Trump Hosts a Back-to-School Event at the Rose Garden, Aug. 24, 2026
August 24, 2026 · The White House · 0:25:05
Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube
What happened
President Donald Trump hosted parents, teachers, educators, and students in the Rose Garden on August 24, 2026, to open back-to-school season, with Secretary of Education Linda McMahon — “our great secretary of education, a fantastic woman” — alongside governors and the House Education Committee chairman. He used the occasion to publicly thank his press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, who was in the room: “she’s been a great, great press secretary,” he said, noting her newborn and that “she decided she loved her children more than she loved Donald Trump… she has to go home and spend time with her children.”
Parents at the event described homeschooling their children and thanked the administration for the 529 expansion in the big bill. The President summed up his education record as he states it: “After decades of racist policies and illegal quotas, we brought back the merit system into education… We issued a guidance for protecting the right to prayer, and we now protect prayer in the public schools,” and pointed to the executive order he signed last year to begin winding down the federal education bureaucracy. He closed by inviting the families to walk the construction site of the new White House helipad and ballroom rising next door.
Why it matters
Education is Secretary Linda McMahon’s portfolio, and this event is the administration’s school-year opening statement of it: merit, prayer, school choice, and the 529 expansion, delivered to the families the policies name. The Leavitt farewell in the same remarks dates the end of her tenure — she departed three days later, on August 27, 2026 (see the chronicle).
Sources: The White House, “President Trump Participates in a Rose Garden Event, Aug. 24, 2026” (official upload, embedded above). Remarks as delivered at the event.
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