President Donald Trump announces a proposed shift of Education Department programs to the Small Business Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services during a press availability in the Oval Office on March 21, 2025. (Source: White House livestream) 

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Friday that the U.S. Small Business Administration would handle the student loan portfolio for the slated-for-elimination Education Department, and that the Department of Health and Human Services would handle special education services and nutrition programs.

The announcement — which raises myriad questions over the logistics to carry out these transfers of authority — came a day after Trump signed a sweeping executive order that directs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of the department to the extent she is permitted to by law.

“I do want to say that I’ve decided that the SBA, the Small Business Administration, headed by Kelly Loeffler — terrific person — will handle all of the student loan portfolio,” Trump said Friday morning.

The White House did not provide advance notice of the announcement, which Trump made at the opening of an Oval Office appearance with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The Education Department manages student loans for millions of Americans, with a portfolio of more than $1.6 trillion, according to the White House.

In his executive order, Trump said the federal student aid program is “roughly the size of one of the Nation’s largest banks, Wells Fargo,” adding that “although Wells Fargo has more than 200,000 employees, the Department of Education has fewer than 1,500 in its Office of Federal Student Aid.”

‘Everything else’ to HHS

Meanwhile, Trump also said that the Department of Health and Human Services “will be handling special needs and all of the nutrition programs and everything else.”

It is unclear what nutrition programs Trump was referencing, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture manages school meal and other major nutrition programs.

One of the Education Department’s core functions includes supporting students with special needs. The department is also tasked with carrying out the federal guarantee of a free public education for children with disabilities Congress approved in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA.

Trump added that the transfers will “work out very well.”

“Those two elements will be taken out of the Department of Education,” he said Friday. “And then all we have to do is get the students to get guidance from the people that love them and cherish them, including their parents, by the way, who will be totally involved in their education, along with the boards and the governors and the states.”

Trump’s Thursday order also directs McMahon to “return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.”

SBA, HHS heads welcome extra programs

Asked for clarification on the announcement, a White House spokesperson on Friday referred States Newsroom to comments from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and heads of the Small Business Administration and Health and Human Services Department.

Leavitt noted the move was consistent with Trump’s promise to return education policy decisions to states.

“President Trump is doing everything within his executive authority to dismantle the Department of Education and return education back to the states while safeguarding critical functions for students and families such as student loans, special needs programs, and nutrition programs,” Leavitt said. “The President has always said Congress has a role to play in this effort, and we expect them to help the President deliver.”

Loeffler and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said their agencies were prepared to take on the Education Department programs.

“As the government’s largest guarantor of business loans, the SBA stands ready to deploy its resources and expertise on behalf of America’s taxpayers and students,” Loeffler said.

Kennedy, on the social media platform X, said his department was “fully prepared to take on the responsibility of supporting individuals with special needs and overseeing nutrition programs that were run by @usedgov.”

The Education Department directed States Newsroom to McMahon’s remarks on Fox News on Friday, where she said the department was discussing with other federal agencies where its programs may end up, noting she had a “good conversation” with Loeffler and that the two are “going to work on the strategic plan together.” 

People hold signs as they gather for a "Save the Civil Service" rally hosted by the American Federation of Government Employees outside the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 11, 2025. Efforts by President Donald Trump and White House adviser Elon Musk to downsize the federal workforce have sparked backlash and legal challenges. (Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A second federal judge ordered late Thursday that President Donald Trump’s administration reinstate probationary federal workers who were fired as part of the president’s and billionaire adviser Elon Musk’s government downsizing agenda.

District Judge James Bredar for the District of Maryland issued a temporary restraining order mandating nearly 20 federal departments and agencies to reinstate new or recent hires by Monday at 1 p.m. Eastern. The order from Bredar came hours after a similar one from a federal judge in California.

The lawsuit was filed March 6 by Democratic attorneys general in 19 states and the District of Columbia, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.

Bredar’s order reinstates just more than 23,500 probationary positions across the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Treasury and Veterans Affairs, as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, General Services Administration, Small Business Administration and U.S. Agency for International Development, according to figures in the original complaint.

A hearing is scheduled for March 26 in Baltimore. The temporary mandate expires the evening of March 27.

Bredar’s order did not include the nearly 5,500 employees fired from the Department of Defense and National Archives and Records Administration.

The emergency decision out of Maryland followed an earlier ruling Thursday from a California federal judge who extended a previous temporary order immediately reinstating probationary jobs at the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Science Foundation and Small Business Administration, as well as the departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense.

The Trump administration quickly appealed the decision out of the Northern District of California. That suit was brought by more than a dozen plaintiffs, including unions representing hundreds of thousands of federal workers.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt slammed the California decision, saying in a statement Thursday “a single judge is attempting to unconstitutionally seize the power of hiring and firing from the Executive Branch.”

Musk, a senior White House adviser, is the face of Trump’s rapid-fire workforce downsizing. The top donor to Trump’s reelection bid has posted numerous times on his social media platform, X, about the need to slash federal workers.

In February at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington, D.C., Musk waved around a chainsaw gifted to him from Argentine President Javier Milei and declared, “This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy.”

Demonstrators outside the U.S. Senate buildings on Capitol Hill protest billionaire Elon Musk's dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development on Feb. 5, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in California ordered the Trump administration to immediately reinstate thousands of jobs for probationary federal workers fired as part of billionaire Elon Musk’s campaign to slash the federal workforce.

Judge William Alsup ruled Thursday morning that tens of thousands of workers must be rehired across numerous federal agencies, including the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, Treasury and Veterans Affairs, extending his previous temporary emergency order issued Feb. 28.

Alsup, appointed in 1999 by former President Bill Clinton to the Northern District of California, ruled in favor of numerous plaintiffs that brought the suit against the Trump administration’s Office of Personnel Management.

Alsup’s order also prohibits OPM from advising any federal agency on which employees to fire. Additionally, Alsup is requiring the agencies to provide documentation of compliance to the court, according to the plaintiffs who were present in the courtroom.

The Trump administration appealed the decision just hours later.

Unions bring suit

The plaintiffs, which include the American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO and other unions representing thousands of federal workers, sued in February over OPM’s “illegal program” terminating employees who are within the first year of their positions or recently promoted to new ones.

Everett Kelley, AFGE’s national president, said in statement Thursday that the union is “pleased with Judge Alsup’s order to immediately reinstate tens of thousands of probationary federal employees who were illegally fired from their jobs by an administration hellbent on crippling federal agencies and their work on behalf of the American public.”

“We are grateful for these employees and the critical work they do, and AFGE will keep fighting until all federal employees who were unjustly and illegally fired are given their jobs back,” Everett said.

The AFGE was among more than a dozen organizations who sued the government. The plaintiffs were represented by the legal advocacy group State Democracy Defenders Fund and the San Francisco-based law firm Altshuler Berzon LLP. Washington state also joined the case and was represented by state Attorney General Nick Brown.

Trump administration ‘will immediately fight’

The White House said prior to filing the appeal that “a single judge is attempting to unconstitutionally seize the power of hiring and firing from the Executive Branch.”

“The President has the authority to exercise the power of the entire executive branch – singular district court judges cannot abuse the power of the entire judiciary to thwart the President’s agenda. If a federal district court judge would like executive powers, they can try and run for President themselves. The Trump Administration will immediately fight back against this absurd and unconstitutional order,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

The unions argued in a Feb. 19 complaint that Congress “controls and authorizes” federal employment and spending, and that lawmakers have empowered federal agencies, not OPM, to manage their own employees.

OPM, which administers employee benefits and essentially serves as the government’s human resources arm, “lacks the constitutional, statutory, or regulatory authority to order federal agencies to terminate employees in this fashion that Congress has authorized those agencies to hire and manage,” according to the complaint.

“[A]nd OPM certainly has no authority to require agencies to perpetrate a massive fraud on the federal workforce by lying about federal workers’ ‘performance,’ to detriment of those workers, their families, and all those in the public and private sectors who rely upon those workers for important services,” the complaint continues.

Musk role

Musk, a Trump special adviser, has publicly and repeatedly touted the terminations as a means to cut federal spending.

Mass firings began in early to mid-February and continued as recently as Tuesday when the Department of Education announced it would cut about 50% of its workforce.

The terminations sparked numerous lawsuits and public outcry.

Musk, who the White House claims has no decision-making authority, has posted on his social media platform X about emails sent to federal workers offering buyouts and demanding they justify their jobs.

Musk has also published dozens of posts attacking federal judges who’ve ruled against his workforce downsizing as “evil” and “corrupt.”