President Donald Trump suggested Tuesday that he would task his nominee for Education secretary, Linda McMahon, with winding down the department.
After Trump signed executive orders in the Oval Office, Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked him why he appointed McMahon if he plans “to get rid of the education department?”
He emphasized he is a school-choice advocate and that he wants states to run education programs.
“And what I want to do is let the states run schools. I believe strongly in school choice, but in addition to that, I want the states to run schools, and I want Linda to put herself out of a job,” Trump said.
When a reporter asked if Trump could take executive action to give states control over education, Trump said, “I’d like to be able to do it, yeah,” indicating he would like to “give the schools back to Iowa and Idaho and Indiana and all these places that run properly.”
Trump argued that by giving states control of the education system, students in “really well-run states” would be on par with students in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. He also contended that his vision would benefit states he called “laggards,” detailing a plan to establish sub-systems within these states based on location:
But you’d have the laggards, the same laggards that are laggards with everything else, including crime. But even then, you’ll break it into systems. As an example, if you went to New York, you go to Westchester County, you go to Dutchess County, you go to Suffolk in Long Island, and Nassau in Long Island, you have maybe six or seven locations, and you have New York City, which would include the five boroughs. And I think even that would run much better than it does right now…But most of them would be states, and you’d have one, like in Iowa, you give it to the state of Iowa, you give it to the state of Indiana.
Trump noted that “there are some people that say I could” when the reporter followed up about whether he could sign an executive order or if he needed help from Congress.
“I think I’d work with Congress,” he said. “Look, we’d have to work with the teachers’ union because the teachers’ union is the only one that’s opposed to it.”
McMahon still needs to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
