Trump administration updates: Schumer continues to face calls for new leadership

Just before he signed the executive order, President Donald Trump said his administration would preserve "useful functions" of the Department of Education and shift them to other agencies -- such as Pell Grants and funding for children with special needs.

"But beyond these core necessities, my administration will take all lawful steps to shut down the department," he said. "We're going to shut it down and shut it down as quickly as possible. It's doing us no good. We want to return our students to the states, where just some of the governors here are so happy about this. They want education to come back to them, to come back to the states, and they're going to do a phenomenal job."

President Donald Trump is currently holding an education event in the White House East Room. Children were seated at desks alongside Trump as he spoke, with officials like Education Secretary Linda McMahon in the audience.

"In a few moments, I will sign an executive order to begin eliminating the federal Department of Education once and for all, " Trump said. "And it sounds strange, doesn't it? Department of Education. We're going to eliminate it."

He also took a moment to introduce McMahon, who he said was "extraordinary."

"Hopefully she will be our last education secretary," he said.

A federal judge has blocked DOGE from accessing sensitive records maintained by the Social Security Administration.

U.S. District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander issued a temporary restraining order that requires Elon Musk and DOGE to destroy any information from the SSA in their possession that identifies individual taxpayers.

Hollander is continuing to allow DOGE to access anonymized data from the Social Security administration.

-ABC News' Peter Charalambous

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt spoke with reporters on the White House North Lawn about the president's executive order expected later Thursday aiming to dismantle much of the Department of Education.

Leavitt said the department will not be completely shut down and a smaller agency will continue to carry out "critical functions" such as Pell Grants, student loans, enforcing laws against discrimination, providing funding for low-income students and special education.

"The Department of Education will be much smaller than it is today," Leavitt said. "When it comes to student loans and Pell grants, those will still be run out of the Department of Education. But we don't need to be spending more than $3 trillion over the course of a few decades on a department that's clearly failing in its initial intention to educate our students."

The executive order needs congressional approval to dismantle the Department of Education altogether. When asked if the president intends to instruct Congress to do so, Leavitt refused to get ahead of Trump. "I'll leave it to the president to speak on that later," she said.

-ABC News' Kelsey Walsh