President Trump’s Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, testified before the Senate on Tuesday to defend her 2027 budget proposal. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) grilled McMahon over her claim that the Department’s Office for Civil Rights is trying to improve how it resolves discrimination cases.
Murphy said: “You resolved not a single case in Connecticut in 2025. How do you defend that? Not a single child got a positive resolution from the Department of Education from their discrimination claims. 70 of them had disability claims. How do you defend that?”
When McMahon said, “We’re looking forward to making them stop happening,” Murphy replied, “But you fired half the department.”
McMahon replied, “Well, that is hindsight,” and said, “we’ve brought people on board to handle these cases because I believe they should be handled. We should be dismissing these cases, we should be finding resolutions to them. And so those attorneys have been brought back.”
McMahon said all the attorneys fired during the DOGE purges early in the administration were brought back, except those who took early retirement.
Sen. @ChrisMurphyCT: You resolved not a single case in Connecticut in 2025. Not a single child got a positive resolution from their discrimination claims, 70 of them had disability claims. How do you defend that? You fired half the department.
Linda McMahon: That is hindsight… pic.twitter.com/JblAdcPNlM
— Headquarters (@HQNewsNow) April 28, 2026
McMahon said: “And we have in this budget more money to hire more lawyers.”
Murphy replied: “No, this budget proposes a 35 percent reduction to the office of Civil Rights.” McMahon insisted: “But it is a budget of increasing dollars for Civil Rights.” Murphy replied, repeating, “No, it’s not. This budget has a 35 percent proposed reduction for the Office of Civil Rights.”
[NOTE: Murphy’s information refers to McMahon’s proposal, which reduces the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights budget by 35%, from $140 million in FY 2025 to $91 million in FY 2027.]