Trump’s brand new education secretary, Linda McMahon, has reportedly been given her first job since getting confirmed: Close down the department you lead.
The reported decree comes all the way from the top, as the president hacks away at federal agencies. The Washington Post cites sources who say the new executive order is expected Thursday.
Wording in a draft of the order that circulated on Wednesday appeared to acknowledge the government’s limited power in shuttering the agency totally, as that would take an act of Congress that would require the votes of seven Senate Democrats and all Senate Republicans. Instead, McMahon is directed to “take all necessary steps” to facilitate the closure “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.”
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The draft was labeled “predecisional,” and sources say it is subject to change.
The Wall Street Journal also saw the document. “The experiment of controlling American education through Federal programs and dollars—and the unaccountable bureaucrats those programs and dollars support—has failed our children, our teachers, and our families,” it read in part, according to the paper.
Shutting down the Department of Education was a campaign promise for Trump and a long-held goal for some Republicans. However, a vote last year saw 60 House Republicans, and all House Democrats, vote against shuttering the agency.
Trump has tasked former World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) CEO McMahon with finding a workaround. The Post reported that McMahon might try to move some of the department’s functions to other agencies, but that too would face legal hurdles.
The agency says it has about 4,400 employees, and those will likely be in McMahon’s short-term sights. DOGE has already terminated nearly $1 billion worth of contracts at the agency.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), who sits on the Senate’s education committee, blasted Elon Musk (who does, but doesn’t, lead DOGE) for the move, calling him an “unelected billionaire.”
“Elon Musk doesn’t care if working-class kids in America get a good education, so whittling down the Department of Education means nothing to him,” she said last month.
Murray then warned that a process is underway to phase out the agency totally.
“Make no mistake, this is just the first step Donald Trump and Musk are taking to abolish the Department of Education, leaving our public schools with fewer resources and support to pay for massive tax cuts for billionaires and giant corporations,” she wrote on X.
Indeed, after Senate voted to confirm McMahon on Monday, she fired off an email to staff hinting at the “final mission”—what the Post called “a clear reference to the end of the department.”
Trump and his allies have railed against what they call the “woke” political ideology being pushed on children by the agency. The department administers federal grant programs to children from poverty-stricken backgrounds and to kids with disabilities.
