(WASHINGTON) — WWE co-founder Linda McMahon was confirmed as the U.S. secretary of education Monday night by a party line vote of 51-45.
Four senators — Republicans Cynthia Lummis and Shelley Moore Capito and Democrats Elissa Slotkin and Peter Welch — missed the vote.
Moments after being confirmed, McMahon was sworn in at the Department of Education.
In a post on X, McMahon said she intended to “make good” on President Donald Trump’s promises to make U.S. education the best in the world, return education to the states and free students from bureaucracy through school choice.
McMahon, who previously served as the head of the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term, will be tasked with shutting down the federal agency she was confirmed to lead.
At a White House event last month, Trump said, “I told Linda, ‘Linda, I hope you do a great job and put yourself out of a job. I want her to put herself out of a job, Education Department.”
“I want the states to run schools, and I want Linda to put herself out of a job,” Trump added.
Sources told ABC News the president is expected to sign an executive order as soon as this week calling for McMahon to diminish the education department and work with Congress to pass legislation that would eliminate it. The move would fulfill Trump’s campaign promise of returning education back to the states.
However, Trump’s directive will not stand without congressional approval, according to experts who’ve spoken to ABC News. Any proposed legislation would likely fail without 60 votes in the Senate.
The Trump loyalist and donor acknowledged she needed Congress to carry out the president’s vision.
“We’d like to do this right,” McMahon said during her February confirmation hearing, adding, “that certainly does require congressional action.”
McMahon, 76, earned her teaching certification from East Carolina University. She is a champion of apprenticeship and workforce training programs, school choice, and parental rights.
McMahon also had two stints serving on the Board of Trustees at Sacred Heart University, where she is currently the Treasurer. She served on the Connecticut State Board of Education in 2009.
She also co-founded World Wrestling Entertainment with her husband Vince McMahon.
McMahon allies believe the secretary will be an agent of change, a disrupter, and the dismantler that the Department of Education needs. Department skeptics also stress that the federal agency spends too much on education without adequate academic results.
House Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Rep. Tim Walberg, who said he met with McMahon last week for roughly 30 minutes, celebrated her victory.
“Secretary McMahon has demonstrated she is a fierce advocate for our youth,” Walberg said in a statement to ABC News. “Her leadership and experience both in education and business will help ensure we are setting our students up for successful futures.”
Across Capitol Hill, there was sobering reaction from opponents to the business executive and wrestling legend’s confirmation.
“I’m highly concerned that her interest in destroying the Department of Education will mean children with special needs will not be able to access individualized education plans, that our lower-income students will be able to afford college and higher education, and that our school districts will lose out on critical funding to meet the needs and well being of their students,” Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said after the vote.
Public education advocate Bernie Sanders, the ranking member of the Senate’s education committee, told ABC News that McMahon’s confirmation could be potentially devastating for Americans.
“If you are a working-class person, if you are a low income person, the help that your community is now getting will likely be killed,” Sanders said.
And critics labeled McMahon as a disastrous choice for the students and educators across the U.S. who rely on the statutorily authorized education programs, like the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and Title I funding for low-income families. Dozens of civil rights groups opposed McMahon’s confirmation, including the NAACP.
“This is an agency we cannot afford to dismantle,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson wrote in a statement to ABC News.
“Her confirmation brings us one step closer to losing our Department of Education — the agency that not only funds public schools, but advocates for our teachers and enforces essential civil rights laws.”
Meanwhile, in her quest to diminish the agency Secretary McMahon assured lawmakers that she is not cutting the public school funding for 50 million American students. McMahon said she is looking into moving the department’s essential functions, like civil rights protections and its non-discrimination laws for students with disabilities, to other agencies.
“Why do you think that it is better to stick the functions dealing with children with disabilities in a huge department that will not have the same priorities,” Sen. Democratic Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester asked during McMahon’s confirmation hearing.
“The bottom line is, because it’s not working,” McMahon said.
“The Department of Education was set up in 1980 and since that time, we have spent almost a trillion dollars. We have watched our performance scores continue to go down. I do believe that it is a responsibility to make sure that our children have equal access to excellent education. I think that is best handled at the state level,” she added.
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