Donald Trump has appointed his transition co-hair and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) co-founder Linda McMahon as his Secretary of Education.
The 76-year-old was in the running to be chosen by the president-elect as commerce secretary, but ultimately lost to Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick, CNN first reported.
McMahon could be the nation’s last education secretary as Trump has vowed to move his administration back to the United States.
He has warned that closing the department could happen early in his second term but would require congressional approval.
McMahon founded WWE with husband Vince in 1980 and would go on to have on-screen roles before leaving in 2009 to run for Senate in Connecticut a year later.
With Vince, she saw the company transform into a publicly traded media empire.
She served as administrator of the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first administration, but now her loyalty has paid off in the form of a senior Cabinet role.
She is chairman of the America First Policy Institute, a pro-Trump think tank founded in 2021.
Donald Trump has appointed his transition co-hair and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) co-founder Linda McMahon as his Secretary of Education
Betsy DeVos, Trump’s first education secretary, advised DailyMail.com on how the newly elected president could tear apart the department she once led.
DeVos, who resigned on January 6 in protest against Trump’s leadership but is back in Trump’s fold, told DailyMail.com how he could achieve his goal of completely dismantling the organization.
“He has redoubled his focus on education issues and I am very optimistic that he will make education and the necessary reforms a high priority in his second government,” she told DailyMail.com.
The bloated agency has spent more than a trillion dollars since its founding in 1979, during President Jimmy Carter’s administration, and now occupies three different buildings in Washington, D.C., with more than 4,000 employees.
DeVos said the Department of Education was created by Carter as a reward for the teachers unions, and that the entire department was filled with bureaucrats whose goals prioritized the unions, not America’s children.
“There are many ways to take power away from the Department of Education and I am very optimistic that President Trump will use the force in his second term to make that happen,” DeVos said.
She suggested Trump first approve federal tax breaks to help parents pay for school choice, fueling educational freedom across the country. She also proposed that the federal government begin offering block finance grants to the states.
McMahon founded WWE with husband Vince in 1980 and would go on to have on-screen roles before leaving in 2009 to run for Senate in Connecticut a year later. They are pictured together in 2013
McMahon (second from right) stands on stage watching Trump deliver his victory speech in Palm Beach on election night
McMahon could be the nation’s last education secretary as Trump has vowed to move his administration back to the United States
Title IX, she explained, should be clarified and fixed after the Biden administration tried to use it to advance a highly controversial agenda around transgender students. DeVos proposed sending Title IX enforcement to the Justice Department.
She also criticized the Biden administration for trying to “buy votes” by forgiving federal student loans. She suggested sending the free federal student aid program to the Treasury Department or switching to a private program.
“The status quo will not disappear at all and they will not become quieter. Whoever is there, if they oppose the status quo, they will get all the protests and things like that in the same way because they are fighting for power and control,” she said.
DeVos resigned from her position following the Jan. 6 riots on Capitol Hill in protest of President Joe Biden’s election certification, citing the importance of the “peaceful transition of power.”
But she said that since that day she had spoken to Trump “very recently” about his proposed education reforms and was excited about the possibilities.
She explained that the opportunity for dramatic reform was possible, citing the growing number of American parents who realized that teachers unions were not prioritizing their children.
‘The status quo and the unions have overplayed their hands throughout the whole Covid experience, it has opened the eyes of families, grandparents, communities, it has opened everyone’s eyes to how much control, influence and power these teachers unions have had and I think that there is. against this today,” she said.
DeVos did not rule out returning to the position if Trump asked, saying there were a number of good people who could fill the role.
She said the only way she would return was if Trump was serious about closing the department and if Republicans were serious about creating a tax credit for education freedom.
“I want to help achieve those goals in any way I can, I want nothing more than for him to be successful in implementing these policies,” she said.