When Trump tapped McMahon to oversee the agency, he said her primary function was to “put herself out of a job.” Since he was on the campaign trail, Trump has promised to dismantle the department in favor of handing the totality of education to the states. His Project 2025–inspired vision will be to the detriment of a great swath of states, however, particularly poorer ones in the middle of the country.
“We’re going to have 35 like, different ones,” Trump said during a campaign stop in Indiana, Pennsylvania, in August. “Iowa will do good. A lot of the states will do very good. I can think of probably 30–35 will be do—five will be OK, 10 will be OK.”
“You’ll have four or five that will be terrible, but that’s OK, we have to control it,” Trump said. “But you’ll have, you’ll have Idaho, you’ll have Idaho will do a great job, no debt, they run a great state.”
