Florida lawmakers are taking a look at school safety regulations in the state, and President Donald Trump discusses the current effort to downsize the federal government during a Cabinet meeting.
Florida lawmakers discuss school safety measures
There is bipartisan agreement in the Florida Capitol that lawmakers might want to rethink some of the more recent school safety measures passed after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018.
A Senate committee Monday approved a bill that gives schools more leeway on when and where lockdowns take place.
When it comes to campus lockdowns, Florida lawmakers are trying to strike a balance between student safety and overall practicality.
Current law requires schools to lock down campus doors anytime there is a threat and a student is present.
But that could soon change to just during school hours and a couple of other special locations.
“You have a welding room, you have a door. There's a lot of fumes when you're welding. Under the current law, that door had to stay shut and everybody would die from the fumes," said State Sen. Danny Burgess of Zephyrhills.
Florida lawmakers also want to offer state training to private school security, and create a state-funded database tracking campus maps and panic alarms.
“I am really grateful for the funding that's added to the scale, that this bill didn't come as an unfunded mandate to school districts, which sometimes make it impossible to ensure safety. So I appreciate the amendment and the funding," said State Sen. Rosalind Osgood.
The state plans to track when and where a school chooses not to lock its doors on campus.
Lawmakers created the Office of School Safety after the Parkland massacre. Its job is to track compliance and best practices.
Trump says DOGE cuts are making 'America great again' as he convenes Cabinet and Elon Musk
President Donald Trump on Monday declared that his wide-scale federal government downsizing effort was making “America great again” following a Cabinet meeting with his agency heads and close advisor leading the cost-cutting campaign, Elon Musk.
“I don't want to say we're doing it to make America great again, because I say that on the campaign trail, but there's really no other words that could express it better than that,” Trump told reporters in the Cabinet Room surrounded by his top officials. “Our country was riddled with fat like no country, probably, anywhere in the world.”
The agency heads opened their remarks at the end of Monday’s meeting touting their contributions to the U.S. DOGE Service’s downsizing effort, even as Trump conceded that the cuts are not necessarily “popular.”
“It is not necessarily a very popular thing to do when you're talking about employment, you're talking about people and the lives of people,” Trump said. “And yet, I think the American public understands we're trying to save our country and make our country great again”
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins kicked off noting several contracts the government canceled as part of the effort, with Rollins specifically pointing to ending two that she said focused on educating transgender farmers on food justice and equality.
“I’m not even sure what that means,” she said, later adding that it “makes zero sense to use taxpayer dollars to fund these.”
In total, the Environmental Protection Agency has canceled $22 billion worth of contracts, its administrator, Lee Zeldin, said.
Attorney General Pam Bondi vowed to prosecute those responsible for the fraud the administration claims it has uncovered.
“We have an internal Task Force now working with every agency, sitting here at this table, and if you've committed fraud, we're coming after you,” Bondi said.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, meanwhile, noted that deportations — a major campaign promise of Trump’s — have increased 50% over the last few weeks, a surge that comes as the administration is locked in a legal battle over the president’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to remove hundreds of migrants it says are affiliated with a Venezuelan gang to El Salvador. The immigration chief announced that she is set to visit the prison where the migrants are being held this week.
Noem also pledged to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency, reiterating the idea — first floated by Trump on a trip to survey hurricane damage in North Carolina in January — to get rid of the agency in charge of heading up the federal response on the ground to natural disasters and instead let states take the lead.
Separately, Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said they were working together to build a new “state of the art” air traffic control system, aiming to complete such a project in three years.
The meeting came as the administration is preparing to implement the latest and thus far most sweeping part of his far-reaching tariff agenda, with Trump’s widespread reciprocal tariffs set to take effect next week on what the president calls “liberation day.”
Trump at the end of the meeting told reporters the move would be “unbelievable” for the country, reiterating his belief that the U.S. has been “ripped off” on trade.
Despite previously saying there was little wiggle room to avoid his reciprocal tariffs, later in the afternoon on Monday, Trump told reporters that he may give some countries “breaks.” Earlier in the day he announced new tariffs associated with Venezuela.
