Hundreds of fired government employees filed into the Department of Education headquarters in Washington on Friday in order to collect their personal belongings and say their goodbyes.

Former workers were given 30 minutes to do this. Afterward, they were walked out of the building's doors.

Earlier this month, nearly half of the department's staff was laid off. The education workforce now totals 2,183 workers, down from 4,133 when President Trump returned to office in January.

Supporters and other federal workers, some of whom still work for the Education Department, were also at the headquarters to rally against the cuts.

Downsizing the federal government has been a core goal of Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). But some say there is a human toll to workers losing their jobs.

"It's unconscionable that federal workers are being treated like this," Bradley Custer, one former worker, told NewsNation. "We are public servants who trusted our government as both employers and as constituents, and it's a major betrayal."

Trump Education Department order

Trump last Wednesday signed an executive order calling for the dismantling of the Department of Education. This would require an act of Congress, though, and eliminating the department would not get the votes needed to do that.

So instead, through cuts by DOGE, the Trump administration aims to "starve" the department so it becomes a much smaller version of what it was before.

The Education Department oversees student loans, Title IV and IX enforcement and manages K-12 grant programs as well as school meal programs for low-income students.

Trump has previously said that student loans, special needs and nutrition programs will shift to other departments rather than being eliminated entirely.

A recent Quinnipiac University Poll shows that 60 percent of all voters surveyed are against cutting the department. However, this was split along party lines: 67 percent of Republicans were in favor of getting rid of the department, while 98 percent of Democrats were opposed to it.

Several state officials, again in mostly red states, say they'd be happy to have the money that the federal government issues be in their hands so that they can make decisions closer to the local level.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R), speaking to NewsNation's "Blake Burman", said he's fully in support of DOGE cuts to the federal department.

"What we want is that money unfettered and our ability to place that in the classroom where it belongs," he told Burman.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk's losing streak continued on Wednesday.

Hours after Republicans in Wisconsin lost a state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin where Musk spent tens of millions of dollars of his own money, shares of his flagship electric car company fell upon news that it had badly missed Wall Street estimates for the number of vehicles it had delivered in the first quarter of 2025.

As reported by Market Watch, Tesla revealed that "it delivered more than 336,000 vehicles during the first quarter, down from 387,000 deliveries a year ago."

To put this number into context, Market Watch notes that it "was well below the average analyst estimate compiled by FactSet of 404,000 vehicles" and it "was also lower than the 'whisper' number, or what Wall Street was quietly expecting, with even the most bullish analyst projecting a number in the 360,000 range."

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Although Tesla blamed the disappointing deliveries on what Market Watch describes as "the changeover to refreshed Model Y production lines" that "led to several weeks of lost production," it's also a reality that the company has been the target of a concerted boycott campaign led by progressive groups to protest Musk's role as the head of President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency.

Sales of Tesla in Europe have fallen off a cliff in recent months, as car buyers on that continent have revolted against Musk's support for far-right political parties such as Germany's Alternative für Deutschland.