Linda McMahon Is the New Education Chief

The Senate voted Monday to confirm former wrestling executive Linda McMahon as the nation's education chief, a role that places her atop a department that President Trump has vilified and vowed to dismantle. McMahon will face the competing tasks of winding down the Education Department while also escalating efforts to achieve Trump's agenda. Already the Republican president has signed sweeping orders to rid America's schools of diversity programs and accommodations for transgender students while calling for expanded school choice programs, the AP reports. The Senate vote was 51-45.

At the same time, Trump has promised to shut down the department and said he wants McMahon "to put herself out of a job." A billionaire and former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, McMahon, 76, is an unconventional pick. She spent a year on Connecticut's state board of education and is a longtime trustee at Sacred Heart University but otherwise has little traditional education leadership. McMahon's supporters see her as a skilled executive who will reform a department that Republicans say has failed to improve American education. Opponents say she's unqualified and fear her budget cuts will be felt by students nationwide, per the AP.

At her confirmation hearing, McMahon distanced herself from Trump's blistering rhetoric. She said the goal is to make the department "operate more efficiently," not to defund programs. She acknowledged that only Congress has the power to close the department, and she pledged to preserve Title I money for low-income schools, Pell grants for low-income college students, and the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. Yet she suggested some operations could move elsewhere, saying Health and Human Services might be better suited to enforce disability rights laws. Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has cut dozens of contracts it dismissed as "woke" and wasteful. It gutted the Institute of Education Sciences, which gathers data on academic progress, and the administration has fired or suspended scores of employees. (More Trump Cabinet stories.)