Amid Education Department cuts, Trump's nominee to oversee schools faces lawmakers
WASHINGTON – The scene Thursday morning on Capitol Hill could get awkward.
Linda McMahon, a former wrestling executive and President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the U.S. Department of Education, is set to face tough questions from lawmakers as she seeks Senate approval for a position her boss doesn't even want to exist.
Last week, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office he hoped McMahon would “put herself out of a job.” On Wednesday, the president said the department should be “closed immediately.”
Those dynamics have constructed a tough balancing act for McMahon, a longtime Trump ally who most recently chaired the board of his America First think tank. Unlike President Joe Biden's education secretary, McMahon has little experience working in schools. But she has managed major organizations. She co-founded the organization now known as World Wrestling Entertainment, or WWE, a multibillion-dollar company. She previously survived the Senate confirmation process when she headed the Small Business Administration during Trump's first term as president.
She hasn't commented directly about the president's plan to dismantle the agency since she was tapped to oversee it.
The White House can’t abolish federal agencies; only Congress can do that. And it’s still anyone’s guess whether the Trump administration will be able to garner enough support for the idea from Republicans – whose districts have schools that collectively rely on billions of dollars in funding administered by the agency.
Legal and political limits haven’t stopped the Trump administration thus far from trying to cull Washington’s bureaucracy. The Education Department is one of many agencies that has devolved into turmoil in recent weeks amid abrupt employee suspensions, leadership turnover, funding pauses and court orders triggered by the Trump administration’s attempts to test the bounds of executive power.
The agency has also come into the crosshairs of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. The task force led by tech billionaire Elon Musk has effectively decimated the Education Department’s research division. On Tuesday, the agency agreed to bar DOGE from seeing vast databases with sensitive information. The temporary agreement came after a group of college students alleged in a lawsuit last week that their privacy rights were being violated.
All the while, new Trump appointees in the department have been hard at work advancing conservative priorities. They've launched investigations into gender-neutral high school bathrooms, dissuaded nonbinary students from applying for financial aid and signaled new support for the school choice movement.
McMahon’s confirmation hearing will likely provide an insightful window into all that controversy. Regardless of how it goes, she is expected to be confirmed by the GOP-controlled Senate.
For a recap of Thursday's hearing, or to learn more about Linda McMahon's background, read USA TODAY's coverage below:
Zachary Schermele is an education reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at [email protected]. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele and Bluesky at @zachschermele.bsky.social.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Linda McMahon faces Congress as cuts grip the Education Dept.