President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday selected his transition co-chair, Linda McMahon, to serve as secretary of the Department of Education – an agency he and his allies have pledged to abolish.
McMahon, 76, previously served as the head of the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term and she is the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, a company she started with her husband, Vince McMahon.
“Linda will use her decades of Leadership experience, and deep understanding of both Education and Business, to empower the next Generation of American Students and Workers, and make America Number One in Education in the World,” Trump wrote in his announcement.
The president-elect, 78, indicated that he will task McMahon with giving states a larger role in education policy and that she will pursue the expansion of school choice nationwide.
“Linda will fight tirelessly to expand ‘Choice’ to every State in America, and empower parents to make the best Education decisions for their families,” Trump said, noting that McMahon has been a “fierce advocate for Parents’ Rights” through her work as the chairwoman of the America First Policy Institute think tank.
“We will send Education BACK TO THE STATES, and LINDA will spear head that effort,” the president-elect added.
McMahon previously served for two years on the Connecticut Board of Education and for more than 16 years as a trustee at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn.
She twice ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for the US Senate in Connecticut.
“She is now doing an incredible jon as a Co-Chair of our Trump-Vance Transition Team,” Trump noted.
Throughout his campaign, Trump slammed “wokeness” in public education, pledging to remove “left-wing indoctrination” from America’s classrooms.
The president-elect has said he would move to cut federal money for schools “pushing Critical Race Theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children.”
Trump has also threatened to levy massive fines against public universities – “up to the entire amount of their endowment” – that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
At a September rally in Wisconsin, Trump told the crowd that he is “dying” to get back into office to “eliminate the federal Department of Education.”
“We will drain the government education swamp and stop the abuse of your taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate America’s youth with all sorts of things that you don’t want to have our youth hearing,” he added.
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the entrepreneurs whom Trump has tasked to lead an initiative to reduce the size of government, have both signaled a willingness to abolish the Department of Education.
“Very reasonable proposal,” Ramaswamy said in response to a tweet Tuesday from conservative education expert Corey DeAngelis calling for the agency to be eliminated.
“Yes,” Musk replied.
