional and is the start of a slippery slope that could lead to more and more members voting remotely.

Asked by ABC New Live Anchor Diane Macedo about her response to Johnson’s argument, Pettersen said “my message to Speaker Johnson is just let us vote.”

“If we have narrow reasons why people can have their votes represented here if they can’t be here in person, that’s something that we should be able to vote on,” she said on ABC News Live.

Pettersen had stronger words for Johnson after the rule vote, telling ABC News’ Jay O’Brien that her message to the speaker was “don’t f— with moms.”

It’s not the first time Pettersen has brought her son along to a House vote. In February, she brought her son to vote in the House budget blueprint.

ABC News’ Lauren Peller, Jay O’Brien, John Parkinson and Arthur Jones II contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — A unanimous Supreme Court on Wednesday backed the Food and Drug Administration’s refusal to authorize the sale of kid-friendly flavored e-cigarettes and vapes, including the flavors “Killer Kustard Blueberry,” “Rainbow Road,” and “Pineapple Express.”

Justice Samuel Alito, in his opinion for the court, rejected the manufacturers’ claims that the agency had acted arbitrarily and capriciously in violation of federal law by changing the requirements for product approval in the middle of the process.

“In the end, we cannot say that the FDA improperly changed its position with respect to scientific evidence, comparative efficacy, or device type,” Alito wrote. He returned the case to a lower court for further review.

The ruling effectively holds the line on the government’s decision to severely limit the number of flavored tobacco products legally available in the U.S. market out of concerns over the impact on children.

Kid-friendly flavors, such as fruit, candy, mint, menthol and desserts — which are largely not approved by the FDA and are currently sold on store shelves illegally — have been fueling an explosion in retail sales of e-cigarettes.

While vaping among youth is declining, more than 1.6 million children use the products, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly 90% of them consume illicit flavored brands.

“Today’s ruling is a major victory for the health of America’s kids and efforts to protect them from the flavored e-cigarettes that have fueled a youth nicotine addiction crisis,” said Yolanda Richardson, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, an advocacy group. She noted the FDA has denied over 26 million flavored e-cigarette product applications so far.

“While the FDA has authorized the sale of only 34 e-cigarette products, manufacturers continue to flood the market with thousands of illegal, unauthorized products,” Richardson said in a statement. “To end this crisis, the FDA must deny marketing applications for flavored e-cigarettes and step up enforcement efforts to clear the market of illegal products. Today’s ruling should spur the FDA to act quickly to do so.”

The companies — White Lion Investments LLC and Vapetasia LLC — did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment on the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Since 2009, federal law requires sellers of new nicotine products to provide regulators with scientific evidence to show that the products would promote public health, but the statute does not spell out specifically what evidence is necessary and sufficient. The FDA’s guidance on how to meet that requirement was at the center of the case.

While the first Trump administration had taken a hard line against the marketing and sale sweet and candy flavored vapes, President Donald Trump said during the campaign that he wants to “save” flavored vapes. It’s not clear how the FDA, newly under his control, may modify regulations around flavored vapes or alter the approval process.

Despite their loss in the case, vape manufacturers are able to reapply for approval with the FDA in a new application and attempt to show how benefits of the product to public health would outweigh the dangers to teens.

“In light of the statutory text and the well-documented and serious risks flavored e-cigarette products pose to youth, it should have come as no surprise that applicants would need to submit rigorous scientific evidence showing that the benefits of their products would outweigh those risks,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor concluded in a short concurring opinion in the case.

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(WASHINGTON) — Shares in Donald Trump’s social media company sank in morning trading on Wednesday, a day after the company filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission that could allow the president’s trust to sell more than $2 billion of shares.

Trump Media and Technology Group filed a registration with the SEC on Tuesday that would open the door for the president’s trust to sell up to nearly 115 million shares, which are worth more than $2.3 billion.

The filing does not guarantee the sale of the shares nor provide any information about a future sale. Since Trump took office, he transferred his stake of the company into the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, which is controlled by his son, Donald Trump Jr.

A sell-off from Trump, the company’s largest individual shareholder, could panic investors and damage the company’s stock price.

As of midday Wednesday, the company’s stock price was down about 5%.

Trump Media and Technology Group pushed back on the possibility that Trump may attempt to sell any shares in a statement on Wednesday.

“Legacy media outlets are spreading a fake story suggesting that a TMTG filing today is paving the way for the Trump trust to sell its shares in TMTG. To be clear, these shares were already registered last June on an S-1 form, and today TMTG submitted a routine filing that re-registers them on an S-3 form in order to keep the Company’s filings effective. In fact, there currently is no open window for any affiliate to sell shares,” the statement said.

The president also has previously said he plans to hold his stake in the company.

“I don’t want to sell my shares. I don’t need money,” Trump told reporters in September.

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(NEW YORK) — A federal judge in New York on Wednesday dismissed corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams, but not in the way the Trump administration wanted.

Judge Dale Ho dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning it cannot be revived.

The Justice Department sought to have the case dismissed to free up Adams to cooperate with the mayor’s immigration agenda, however, the department wanted the case dismissed without prejudice, meaning it could be brought again.

Adams was indicted last year in the Southern District of New York on five counts in an alleged long-standing conspiracy connected to improper benefits, illegal campaign contributions and an attempted cover-up. He had pleaded not guilty.

Ho declined to endorse the DOJ’s desired outcome.

“In light of DOJ’s rationales, dismissing the case without prejudice would create the unavoidable perception that the Mayor’s freedom depends on his ability to carry out the immigration enforcement priorities of the administration, and that he might be more beholden to the demands of the federal government than to the wishes of his own constituents. That appearance is inevitable, and it counsels in favor of dismissal with prejudice,” Ho decided.

Ho’s 78-page opinion dismantled the Justice Department’s stated rationale for dismissal: so Adams could focus on the Trump administration’s immigration priorities.

The judge said he could find no other example of the government dismissing charges against an elected official to enable the official to facilitate federal policy goals.

“DOJ’s immigration enforcement rationale is both unprecedented and breathtaking in its sweep,” Ho said. “And DOJ’s assertion that it has ‘virtually unreviewable’ license to dismiss charges on this basis is disturbing in its breadth, implying that public officials may receive special dispensation if they are compliant with the incumbent administration’s policy priorities. That suggestion is fundamentally incompatible with the basic premise of equal justice under the law.”

Ho also made clear he was not weighing the facts of the case and said his decision “is not about whether Mayor Adams is innocent or guilty.”

Still, Adams’ lawyer celebrated the decision to drop the charges without the fear of them being revived after the mayoral election in November — as the Justice Department had threatened.

“The case against Eric Adams should have never been brought in the first place — and finally today that case is gone forever,” Alex Spiro, Adams’ lawyer, said in a statement. “From Day 1, the mayor has maintained his innocence and now justice for Eric Adams and New Yorkers has prevailed.”

The decision to dismiss the charges came just days after Adams’ lawyer had pushed for them to be dismissed ahead of the April 3 deadline for petitions to be submitted for mayoral candidates to get on the June primary ballot. Adams has said he will run as a Democrat in the primary despite criticism from opponents he has cozied up to the Trump administration in recent months, meeting with the president and attending his Inauguration instead of scheduled Martin Luther King Day events in the city.

The decision by Ho followed the recommendation from Paul Clement, who served as solicitor general under the Bush administration and was appointed by Ho to make an independent assessment of the case.

“A dismissal without prejudice creates a palpable sense that the prosecution outlined in the indictment and approved by a grand jury could be renewed, a prospect that hangs like the proverbial Sword of Damocles over the accused,” Clement said.

The eventual dismissal came after a scathing letter from acting U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, suggesting acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove and other members of DOJ leadership were explicitly aware of a quid pro quo suggested by Adams’ attorneys, saying Adams’ vocal support of Trump’s immigration policies would be boosted by dismissing the indictment against him.

Sassoon, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, resigned in protest along with several other career DOJ officials.

Spiro, Adams’ lawyer, balked at the notion of a quid pro quo following Sassoon’s resignation: “The idea that there was a quid pro quo is a total lie. We offered nothing and the department asked nothing of us.”

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