“It clearly cannot be shut down without it,” Linda McMahon said during a confirmation hearing before the Senate education committee. “We’d like to do this right. We’d like to make sure that we are presenting a plan that I think our senators could get on board with.”

During the nearly three-hour session, frequently disrupted by protestors opposed to her nomination, McMahon offered a far less combative tone than some of the president’s other lieutenants in recent days, voicing support for maintaining funding for most major education programs, including Title I and special education. 

The apparent discrepancy has fed a sense of whiplash. Just yesterday, Trump named North Dakota state Superintendent Kirsten Baesler as assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education after previously nominating former Tennessee education chief Penny Schwinn as deputy secretary. Both are well regarded, even among many Democrats. 

But also this week, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency decimated the department’s research arm and continues to comb through contracts to identify what it considers waste and fraud. On Tuesday, Trump called the department “ 

During the hearing, Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire described the current state of play as “very elegant gaslighting.” 

“I am going to take you at your word that you will enforce the law,” Hassan told McMahon. “Three weeks ago, the president unilaterally cut all federal grants by issuing an indefinite freeze. That’s an unconstitutional, and yes illegal, action.”

Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington and former head of the committee, put McMahon on the spot over how she might answer to both Congress and the White House. 

“What will you do if the president or Elon Musk tells you not to spend the money Congress has appropriated?” Murray asked.

And Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, warned McMahon that federal law would limit her from restricting curriculum topics Trump opposes. 

“You may be in a position where you are not able to prohibit teachers from discussing LGBTQ issues with students,” she said. 

McMahon came down on the side of local control.

“The federal government is not the school board here, if you will, for our nation’s schools,” she said.

Sen. Jim Banks of Indiana, a Republican, noted that some of the protesters who interrupted testimony in the hearing room said they were teachers.

“Can you imagine … these people teaching our kids in classrooms across America?” he asked. “I wanna get politics out of the classroom. I want political flags and political statements and ideologies out of the classroom.”

While she offered less barbed rhetoric than Trump or Musk, McMahon voiced support for what she called DOGE’s “audit.”

“It is worthwhile to take a look at the programs before money goes out the door,” she said. “It’s much easier to stop the money that’s going out the door than it is to call it back.” 

McMahon, former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, is one of tapped to lead Trump’s administration. In her comments Thursday, she held tightly to Trump’s key education priorities — advancing private school choice, preventing trans students from competing in sports consistent with their gender identity and fighting antisemitism. 

“If I am confirmed, the department will not stand idly by while Jewish students are attacked and discriminated against,” she said. 

But her responses offered few details and at times demonstrated a lack of understanding of the laws she’d be responsible for enforcing.

Currently chair of the America First Policy Institute, a far-right think tank, she stumbled when Murray asked her to identify the provisions of the Every Student Succeeds Act, the overarching K-12 education law that requires annual assessments and accountability for student performance. And she appeared to support the more expansive definition of sexual misconduct embraced by the Biden administration rather than the 2020 Title IX rule the department is now slated to reinstate. 

“I think sexual harassment should be prohibited in any case,” she said.  

She expressed support for rolling back Biden’s focus on diversity, equity and inclusion, which the Trump administration has already demonstrated by placing employees connected to DEI on administrative leave. But when Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, from her home state of Connecticut, explained that the president’s stance against DEI could prompt schools to stop teaching African American history, she said Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday and Black History Month should be celebrated. 

‘Anti-public education policies’

Despite her inexperience in education, McMahon has been far less controversial than some of Trump’s cabinet choices, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was confirmed Thursday, and Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Kennedy is an anti-vaccine activist who some worry will compromise children’s health, and Hegseth has faced allegations of sexual misconduct and drinking on the job as a former Fox News host. 

After two failed bids for the Senate, McMahon, whose confirmation is expected to advance through the committee next Thursday, led the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term. But she’s better known for turning WWE into a $9 billion enterprise with her now-estranged husband Vince McMahon.

Her confirmation took longer to schedule than those of most other cabinet nominees as the Senate education committee waited for her to complete ethics paperwork detailing vast financial assets and ties to far-right organizations. 

As a board member of Trump Media & Technology Group, which runs the president’s Truth Social platform, she earns $18,400 quarterly. As , with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shows she received stock in the company worth more than $800,000 in late January. She is also on the advisory council for the Daily Caller, a conservative media outlet that has given her . 

“I have concerns about her role in pushing a lot of anti-public school, anti-public education policies,” Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union, an advocacy organization, told ����Ӱ��. The Daily Caller often criticized Biden’s education agenda and promoted private school choice. 

If confirmed, McMahon, whose net worth is over $ 3 billion, has promised to step down from those positions, forfeit any shares in Truth Social that she doesn’t yet fully own and divest from those that she does within three months. She also earns interest income from that fund school construction across the country and has pledged to divest from those programs as well.

For some Democrats, McMahon elicits a sense of deja vu. 

“I don’t think it would be that different from [Betsy] DeVos,” said Oregon Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, ranking member of an education subcommittee in the House. Bonamici was among the members of Congress who with department staff last week to discuss DOGE’s activities, only to be denied entry to the building. 

“There’s no question that we still have work to do with our public education system,” she said. “What message do we send around the country to the parents, to the world, that we’re shutting down the Department of Education?”

But those who support her nomination described her as prepared.

“I think it went well,” said Neal McCluskey, director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the libertarian Cato Institute. “The focus wasn’t really on her, but Trump policies and DOGE, so I see no reason she won’t be confirmed.”

One Trump supporter said that underneath the chaos is an agenda to focus the department on four key priorities — eliminating DEI, cutting waste, giving more power over education to the states and expanding school choice. In this view, that is why Trump is continuing to nominate staff for top policy positions despite his caustic words.

“The President is moving on several fronts at once, so it’s easy to conflate actions as if everything is designed to ‘close down the department,’ ” said Jim Blew, a former department official under DeVos and co-founder of the conservative Defense of Freedom Institute, a think tank. “He needs a strong array of political appointees in key positions to make all four parts of his vision happen.”

The Department of Education has been a source of political controversy since its creation in 1980 . President Ronald Reagan, who was first elected that year, .

WASHINGTON — U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona announced last month he is launching a “2024 Back to School Bus Tour” that will include stops in multiple battleground states across the United States as he and other Biden administration officials highlight their work in investing in public education.

While not a campaign event, the Sept. 3-6 tour will take place in the swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, along with stops in Indiana and Illinois. As schools are getting back in session, the department said Cardona, Deputy Secretary of Education Cindy Marten and Under Secretary of Education  will shed light on the administration’s “commitment to helping students and communities recover from the impacts of the pandemic by improving academic achievement and succeed from cradle to college and career.”

Cardona said “this year’s Back to School Bus Tour will remind the American people why the Biden-Harris Administration has unapologetically fought for public education, the foundation of opportunity in this country, and the contrast between our efforts and those who wish to destroy public education,” per a statement.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for ����Ӱ�� Newsletter

The Education secretary added that he is “looking forward to lifting up what’s working in public education and celebrating the exciting work taking place in our schools and communities to ensure that all students, no matter their race, place, or background, have opportunities to succeed and contribute to our country.”

Cardona and other officials will be talking about some of the Biden administration’s initiatives in education, such as promoting the importance of regular attendance, providing student debt relief — including through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program — expanding full-service community schools and widening mental health support access at schools.

The department said it has invested more than $357 billion under the Biden administration to “strengthen education across America.”

This year’s tour, with a “Fighting for Public Education” theme, will kick off in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Sept. 3. Other stops in the Badger State will include Madison and Milwaukee. The Education Department said White House domestic policy adviser Neera Tanden and Mandy Cohen, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will also be at some of the stops.

Officials will also visit Chicago, Illinois, and La Porte, Indiana.

Cardona and other administration officials will then take the tour to Michigan, with stops in Grand Rapids, Lansing and Detroit. Becky Pringle, president of the , will join the tour in Grand Rapids, according to the department. NEA is the largest labor union in the country.

The tour will wrap up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and feature U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. Both the �����Ի��� have endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, the vice president.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com. Follow Iowa Capital Dispatch on and .

“These grants will help supplement state-based efforts to give students access to more options for their education,” Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said in a release. “Charter schools are now part of the fabric of American education, and I look forward to seeing how we can continue to work with states to help ensure more students can learn in an environment that works for them.”

Charter management organizations that won replication grants are a who’s who of the charter world, including the latest two winners of the Broad Prize for public charter schools, IDEA Public Schools in Texas and Success Academy in New York.

(Read The Alumni, ����Ӱ��’s multimedia series on how top charter networks are supporting students through college graduation)

Increased funding for the federal charter school program has been the one Trump administration school choice program that has found traction in recent budget debates. House lawmakers voted to give the program $370 million in their recently passed budget proposal, while a Senate committee approved $367 million. The administration had requested $500 million.

“While these grants are critical, they fall far short of the need. We urge the administration and Congress to work together to boost the amount of [charter school] funding available to meet the demand for more and better public school options,” Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, said in a release.

Other charter management winners are: Ascend Learning (New York), Brooke Charter School (Massachusetts), Eagle Academy (Washington, D.C.), East Harlem Tutorial Program (New York), Environmental Charter Schools (California), Family Life Academy Charter Schools (New York), Fortune Schools of Education (California), Freedom Preparatory Academy (Tennessee), Great Oaks Foundation (New York), Hiawatha Academies (Minnesota), New Paradigm for Education (Michigan), Rocketship Education (California), Freedom and Democracy Schools Foundation (Maryland), University Prep (Colorado), and Voices College-Bound Language Academies (California).

The CMOs will get a total of about $52 million, though the department said they should receive about $127 million, if Congress appropriates additional money.

The state funding went to Indiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Texas, and Wisconsin. The state agencies will get a total of about $145 million, though the agency recommended they should get about $332 million.

Funds to help startup charter schools raise the capital needed to open buildings went to organizations in Washington, D.C., California, Maryland, North Carolina, Mississippi, California, Massachusetts, and Arizona. They’ll share about $57 million.

Disclosure: Campbell Brown, ����Ӱ��’s co-founder, sits on Success Academy’s board of directors.