Hi, everyone. It is 4 o'clock here in New York. I'm Alicia Menendez in for Nicole Wallace.

Happening any minute now, Donald Trump will sign an order to eliminate the Department of Education.

A dramatic and unprecedented overreach of his authority as president.

We're going to keep a close eye on the event for you. I'm not going to make you watch it.

We will bring you any updates on any news that Trump makes. Now, no modern American president

has tried to do what Donald Trump is doing today. That is, eliminate an entire cabinet-level

department by Fiat.

And technically, he cannot do it.

Trump does not actually have the power to turn the lights off at the Department of Education.

That can only be done by an act of Congress, and it would need 60 votes in the Senate to overcome any filibuster.

But the Trump administration, as they put it today, will do everything but close the DOE. The White House Press Secretary today telling reporters that today's executive order will make

the DOE even smaller than it is right now. That's after the Trump administration acts nearly

half the entire department. The gutting of the DOE could have impacts on Americans all across the board.

Here's how fired DOE civil rights attorney and president of the union chapter representing

department employees, Sharia Smith, put it on MSNBC earlier today.

The American public are going to fill the brunt of it. They're already filling the brunt of

the cuts that have been made since January 21st.

We have not been able to work for the American public.

American citizens who have filed civil rights complaints with the Office for Civil Rights

have not received any relief because we've been forced not to.

And now many of our attorneys have been laid off.

Americans who are applying for financial aid or seeking loan forgiveness

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