One thing Linda McMahon was certain of: The president received a clear directive from voters to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, and she was willing to see that through from the helm, she told lawmakers during her confirmation hearing on Thursday.
For more than two hours, McMahon confronted lawmaker’s questions—and protestors’ disruptions—about the turbulent operation already underway to shrink the Education Department during her hearing before the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee.
Even in the absence of permanent leadership, the agency has already been subject to staff downsizing, probes into its functions and spending, and calls for its elimination by the president, who could act on those statements in an upcoming executive order.
Though McMahon conceded that it would take an act of Congress to ultimately abolish the 45-year-old department, she aligned herself with Trump’s vision, saying the agency was responsible for a “small minority of the funding” but “the vast majority of bureaucracy and red tape” in the U.S. education system.
“The bottom line is, because it’s not working,” she told lawmakers, in response to a question about why it would make sense to move oversight of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, to the much larger Health and Human Services Department. “I do believe that it is a responsibility to make sure that our children do have equal access to excellent education. I think that that is best handled at the state level, closest to the states, working with state administrators, teachers, parents, who should have input into their curriculum.”
Questions loom over funding for special education, civil rights enforcement
But when it came to how this would actually play out—other than her reassurances that vital funding sources for low-income students and students with disabilities would continue—McMahon declined to commit to specifics, repeatedly telling senators that she would have to evaluate her options and come up with a plan Congress could support.
As for actions the Trump administration has already taken to shrink the department, McMahon said she didn’t know the details of who was put on administrative leave, what effects Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team was having on the agency’s functions, or what programs could be cut without congressional approval.
“I want to assess the department. I can’t do that unless I’m confirmed and I get there,” she said.
She stopped short of offering certainty on where the department’s vast portfolio of programs would go if not under the Education Department itself, but floated ideas that appeared in the conservative public policy agenda Project 2025, penned by people who now work in Trump’s administration, such as moving IDEA to Health and Human Services, and the office for civil rights—which enforces civil rights laws in schools—to the U.S. Department of Justice.
“The whole hearing right now feels kind of surreal to me,” Sen. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat from New Hampshire, said of listening to McMahon discuss what she would do as education secretary while simultaneously planning for the Education Department’s elimination. “It’s almost like we’re being subjected to a very elegant gaslighting.”
McMahon would step into the role with limited experience in education. Her appointment drew skepticism from the nation’s two largest teachers’ unions, and protesters heckled her as she left the hearing room Thursday afternoon.
Though she once aspired to be a French teacher, McMahon went on to be a business mogul instead: She co-founded World Wrestling Entertainment, a company worth billions, with her husband. She served for roughly a year on the state school board in Connecticut before she resigned to pursue an unsuccessful bid to represent the state in the U.S. Senate.
I do believe that it is a responsibility to make sure that our children do have equal access to excellent education. I think that that is best handled at the state level.
But McMahon isn’t a stranger to Capitol Hill. She served in Trump’s first administration as the head of the U.S. Small Business Administration before stepping down in 2019 to lead the America First Action PAC in support of Trump’s 2020 reelection bid.
Republican senators emphasized that experience as vital for her taking the leadership role at the department, and called on her to change the status quo.
“Transformative change of the educational establishment is needed. The department needs to get out of the way of states and local communities who are best positioned to actually address students needs,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana who chairs the HELP committee. “We need to empower parents so they have a voice in their child’s education.”
But Democrats repeatedly expressed concerns that under her leadership, funding would be stripped from public schools and students in need.
“You can understand there is a lot of distrust based on people’s motivations in just the past few weeks,” Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester, a Democrat from Delaware, told McMahon. “I think that’s why you’re seeing all of what you’ve seen in this audience today in terms of participation of the folks here. This is important. Our students are important.”
Trump’s actions on school choice and transgender student rights color hearing questions
The concerns come as Trump has sought to use federal subsidies as a cudgel to propel his social agenda. The president issued an executive order earlier this month that said schools that embrace diversity, equity, and inclusion and promote what he considers “radical indoctrination” could have their dollars pulled.
Another order would strip funding from schools that don’t comply with an action seeking to prohibit transgender athletes from participating on sports teams that align with their gender identity.
McMahon supported the orders, calling DEI “tough” and saying “it’s having an opposite effect” from what it was intended to accomplish. She said the department would use Title IX to enforce Trump’s order barring transgender girls from playing on girls’ teams.
In another order, Trump also directed several agencies to determine how they could use federal dollars to support school choice programs.
McMahon advocated for choice programs during the hearing, at one point not directly answering a question asking whether private schools should have to accept students with disabilities if they receive federal subsidies.
Trump’s federal funding freeze, which sent school districts into a flurry of panic last month and was halted by litigation as it extended beyond his executive authority, also raised concerns from lawmakers, who asked McMahon if she would disburse the funds appropriated by Congress and follow the law.
McMahon pledged to distribute funds passed by Congress, while saying “it is worthwhile to take a look at the programs before money goes out the door.”
“The president will not ask me to do anything against the law,” she told them.
“Well, the last month has told us that it is quite likely he may but I am going to take you at your word,” Hassan said.
