Linda McMahon Makes Major Fumble On Fox News While Trying To Defend Education Cuts

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Education Secretary Linda McMahon is fumbling key acronyms on national television.

The former professional wrestling promoter sat down Tuesday with Fox News to defend her department’s massive staff cuts of some 1,300 employees, which were announced earlier that day, only to unwittingly prove just how essential education really is.

McMahon explained on “The Ingraham Angle” that Congress appropriates money through the department’s expenditures and programs including the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, which provides children with disabilities free public education.

When asked what “IDEA” stood for, however, the 76-year-old couldn’t accurately answer — and told host Laura Ingraham, “Well, do you know what? I’m not sure I can tell you exactly what it stands for, except that it’s the programs for disabled and needs [students].”

Ingraham couldn’t tell her audience, either, and leisurely wagered that the acronym stood for “Individuals with Disabilities Act.” The missing “E” for “Education” is, of course, literally McMahon’s department — and one of the key acronyms one might expect her to know.

“This is my fifth day on the job,” said McMahon. “I’m really trying to learn them very quickly.”

Best known for co-founding World Wrestling Entertainment, the 76-year-old was confirmed by the U.S. Senate last week to become President Donald Trump’s secretary of education. On Tuesday, she claimed the upcoming staff cuts weren’t her idea — but Trump’s.

“That was the president’s mandate,” McMahon told Ingraham, per the Daily Beast. “His directive to me, clearly, is to shut down the Department of Education. What we did today was to take the first step of eliminating what I think is bureaucratic bloat.”

The department announced on its government website Tuesday that the federal education workforce of 4,133 people will be cut roughly in half — to 2,183. Laid-off employees will be officially placed on administrative leave beginning March 21, per the DOE.

McMahon ardently defended the decision during her interview Tuesday with Ingraham.

Futurism

“We wanted to make sure that we kept all of the right people, the good people, to make sure that the outward-facing programs, the grants, the appropriations that come from Congress, all of that are being met, and none of that is going to fall through the cracks,” she said.

Those already precarious cracks have grown in many areas since the COVID-19 pandemic, however, including reading skills, according to the latest results of an exam known as “the nation’s report card.” The exam further showed children have made little improvement in math since 2022.

“Donald Trump holds the future of 50 million public school students across America in his hands, and today he told those kids and their parents he doesn’t give a damn about them,” said Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, in a statement Tuesday.