McMahon: Trump 'dead serious' that he 'wants me to fire myself'

Education Secretary Linda McMahon said President Trump is "dead serious" about wanting her to dismantle the department and put herself out of a job in the administration.

"When he asked me to serve as the secretary of Education I knew exactly what his mandate was, which is to close the Department of Education," McMahon said during a Thursday interview on WABC 770 AM's "Cats & Cosby."

McMahon nodded to Trump's comment at the White House last month when he noted he had told her, "I hope you do a great job and put yourself out of a job."

“He has joked, but he’s dead serious about the fact that he wants me to fire myself,” McMahon said during the interview on the radio program hosted by John Catsimatidis and Rita Cosby.

Trump signed an executive order last week seeking to spearhead efforts to eliminate the Department of Education during an event with GOP governors in the White House East Room.

“Beyond these core necessities, my administration will take all lawful steps to shut down the department. We’re going to shut it down and shut it down as quickly as possible,” Trump said.

McMahon suggested Thursday that Title I funding for schools with low-income students and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) programs for special needs scholars could be housed under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which has also undertaken mass firings. 

"The Title 1 funding and the funding under IDEA, which is for our special needs and handicap children, could very well go under HHS … Secretary [Robert F.] Kennedy [Jr.] and I have already had discussions about that. He fully believes that they would be very properly managed and funded … through HHS.”

The Education Department laid off 1,315 staffers earlier this month in an effort to comply with the president’s mandate to dismantle the department while officials push for congressional approval to completely eliminate the agency.

“One of the things I’ve asked to have provided to me is a list of those actions that I can take without Congress, and those that I will need Congress’s approval for. Clearly, shutting down the agency would be an act of Congress. It was set up by an act of Congress,” McMahon said.

“The president said in his executive order that we would be abiding by the law and in cooperation with Congress to get this done. My goal is to be completely transparent with Congress as we look to how to move these programs into different agencies,” she added.

Education advocates have filed a series of lawsuits over the Trump administration’s push to close the department. The White House argues states should take a bigger role in education matters.

“The Department of Education, and the laws it is supposed to execute, has one major purpose: to level the playing field and fill opportunity gaps to help every child in America succeed,” Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers union, said in a statement. 

“Trying to abolish it—which, by the way, only Congress can do—sends a message that the president doesn’t care about opportunity for all kids. Maybe he cares about it for his own kids or his friends’ kids or his donors’ kids—but not all kids,” she added.

“No one likes bureaucracy, and everyone’s in favor of more efficiency, so let’s find ways to accomplish that."