McMahon Hearing Shows Trump 'Dead Set on Destroying Public Education'

Critics of U.S. President Donald Trump's plans for the Department of Education pointed to billionaire GOP megadonor Linda McMahon's Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday as the latest proof that the Republican administration intends to destroy public schools.

McMahon, accused of "enabling sexual abuse of children" as World Wrestling Entertainment CEO, appeared before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions as the education secretary nominee despite Trump making clear that he wants to shutter the department and billionaire Elon Musk—who is trying to obliterate the federal bureaucracy as chair of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—claiming last week that "it doesn't exist" anymore.

"Education is meant to be the great equalizer for our children, not a great investment opportunity for the billionaires ransacking our federal government."

"Most of us believe every student deserves the opportunity, resources, and support to reach their full potential no matter where they live, the color of their skin, or how much their family earns," said Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, the largest U.S. teachers union. "But we didn't hear any of that today. As I travel around the country, parents and educators tell me their schools need more resources and more opportunities that will help students live into their brilliance. They do not want to gut public education or public schools."

She warned that "if confirmed, Linda McMahon will dismantle public education as we know it to fund tax cuts for billionaires. She will push vouchers that take funding from our public schools, where 90% of all children and 95% of those with disabilities learn and grow. Public funds should stay in our public schools. Our students need an education secretary committed to fully funding the programs that can help them reach their full potential, not siphoning money to send to private schools."

"The Senate must reject Linda McMahon as secretary of education. The agenda is clear and dangerous," Pringle argued. "Whether in Washington, with legal actions and lawsuits, or through grassroots actions in communities across the country, educators will continue to protect our students from this reckless agenda."

While the GOP-controlled Senate seems likely to confirm McMahon—so far, the chamber hasn't blocked any "fundamentally unfit" and "profoundly unqualified" Trump nominees—union and community leaders, educators, parents, and students have still pressured lawmakers to oppose McMahon and battle Trump's assault on public education.

They even braved winter weather at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday for a related rally. MomsRising executive director and CEO Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner called McMahon "wholly unqualified" and declared that "President Trump's education plan puts our children at risk and has grave implications for our workforce and our economy."

American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten, who was also at the rally, pointed out that "inside the Education Department, the world's richest man and his minions have been rifling through 45 million people's private student loan accounts and feeding the data into artificial intelligence in one of the biggest data hacks in U.S. history."

In response, AFT and unions sued multiple departments and the Office of Personnel Management "for violating the Privacy Act by improperly disclosing the sensitive records of millions of Americans to DOGE staff," Weingarten explained Wednesday. "And tomorrow, we hope Linda McMahon will discuss what she'll do to secure the personal data of veterans who receive benefit payments, current and former federal employees whose confidential employment files reside in OPM's system, and teachers whose pathway to the classroom was reliant on student loans to pay for college tuition. The American people deserve to know what she'll do to kick Elon Musk and DOGE out of the Education Department, out of our schools, and out of our data."

During the Senate hearing, "Democrats repeatedly grilled McMahon on her willingness to follow orders from Trump or Elon Musk even if they run afoul of congressional mandates," The Associated Pressreported, noting that the nominee "played down the work" of DOGE and "pledged to uphold the law and show deference to Congress."

McMahon also addressed the administration's push to shut down the department. According to the AP:

"We'd like to make sure that we are presenting a plan that I think our senators could get on board with, and our Congress could get on board with, that would have a better functioning Department of Education," McMahon said. But closing the department "certainly does require congressional action."

McMahon said the president's goal is not to defund key programs, but to have them "operate more efficiently." But she questioned whether some programs should be moved to other agencies. Enforcement of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, she suggested, "may very well rest better" in the Department of Health and Human Services, an agency that already has oversight of disability issues. The agency's Office for Civil Rights, she said, could fit better at the Justice Department.

Responding to the hearing in a statement, Aissa Canchola Bañez, policy director of the Student Borrower Protection Center, said that "Linda McMahon's testimony was nothing more than two hours worth of gaslighting. McMahon had the opportunity to state clearly and unequivocally that she will protect students, borrowers, and working families across the nation from the chaos that has already ensued as a result of President Trump and Elon Musk's work to make their Project 2025 agenda the law of the land. She did not."

"When asked whether she would abide by a directive by President Trump that breaks a law, her nonanswer spoke volumes. It is clear that Linda McMahon's blind loyalty to President Trump will guide her decision-making should she be confirmed to serve as the nation's highest education official—and our students and communities will pay the price," she cautioned.

Stacy Davis Gates, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, an AFT affiliate, was a similarly critical, saying that "today's hearing made clear that Donald Trump is not trying to roll the country back to 1950, he is trying to roll us back to 1850. McMahon's dog whistles, her promotion of segregationist school choice policies, and her boss' commitment to converting civil rights protections into tools to police students are all reversals of what formerly enslaved Africans fought for and created during Reconstruction after the Civil War."

"Donald Trump and whoever becomes his secretary should think twice before dismantling the Department of Education," she continued. "As a social studies teacher, it's incumbent on me to provide a brief civics lesson: We have a system of checks and balances that prevents them from doing so. But more importantly, this isn't an obscure federal office. This is a backbone of the government that millions of families with children in our public schools rely on."

"By continuing to come for our public schools, they are further angering the Black families who count on civil rights protections, the families of children with disabilities who rely on federal standards, the families in poverty who rely on federal support, and anyone who is sickened to see queer and transgender students targeted and bullied by the federal government," she added. "Education is meant to be the great equalizer for our children, not a great investment opportunity for the billionaires ransacking our federal government."

A protester disrups of the Senate confirmation hearing for Linda McMahon, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be secretary of education, in Washington, D.C. on February 13, 2025. (Photo: Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

Several protesters interrupted Thursday's hearing, including to express concerns related to the Individual With Disabilities Education Act and the Trump administration's attacks on LGBTQ+ youth.

One lawmaker who took aim at Trump and McMahon during the event—and was publicly thanked by the AFT for doing so—was Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the committee's ranking member.

"In America, we must not allow our educational system to become a two-tier system," Sanders said, calling it "absurd" to provide vouchers for families to send their children to private schools rather than public ones—the focus of a recent Trump executive order.

Sanders also sounded the alarm about using taxpayer money for such vouchers in a four-minute video from his office stressing that "Donald Trump is dead set on destroying public education in this country."

Tony Carrk, executive director of the watchdog group Accountable.US, warned of the long-term consequences, saying after the hearing that "starving cash-strapped states of critical public education resources is a recipe for generational failure."

"The Trump-McMahon-Project 2025 agenda would leave millions of kids behind and further rig the system against low-income communities," he continued. "McMahon would be just the latest to join the Trump administration's billionaire club, which has made no allusions about its plans to let the wealthy cut to the head of the line while working people wait for the scraps."

Carrk also pointed to her time in the wrestling industry, declaring that "Linda McMahon puts on quite a show of confidence, but her alleged actions knowing about and mishandling the sexual abuse of children at her corporation should give no one confidence that she would enforce Title IX sex discrimination protections as education secretary."