The Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, interrupted a press conference of the Democrats from the House of Representatives outside the Department of Education to give an improvised statement after they met at a meeting behind closed doors on Wednesday early.
With approximately a minute of notice, the secretary’s team told some attendees that McMahon would make a statement.
Representative Melanie Stansbury, DN.M., spoke on the podium when the secretary appeared at the press conference.
“We are extraordinarily grateful that the secretary has given us the space to have these conversations, but with due respect, Madam, I think that my biggest concern is that the states will not be able to protect the programs and services that he would like to dedicate with them,” he said before giving the microphone, pointing out that the mood during the meeting was “collegial.”
Then, the secretary went up to the podium in front of the group of Democratic legislators, who had met her in her office for about an hour.
“I just want to express my gratitude to all these people who came today so that we can have an open discussion about what I think is one of the most important things that we can have a discussion or action in our country, and that is the education of our young people,” McMahon said when taking the podium.
“This is not a partisan problem. These are the children of the United States and their next generation after that, and if we want to have our leaders and if we want to have that next group of engineers and doctors and lawyers and plumbers and electricians and HV/AC operators, then we must focus on how they can have their better education,” he added.
The Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, during a press conference outside the Washington Education Department, DC, April 2, 2025.
Pool through ABC News
“And I think, and I know that the president also believes, the best education is that he is closer to the child where teachers and parents, local superintendents, work together and local school boards to develop the curriculum for these students is the best way it may happen,” he said.
The representative Mark Takano, D-Calif., Who headed the effort to meet with McMahon, and several reporters splashed the secretary with questions.
“When are you going to close the department?” Takano asked.
“We had our discussion,” McMahon replied.
She refused to answer more questions before leaving the press.
Takano and a coalition of legislators had requested the meeting after the secretary took office last month.
“He came here to eclipse the availability of news press, trying to give the impression that he is trying a different approach, which is actually gathering with members of Congress,” Takano told ABC News after the event.
Congressman Mark Takano with the Democrats from the House of Representatives speaks at a press conference outside the Department of Education in Washington, DC, on April 2, 2025.
Pool through ABC News
Later on Wednesday, McMahon Posted in x on the meeting.
“This morning, I organized a meeting with the Chamber’s Democrats to listen to their concerns,” he said. “Our collective objective should be to support students, not the broken bureaucracy.”
The meeting occurs after weeks of confusion in Washington, since the Department of Education cut almost half of its workforce and legislators have been demanding responses from the Trump administration.
Representatives Jamie Raskin, D-Md., Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., Don Beyer, D-Va., And Greg Casar, D-Texas, also attended the meeting.
The chaos occurred outside the agency the last time the Democrats tried to meet with the department officials, since Takano and around two dozen legislators were rejected access inside the building.
This time they met with McMahon in the middle of the attempt of the administration to dismantle and head the historical review of the department as indicated by President Donald Trump.
The members said McMahon took the right step to meet them and that he assured them that he would work with Congress to transfer legal functions to other agencies and follow the federal law. However, Wilson said McMahon indicated that he is following the president’s directive by transferring the student loan portfolio for more than 40 million people to the administration of small businesses.
McMahon also told Democratic legislators at the meeting that there will be additional workforce cuts in the department, Takano said.
Meanwhile, the meeting seemed to leave many with unanswered questions, and after McMahon left the podium, Stanbury said the secretary has no plans to share with them.
Casar, the president of Caucus Progressive of Congress, said he was frustrated and even more alarmed during the meeting because he suggested that McMahon’s mission will gut the public schools.
“What he tried to say, in the best terms, is that he wants to get rid of railings and protections for all our children and, on the other hand, say, we can have it configured so that states can give money to the private schools that we like and take money from public schools that we do not like,” he said.
Wilson, a senior member of the Chamber Education and the workforce Committee, passionately defended public education.
“For the Department of Education to be dismantled, it will bring a surprise to this nation,” said Wilson, former director and educator of a lifetime. “Schools are the basis of this nation. When schools are working, our country is too.”
