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Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s Senate budget hearing on Tuesday featured falsehoods that were either personally uttered by the secretary or went unchecked as a senator spread them.
McMahon, the former professional wrestling executive who was roundly mocked recently for referring to artificial intelligence — or “AI” — as “A1,” has struggled to slough off accusations that she’s out of her depth and ill-informed about the department she’s leading. And Tuesday didn’t help her cause.
In one instance, McMahon and Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., appeared to flub a simple math equation while discussing funding for TRIO, a federal program that helps low-income students afford college. Kennedy asked McMahon about $1.58 billion he said was being spent annually on the program, which he then calculated as amounting to more than $1 trillion over 10 years. This glaring error — which Kennedy repeated several times in his line of questioning — went unchecked by McMahon.
But Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., didn’t let either of them slide on the faulty math.
“I’m not a great mathematician, but I think you were talking about $1 trillion? I believe $1.5 billion times 10 is $15 billion. That’s a little bit off from $1 trillion,” he said.
McMahon interrupted to say, “I think the budget cut’s $1.2 billion.” A seemingly unimpressed Reed responded by saying that would mean $12 billion had been spent over a decade — not $1 trillion.
“OK,” McMahon said.
In another instance, during questioning from Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., McMahon said that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which specifically bars discrimination on the basis of race, skin color or national origin, is the statute that’s allowing the Trump administration to try to force Harvard University to hire more conservatives.
Murphy sounded taken aback by her attempt to elaborate.
“I don’t understand any conception of civil rights law to give you the authorization to micromanage viewpoint diversity on campus,” he said.
The Trump administration has no shortage of individuals who seem to lack a basic understanding of the departments they lead, but McMahon — with her repeated public missteps — arguably tops the list. Certainly, this is not an ideal trait for an agency head, particularly when that person is tasked with ensuring the proper, fair and effective teaching of America’s students.
If you’re looking for an expert on pile drivers and “Stone Cold Stunners,” Linda McMahon may be the one to call. But when it comes to knowledge of the U.S. education system, it seems abundantly clear she’s lacking in that department.