Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon dropped in on House Democrats' press conference Wednesday "to make sure that everyone has both sides of the story," she told Newsmax.
"We'd had a good meeting here at the Department of Education. We'd had a very candid conversation," she said Thursday on "National Report." "And I responded to questions. And it was really supposed to be an off-the-record meeting. And then I discovered that they were having a press conference outside right on the education property.
"So, I just said, 'Well, I think I'll just go down and join and make sure that everyone has both sides of the story.' So that's exactly what I did. They welcomed me to the podium. I think I would have taken charge of the podium anyway, but it was it was very nice that they did invite me up to speak, and so I just reiterated what we had talked about in the meeting and went on my merry way."
On whether other colleges will change following the Trump administration's cancellation of $400 million in federal dollars for Columbia University over what it described as the school's failure to police antisemitism on campus, McMahon told Newsmax her department is "making gains to make sure that students' civil rights on campuses are protected or we're just not going to tolerate it, and there will be more defunding."
She said she's spoken with Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Dartmouth.
McMahon also touched on Trump's plan to dismantle the department, telling Newsmax "the president feels, as I do, that the best education is that closest to the child."
"The Department of Education doesn't educate anyone and doesn't set curriculum and doesn't hire teachers," she said. "That's all best handled at the local level. And there is no one-size-fits-all for education. The president just wants to get rid of the bureaucracy of education. It's not defunding the programs."
She also said she supports the rehiring of teachers who refused to get the COVID-19 vaccine, but that "is really determined at the local level."
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Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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