McMahon Testifies at Her Senate HELP Confirmation Hearing, Feb. 13, 2025
February 13, 2025 · CNBC Television · 2:31:55
Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube
What happened
Linda McMahon testified at her confirmation hearing for Secretary of Education before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions on February 13, 2025, in CNBC Television’s live carry of the hearing. Senators Tim Scott and Katie Britt introduced her to the committee, and McMahon thanked President Trump for his confidence in her to lead a department whose mission, she said, was a special focus of his campaign: he had pledged, in her account, to make American education the best in the world, return education to the states where it belongs, and free American students from the education bureaucracy through school choice.
McMahon grounded her case in her own record as she stated it: she studied to earn a teaching certificate in college, served on the Connecticut State Board of Education and as a university trustee, and chaired the America First Policy Institute, which she said advocates for workforce development, parental choice, and accountability in higher education. She described a system in decline — the latest Nation’s Report Card scores showing K-12 math and reading achievement at their lowest levels in years — and gave her remedy in five parts, as she stated them: fund education freedom, not government-run systems; listen to parents, not politicians; build up careers, not college debt; empower states, not special interests; and invest in teachers, not Washington bureaucrats. If confirmed, she said, she would work with Congress to reorient the department toward helping educators, not controlling them.
Why it matters
The hearing is the founding statement of McMahon’s tenure: the Secretary who would be charged with winding her own department down introduced herself to the Senate not as a caretaker but as the agent of the President’s three-part pledge — return education to the states, expand choice, and shrink the federal bureaucracy. The Senate confirmed her on March 3, 2025, by a vote of 51–45, and every budget she has since defended traces back to the program she laid out in this room.
Scoreboard watch
Scoreboard watch: McMahon’s confirmation pledges as she stated them on February 13, 2025 — return education to the states, expand school choice, and reorient the department toward helping educators rather than controlling them. Flagged for the scoreboard editor as promise-record material; no entry is published from this page.
Sources: CNBC Television, “Linda McMahon’s Senate confirmation hearing to be Department of Education Secretary — 2/13/25” (live carry, embedded above; opening statement as delivered by Ms. McMahon). Confirmation vote per the Senate record carried in this site’s chronicle (Mar. 3, 2025, 51–45).
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