The Senate voted on Monday to confirm Linda McMahon to be the next — and potentially last — secretary of the Department of Education. In voting to confirm McMahon, Senate Republicans effectively gave her their consent to act on a clear directive from President Donald Trump: “to put herself out of a job.”
McMahon, the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment and a Trump loyalist, was confirmed 51-44, along party lines. All Republicans voted yes except for Sens. Shelley Moore Capito and Cynthia Lummis, who did not vote. Many Democrats also did not vote. In a letter to Senators after her confirmation hearing, McMahon offered full-throated support for what Trump has stated are his plans for the Department of Education.
“President Trump believes that the bureaucracy in Washington should be abolished so that we can return education to the states, where it belongs. I wholeheartedly support and agree with this
Mission,” she wrote.
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Her confirmation will trigger a barrage of changes at the department, which could range from reorganization to a push to eradicate the agency entirely, as Trump has called for. Because the agency was established through an act of Congress, congressional action would be required to abolish it. It could be severely downsized in lieu of congressional action, though some Republican senators have said they are open to the idea of abolishing the department.
“I’m willing to enter into a conversation about abolishing the Department of Education,” Sen. John Kennedy told NOTUS. “I don’t know what they do over there other than funnel money. I’d have to be convinced of precisely why we need them.”
McMahon’s confirmation comes as the department is reportedly offering employees $25,000 to quit by midnight on Monday, and ahead of a March 13 deadline from the Office of Personnel Management for agency heads to submit plans to drastically reduce staff and spending.
During her confirmation hearing, McMahon emphasized longtime conservative education priorities like expanding school choice and returning control over schools to the states.
Some Republicans have conveyed misgivings about the direction the Education Department seems to be heading, particularly as it relates to actions by the Department of Government Efficiency. During her confirmation hearing, McMahon expressed a desire to do a careful review of Education’s various programs before making cuts. But DOGE’s tactics have already severed millions of dollars in contracts and left key parts of the agency, like its research arm, incapacitated.
Sen. Susan Collins told NOTUS last week she thought DOGE was overstepping, and should wait for the new secretary to do a “careful review” before cutting contracts. She said she thinks Education will head in a different direction under McMahon.
“She has had extensive experience running large organizations. She ran the SBA and she did a good job on it,” Collins told NOTUS. “So I think she will take a more tailored, surgical approach. It’s a department that could be downsized, but not eliminated.”
Democratic senators have raised concerns that McMahon’s confirmation would mean the end of key programs like funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Act, Title I funding and the privatization of public schools.
“The whole hearing right now feels kind of surreal to me, it’s almost like we’re being subjected to a very elegant gaslighting here,” Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan said during McMahon’s confirmation hearing.
Heading into the confirmation vote, those concerns remained unchanged.
“The impacts of eliminating the Department would be detrimental to our teachers, our students, and our country as a whole. As Secretary of Education, Ms. McMahon would decrease access to higher education, raise student loan payments, and weaken civil rights protections for students while using the Office for Civil Rights to promote a far-right political agenda,” Sen. Cory Booker said in a statement explaining why he was voting against her confirmation.
After McMahon’s confirmation, Sen. Kaine told NOTUS he’s worried about the future of programs like IDEA. Though McMahon has said the money will keep flowing, Kaine raised concerns about specific elements of the program that need the departments’ enforcement.
As for abolishing the department, Kaine was more optimistic that the political pressures against such a move would prevail.
“She has embraced the notion that she will join the president in trying to destroy the department, although, it’s interesting, even the president said ‘I might need Congress to do that.’ He never says he needs Congress — even on things he really needs Congress for,” Kaine said. “I think they realized that their plan to knock down the Department of Education is deeply unpopular. And so are they going to really go full speed to do it? Are they going to avoid it because they’re worried about popular pushback? We just need to keep the focus on it.”
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Violet Jira is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
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