The president of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, experienced a “complete meltdown” during an interview on MSNBC’s The Beat with Ari Melber. Weingarten’s heated reaction came after Secretary of Education Linda McMahon discussed plans to eliminate “bureaucratic bloat” at the federal level and transfer more educational control to states, a stance Secretary McMahon outlined during a March 11th appearance on The Ingraham Angle.
For reference, The U.S. Department of Education is shrinking its workforce from approximately 4,133 to around 2,183 employees starting March 21st. The over 2,000 remaining staff members are in place to ensure that programs like grants and appropriations from Congress are appropriately handled. Secretary McMahon is directly following President Trump’s mandate to shut down the Department of Education, officially bringing education back to the states and ending bureaucracy in American schools.
Randi Weingarten was livid during the interview on The Beat, going completely off the rails when she said how furious she is over the attempts to reduce bureaucratic bloat in the Department of Education. Having that berserk moment on-air moment, she said, “I’m so mad, I’m spitting mad about this because it’s hurting the people who can’t vote—children don’t vote! Let’s not take away their opportunity.” This idea starkly contrasts Secretary McMahon’s view that it was a necessary first step to remove bureaucratic bloat.
Ms. Wingarten then continued her furious meltdown on MSNBC, shouting about the secretary’s comments on Ingraham Angle. Doing so, she said, “Education is done at the local level. State governments, state education departments, local school boards—that’s who does education. And we believe that, and we want that. But this is what the federal Department of Education does. It’s the opportunity agent. It’s the equalizer.”
Coming to the end of the heated interview, Ms. Weingarten lost her composure. In a hilariously resentful tone, she shouted at the interviewer and said, “The federal government does not control education; the states do, local school boards do. This is about opportunity,” she argued. “That is why so many people are so mad about it; they’re just taking opportunity away from kids who don’t have it.” Check out the video below to see her meltdown during The Beat interview with Ari Melber on MSNBC:
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President Trump hand-selected Linda McMahon, The Secretary of Education, to fight for streamlined education. She had a field day rebutting Weingarten’s claims in the Ingraham Angle interview. She said, “The president never said that. He’s taking the bureaucracy out of education so that more money flows to the states. Better education is closest to the kids, with parents, with the local superintendents, with local school boards.”
Secretary McMahon also noted in a counterpoint the same thought process that President Trump and Republicans believe, saying, “I think we’ll see our scores go up with our students when we can educate them with parental input as well.” The true goal of removing federal bureaucracy from school systems is to allow states greater capacity to care for students directly. Watch the Secretary of Education explain this perspective in her interview on March 11th on The Ingraham Angle:
The exchanges between American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon highlight a fundamental clash between federal oversight and state control of education. Randi Weingarten argues that federal involvement ensures equal opportunity, Secretary McMahon maintains that removing bureaucratic layers will empower local schools and parents, ultimately improving student outcomes. The Trump administration’s actions to shrink the Department of Education reflect its commitment to decentralizing power and reducing federal oversight.
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video