Murphy On McMahon: ​“Hell No”

WASHINGTON — After grilling her at a confirmation hearing, U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said Thursday he is a ​“hell no” on confirming Connecticut businesswoman Linda McMahon to be U.S. secretary of education, saying President Donald Trump’s executive order curbing diversity programs would result in the beleaguered agency ​“micromanaging” public school curricula.

The Democratic senator — who won his first term in office in 2012 running against Republican McMahon — made his comments following McMahon’s confirmation hearing by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee.

McMahon said that the effort toward diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is having negative effects, including resulting in some separate graduation ceremonies for Black and Hispanic students.

Murphy used his turn at the microphone during the hearing to ask McMahon about whether Trump’s order would preclude schools from marking the holiday remembering Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by having events and programs focused on Black history.

“Not in my view,” she answered.

What about after-school clubs based on ethnic or racial identity?

McMahon said she wouldn’t get into hypotheticals and would want to review Trump’s executive order first. 

“That’s pretty chilling,” Murphy responded. He then asked: ​“If you’re running an African American history class, could you be in violation of this executive order?”

McMahon again said she wanted to look into it.

“There is a possibility, you’re saying, that public schools that run African American history classes — this is a class that’s been taught in public schools for decades — could lose federal funding if they continue to teach African American history?” Murphy asked.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” McMahon responded. ​“I’m saying that I would like to take a look at these programs and fully understand the breadth of the executive order and get back to you on that.”

“You’re going to have a lot of educators and a lot of principals and administrators scrambling right now,” Murphy said.

At a press conference after the hearing, Murphy suggested McMahon’s comments showed the Trump administration’s interest in having the federal government telling public schools what they can teach.

“I think it’s bone chilling,” he said. ​“What Linda McMahon said today is they might get into the business of telling you what clubs your kids can belong to, what history classes your kids can take. It’s not going to be up to schools any longer. That’s going to be up to Linda McMahon and the Department of Education and DOGE [Department of Government Efficiency] and Elon Musk. That scares the crap out of parents out there.”

During questioning from other senators, McMahon agreed that only Congress can get rid of the department and that she is required to spend all the money lawmakers appropriated on the programs they want the money spent on. She added that she sees nothing wrong with making sure the funding is properly spent even before the checks are written.

“I believe the American people spoke loudly in the last election to say that they want to look at waste, fraud and abuse in our government,” she said.

And she said that if the agency is shut down, as some Republicans have called for, its functions could be absorbed by other departments, just as the Department of Education originally came under the jurisdiction of what is now the Department of Health and Human Services.

Murphy called that position an excuse to kill programs the administration doesn’t like, just as the U.S. Agency for International Development was put out of business after being shifted to the State Department.

“They said they were moving USAID to the State Department,” Murphy told reporters. ​“They were lying. They were closing USAID. They just tried to pretend that they were moving it from one agency to another.”

McMahon said during the hearing that the Department of Education is facing such scrutiny because it has spent almost $1 trillion since its creation in 1980 while students’ performance scores continue to go down.

“The bottom line is because it’s not working,” McMahon said. 

McMahon also championed Trump’s call to expand the use of taxpayer dollars going to private schools, which also was echoed by Republicans on the panel.

“Monopolies don’t work, whether that’s big business or big government,” said U.S. Sen. Jon Husted, Republican of Ohio.

Murphy countered the administration wants to starve public schools of funding and then sell them to private investors.

“What they’re trying to do is undermine public education as an excuse so they can then sell off our elementary schools and our middle schools to the highest bidder, to the private equity companies, to Wall Street,” he told reporters after the hearing. ​“They’re going to purposely make it bad so they can sell it off to their friends on Wall Street.”

Murphy and McMahon have known each other for years, which both acknowledged during the hearing.

McMahon spent $49.5 million against Murphy when they faced off for the U.S. Senate in 2012, 97 percent of it from her own pocket, according to the research group OpenSecrets. Much of the money went toward attack ads.

That came two years after she spent $50 million against Democratic U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, paying for more than 99 percent of her expenses herself.

She lost each race by 12 percentage points.

But Blumenthal and Murphy both voted to confirm her to lead the Small Business Administration in Trump’s first term.

McMahon, 76, reported holdings of at least $414.8 million, according to her personal financial disclosure form. In a letter to the Department of Education’s designated ethics official, McMahon said she would resign from the board of directors of the Trump Media & Technology Group and forfeit any unvested stock in the company.

She agreed to resign from board positions at her family foundation, Sacred Heart University, the foundation associated with the right-wing website the Daily Caller, and two policy groups formed by Trump allies.

McMahon said she also will sell off her bond holdings in dozens of school districts and colleges.