The Senate voted along party lines on Monday to confirm Linda McMahon as the nation’s next education secretary, putting the former pro-wrestling executive in charge of an agency that the Trump administration wants to eliminate.
A wealthy Republican donor who served in the first Trump administration, Ms. McMahon has little experience in education. That lack of firsthand knowledge has been framed as an asset by a White House looking to abolish the department she now leads and as a glaring deficiency by her critics.
Ms. McMahon, 76, told lawmakers during her confirmation process that she “wholeheartedly” agreed with President Trump’s “mission” to eliminate the Education Department. During her hearing last month, she argued that most Americans did, too, and that she was ready to make it happen.
But there appears to be significant public opposition to getting rid of the department.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans said last week that they opposed eliminating the agency, according to the NPR/PBS News/Marist poll. In North Carolina, one of seven battleground states that Mr. Trump swept in November, a similar share, 63 percent, also said they opposed abolishing the agency, according to a Meredith College poll last month.
The Education Department has already been a top target of the aggressive government overhaul project overseen by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a key Trump adviser. At least 60 employees have been suspended as part of the administration’s purge of diversity efforts, and Mr. Musk’s team has discussed the possibility of an executive order that would effectively shut down the department.
On Friday, employees in the department were given a “one-time offer” of up to $25,000 if they agreed to retire or resign by the end of the day on Monday. The message, sent by Jacqueline Clay, the department’s chief human capital officer, said the offer was being made before “a very significant reduction in force.”
Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats and is their top representative on the Senate Education Committee, said the department provides “enormously important resources” to children in high-poverty school districts and those with disabilities.
“We must make the Department of Education stronger and more efficient, not to dismantle it as Trump has proposed,” Mr. Sanders said in a statement.
Among the first 20 Trump nominations confirmed by the Senate, Ms. McMahon is the sixth whom Democrats unanimously opposed. The others were Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense; Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence; Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health; Russell T. Vought, the White House budget director; and Howard Lutnick, the secretary of commerce.
The Education Department’s primary role has been sending federal money to public schools, administering college financial aid and managing federal student loans. The department tracks student achievement, but does not dictate what is taught in public schools. With about 4,200 employees as of September, the agency’s work force was the smallest of the 15 cabinet-level executive departments.
Ms. McMahon has said she would push for more local control of education programs and to “free American students from the education bureaucracy” by pushing for school choice programs.
Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, the Republican chairman of the Education Committee, said Ms. McMahon would help streamline the department.
“We need a strong leader at the department who will get our education system back on track,” Mr. Cassidy said after the confirmation vote. “Secretary McMahon is the right person for the job.”
Ms. McMahon received a teaching certificate, but she never taught. She has been a member of the board of trustees at Sacred Heart University, a private school in Connecticut with about 8,500 students, for about 16 years. She and her husband, Vince McMahon, from whom she is separated, have donated millions to the Catholic university, where the student commons bears her name.
She also served for about a year on the Connecticut State Board of Education, even though some state lawmakers questioned her experience for the position and said she ran a wrestling company that promoted violent and sexual images to children.
Her nomination to run the Education Department prompted a new round of concerns about her experience, as critics have said she is ill-prepared to navigate the effects that Mr. Trump’s politically charged agenda may have on the nation’s schools.
Mr. Trump told reporters last month that the Education Department was “a big con job” and that “I’d like to close it immediately.” Mr. Musk has said the administration terminated 89 contracts worth $881 million at the agency.
At her confirmation hearing, Ms. McMahon presented a more nuanced version of potential changes. She said the administration planned to “reorient” the department while acknowledging that some of the agency’s largest programs would remain in place. She also said core programs, such as Title I money for low-income schools and Pell grants for the poorest college students, would not be eliminated.
She also agreed that an act of Congress would be required to abolish the department, which was created in 1979 to ensure equal access to education, help parents and local communities improve the quality of education and coordinate federal education programs.
A more likely target for cuts was federal money to schools and colleges that defy Mr. Trump’s orders seeking to bar transgender women from competing in women’s sports, and doing away with diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
Responding to a question at the hearing last week from Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, Ms. McMahon said schools should allow events celebrating the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but was more circumspect about classes that focused on Black history.
“I’m not quite certain and I’d like to look into it further,” Ms. McMahon said.
During Mr. Trump’s first term, Ms. McMahon served as the head of the Small Business Administration until stepping down in 2019 to run a super PAC supporting Mr. Trump. That super PAC, America First Action, spent more than $185 million ahead of Mr. Trump’s loss in 2020.
During the 2024 election, Ms. McMahon was among the largest contributors to Mr. Trump’s campaign. She and her husband contributed more than $20 million to Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign and associated PACs, according to data compiled by Open Secrets, a government transparency group.
After Mr. Trump was voted out of office in 2020, Ms. McMahon became chairwoman of the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank heavily staffed by former Trump officials. She has also taken on roles with other conservative policy organizations and The Daily Caller, a conservative news site.
She is paid $18,400 every three months by the Trump Media & Technology Group, where she is a director. and has received thousands of shares in the company as compensation for her work. The group is the parent company of Mr. Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social.
Ms. McMahon has vowed to resign from those positions and divest from Mr. Trump’s business.
