The WWE co-founder, Linda McMahon, was confirmed as Secretary of Education of the United States on Monday night by a line vote of the 51-45 party.
Four senators, Republicans Cynthia Lummis and Shelley Moore Capito and Democrats Elissa Slotkin and Peter Welch lost the vote.
Moments after being confirmed, McMahon swore in the Department of Education.
Linda McMahon, nominated for President Trump, will be Secretary of Education, testifies before a confirmation hearing of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (Help) Committee (Help) on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, February 13, 2025.
Tierney L Cross/Reuters
In a publication about X, McMahon said he intended to “fulfill” the promises of President Donald Trump to make us better education in the world, return education to the United States and free the students of the bureaucracy through the election of the school.
McMahon, who previously served as head of the administration of small businesses during Trump’s first mandate, will have the task of closing the federal agency that was confirmed to lead.
In a White House event last month, Trump said: “I said to Linda: ‘Linda, I hope you do a great job and leave yourself without work. I want her to get out of work, the Department of Education.”
“I want states to manage schools, and I want Linda to get out of work,” Trump added.
The sources told ABC News that the president is expected to sign an executive order as soon as this week asked McMahon to decrease the Department of Education and work with Congress to approve legislation that would eliminate it. The measure would fulfill Trump’s campaign promise to return education to the United States.
However, Trump’s directive will not remain without the approval of the Congress, according to experts who have spoken with ABC News. Any proposed legislation would probably fail without 60 votes in the Senate.
Trump’s loyal and donor acknowledged that Congress needed to carry out the president’s vision.
“We would like to do this well,” McMahon said during his February confirmation hearing, adding: “That certainly requires an action of Congress.”
McMahon, 76, obtained his teaching certification at East Carolina University. She is a defender of learning and workforce training programs, election of school and parents’ rights.
McMahon also had two periods that served at the Board of Trustees of the University of the Sacred Heart, where he is currently the treasurer. She served at the Connecticut State Education Board in 2009.
He also co -founded World Wrestling Entertainment with her husband Vince McMahon.
The United States Department of Education Department is seen in Washington, DC, on February 13, 2025.
Saul Loeb/AFP through Getty Images
McMahon’s allies believe that the secretary will be an agent of change, a switch and the dismantler needed by the Department of Education. Department skeptics also emphasize that the federal agency spends too much on education without adequate academic results.
The president of the Committee of Education and Labor Force of the House of Representatives, the representative of Tim Walberg, who said he met with McMahon last week for approximately 30 minutes, celebrated his victory.
“The secretary McMahon has shown that she is a fierce defender of our youth,” Walberg said in a statement to ABC News. “His leadership and experience in both education and business will help ensure that we are preparing our students for successful future.”
In Capitol Hill, there was an sobering reaction of opponents to the Business Executive and the confirmation of the wrestling legend.
“I am very worried that your interest in destroying the Department of Education means that children with special needs will not be able to access individualized education plans, that our low -income students can pay university and higher education, and that our school districts will lose critical funds to meet the needs and well -being of their students,” said Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand after the vote.
Public Education defender Bernie Sanders, a classification member of the Senate Education Committee, told ABC News that McMahon’s confirmation could be potentially devastating for Americans.
“If you are a working class person, if you are a low -income person, the help that your community is receiving now will be killed,” Sanders said.
And critics tightened McMahon as a disastrous choice for students and educators in the USA. Who trust legally authorized education programs, such as people with the Disabilities Education Law and funds of the Title I for low -income families. Dozens of civil rights groups opposed McMahon’s confirmation, including NAACP.
“This is an agency that we cannot afford to dismantle,” wrote Naacp, Derrick Johnson, in a statement to ABC News.
“Its confirmation brings us one more step to lose our education department, the agency that not only finances public schools, but advocates our teachers and enforces the essential laws of civil rights.”
President Donald Trump’s nominee for the Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, testifies at his nomination hearing before the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions of the Senate in Washington, on February 13, 2025.
Jim LO SCALZO/EPA-EFE/ShuttersTock
Meanwhile, in his search to reduce the agency’s secretary, McMahon, he assured legislators that he is not reducing public schools for 50 million US students. McMahon said he is looking to transfer the essential functions of the department, such as civil rights protections and their non -discrimination laws for students with disabilities, to other agencies.
“Why do you think it is better to paste the functions they deal with with children with disabilities in a large department that will not have the same priorities,” asked the Democratic Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester during the McMahon confirmation audience.
“The conclusion is, because it doesn’t work,” said McMahon.
“The Department of Education was created in 1980 and since then, we have spent almost a billion dollars. We have seen that our performance scores continue to decrease. I think it is a responsibility to ensure that our children have the same access to excellent education. I think that is better handled at the state level, ”he added.
