This is Brian Lair's Daily Politics podcast from WNYC Studios.

It's Wednesday, February 12th.

I'm David First, WNYC's weekend edition host, filling in for Brian today.

The Senate takes up the confirmation hearing for Secretary of Education tomorrow.

President Trump's nomination to lead the U.S. Department of Education is Linda McMahon,

the former CEO of WWE World Wrestling Entertainment.

She served in the first Trump administration as administrator of the U.S.

Small Business Administration and is currently chair of the America First Policy Institute. As NPR

describes them, they are a think tank staffed by veterans of Trump's first White House team.

She doesn't have much education experience in her background, and the nomination is happening

within the context of President Trump making promises like these.

We're going to end education coming out of Washington, D.C. We're going to close it up,

all those buildings all over the place, and yet people that in many cases hate our children.

I'm going to close the Department of Education and move education back to the States, and we're going to do it fast.

President Trump in a campaign video and speaking on the campaign trail.

Meanwhile, as the New York Times reported yesterday, Elon Musk's cost-cutting team announced cuts

at the Education Department totaling over $900 million.

As the Times writes, the cuts were apparently aimed at hobbling the department's research arm,

the Institute of Education Sciences.

So here now with a preview of tomorrow's Senate hearing and to bring us up to date with

everything that's going on at the Department of Education, we're joined by one of the two

reporters who worked on that story I just mentioned, Dana Goldstein, who covers education

...