Linda McMahon to face Senate confirmation hearing to be education secretary
Linda McMahon will appear before a Senate committee for her confirmation hearing to be education secretary Thursday as President Donald Trump publicly floats dismantling the department she’s seeking to lead.
Linda McMahon will appear before a Senate committee for her confirmation hearing to be education secretary Thursday as President Donald Trump publicly floats dismantling the department she’s seeking to lead.
McMahon, 76, previously was the chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment, the company founded by her husband, Vince McMahon, a Trump ally. She was also the head of the Small Business Administration in Trump’s first term and went on to lead several pro-Trump political groups.
The Education Department has come under scrutiny by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, which has claimed credit for canceling $881 million in contracts at the department — though the administration has refused to release details. Some of Musk’s aides have also gained access to Education Department systems and been granted administrator email accounts, a development that longtime employees call highly unusual.
Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee are expected to quiz McMahon about policy questions rather than controversies surrounding her time at WWE. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the ranking member on the committee, said he’s likely to focus his questioning on how strongly she’d push to privatize public education, whether she’d support pay raises for teachers and whether she’d support efforts to cut programs in low-income school districts.
McMahon is looking to join Trump’s Cabinet after four years as chair of the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-aligned think tank that backs redirecting federal education dollars toward private schools, reducing the influence of teachers unions and supporting skills-based technical career training. Several of the early appointees at the Education Department came from the think tank.
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