Betsy DeVos, former President Donald Trump’s Education Secretary, said she would return to the White House for a second term despite her dramatic departure from the administration on Jan. 6.
DeVos attended an August 5 fundraising event for Michigan Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers.
She told The Detroit News about it that she was open to returning.
“I don’t think President Trump would ask me again,” DeVos admitted.
She added that she was open to the idea “but only if the intention was to phase out the Department of Education, as we tried to do during the first administration through the budget process.”
Trump’s former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told The Detroit News last week that she would be open to returning to the position in a second Trump administration, despite giving up her Cabinet-level position over the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
“And also the commitment that the Treasury Department will pass a major education freedom bill in the form of a tax credit mechanism,” DeVos added.
Conservatives have long wanted to dismantle the federal Department of Education. They want tax dollars from education to be spent on policies like school voucher programs rather than on funding public K-12 schools in the United States.
Trump has said he is open to closing the Department of Education, saying at a recent rally that he would “take everything back to the states where it belongs.”
Congress would have to pass legislation to do so, and it is unlikely that it would survive a filibuster in the U.S. Senate.
The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 outlines some ways Trump could dismantle the Department of Education if elected in the fall.
While Trump has had run-ins with several former aides who have since returned to the Cabinet — Steve Bannon is a prime example — it’s unclear whether he would be open to rehiring DeVos, a billionaire from Michigan.
DeVos was one of two cabinet ministers who resigned following the storming of the Capitol.
Betsy DeVos was among officials who worked for President Donald Trump (left) who left the administration over the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol (right), in which a mob of Trump supporters ransacked the Capitol and disrupted the election certification
She resigned after Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, the wife of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, said she was done.
“There is no doubt about the impact your rhetoric has had on the situation, and it is the turning point for me,” DeVos wrote to Trump in a letter announcing her resignation.
“We should highlight and celebrate the many accomplishments of your administration on behalf of the American people,” she also suggested.
“Instead, we must clean up the mess left by violent protesters who stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to undermine the people’s business,” DeVos added.
President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory was officially certified on the day of the attack on the Capitol.
DeVos also admitted that she had spoken with other Cabinet members about invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from power before Biden’s inauguration in 2021.
However, she told the Detroit News that she has not yet officially endorsed Trump’s 2024 candidacy, but that she would “certainly support” the Republican nominee in the November election.