Trump edu­ca­tion sec drops in on House Dems press con­fer­ence with non-par­ti­san mes­sage: ‘About the chil­dren’

Edu­ca­tion Sec­re­tary Lin­da McMa­hon gave unex­pect­ed remarks in the spir­it of non­par­ti­san­ship at the House Democ­rats’ press con­fer­ence on Wednes­day, but she did not answer when pressed on the tim­ing of the DOE shut­ting its doors.

McMa­hon stopped by the Democ­rats’ press con­fer­ence out­side the build­ing for the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion, which she has promised to dis­man­tle in line with Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s recent exec­u­tive order. Before­hand, she met with Rep. Mark Takano, D‑Calif., and at least ten oth­er Demo­c­ra­t­ic mem­bers to dis­cuss con­cerns over recent lay­offs. The depart­ment announced last month it was ini­ti­at­ing its reduc­tion in force mis­sion, impact­ing near­ly 50% of its work­force. 

“I just want to express my grat­i­tude to all of these folks who came today so that we get to have an open dis­cus­sion about what I believe is one of the most impor­tant things that we can have a dis­cus­sion on on our action in our coun­try, and that is the edu­ca­tion of our young peo­ple,” McMa­hon said on Wednes­day. “As Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Takano said as we were end­ing the meet­ing, which I thought was incred­i­bly appro­pri­ate, and that is that this is not a par­ti­san issue. This is about the chil­dren of Amer­i­ca, and it’s the next gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion after that. And if we want to have our lead­ers, if we want to have that next, group of engi­neers and doc­tors and lawyers and plumbers, elec­tri­cians and HVAC oper­a­tors, then we need to focus on how they can best have their edu­ca­tion.”

LINDA MCMAHON SAYS TRUMP ADMINISTRATION WON’T PUNISH STATES THAT REFUSE TO ADOPT SCHOOL CHOICE

“And I believe, and I know the pres­i­dent does believe this as well, the best edu­ca­tion is that that is clos­est to the child, where teach­ers and par­ents, local super­in­ten­dents – work­ing togeth­er and local school boards to devel­op the cur­ricu­lum for those stu­dents – is the best way that it can hap­pen,” she said. “Fund­ing from the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue through the pro­grams, that is, that have already been estab­lished, and I will look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to work with mem­bers of Con­gress on both sides of the aisle. And I wel­come the fact that these folks came today and expressed their con­cerns and shared in an open, col­le­gial for­mat their con­cerns and how we can lead now to work more togeth­er. That’s the way it ought to oper­ate. And I’m very hap­py to have had them here.”

As McMa­hon con­clud­ed her remarks and attempt­ed to turn the event back over to Democ­rats, Takano inter­ject­ed with a ques­tion for the sec­re­tary. 

“When are you going to shut down this build­ing?” he asked her in front of news cam­eras.

“Well, we’ve had our dis­cus­sions already, so thank you all,” McMa­hon said, leav­ing the podi­um and walk­ing back into the build­ing.

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION SIGNIFICANTLY DISMANTLED IN NEW TRUMP EXECUTIVE ORDER

“As you see, she’s not answer­ing the ques­tion when she’s going to shut down the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion,” Takano told reporters. “Now she does­n’t have a plan. And while she does­n’t have a plan, they’re con­tin­u­ing to look at fir­ing peo­ple, reduc­tion and reverse a reduc­tion in force.” 

Takano told reporters that dur­ing their meet­ing McMa­hon expressed “ambi­gu­i­ty” regard­ing when she would car­ry out Trump’s cam­paign promise of shut­ter­ing the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion. He said she vowed to con­sult appro­pri­ate statute. 

Takano also not­ed that McMa­hon said dur­ing her Sen­ate con­fir­ma­tion hear­ing that she would con­sult with Con­gress as far as when it would be lights out for the depart­ment. 

Con­gress estab­lished the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion in 1979 and will most like­ly need to approve its dis­man­tling. Repub­li­cans have float­ed leg­is­la­tion to achieve that goal.

Trump signed an exec­u­tive order on March 20 to sig­nif­i­cant­ly scale down the depart­ment while main­tain­ing some of its core func­tions. It was unclear whether the depart­ment would con­tin­ue to man­age its $1.6 tril­lion fed­er­al stu­dent loan port­fo­lio, as the order’s lan­guage sug­gest­ed bank func­tions could be moved to a more suit­able enti­ty. Pri­va­ti­za­tion seems to remain on the table for the admin­is­tra­tion.

“I have to say that the Sec­re­tary indi­cat­ed more than once, that before she moved any func­tions of the depart­ment to oth­er depart­ments and the oth­er place that, she was look­ing care­ful­ly at what the statute allows her to do,” Takano said on Wednes­day. “That was refresh­ing infor­ma­tion that the sec­re­tary relayed to all of us, and we cer­tain­ly hope she sticks to what she told us today.”  

“I think part of the sto­ry of today is, you know, [the] pres­i­den­t’s cam­paign promise to shut this depart­ment down, is a lot of fluff. It’s. You can’t, it’s ille­gal. He can’t do it by law,” he added.