World Wrestling Entertainment co-founder Linda McMahon was confirmed along party lines by the US Senate on Monday to lead the Department of Education — which is already cutting funding and offering buyouts to its workforce as President Trump has made clear he wants the agency “closed immediately.”
The 51-45 vote made McMahon the 20th member of Trump’s 22-person cabinet to be confirmed. Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (D-W. Va.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) did not vote.
McMahon, 76, grappled her way through committee vetting in a party-line vote on Feb. 20 and will now head up a department that spent around $268 billion last year with little to show for it.
The US currently ranks 20th out of 41 nations in education, according to an analysis by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, falling beneath Canada and many European countries.