She also served a year on the Connecticut Board of Education and led the U.S. Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term as president, NPR reported.

The disruptions began when McMahon made opening comments to the members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee and a protester loudly claimed McMahon was a threat to the Individuals with Disabilities Act.

Capitol security staff quickly removed the protester and all others as they disrupted the confirmation hearing.

McMahon later testified that she does not want to end IDEA but does want to see more oversight of the Education Department in its spending. She suggested the Department of Health and Human Services could manage oversight of IDEA.

McMahon said she intends to “get in and assess programs and how they can have the best oversight possible” and “take the bureaucracy out of education,” The Hill reported.

Many of the protesters identified themselves as teachers, public school graduates and others who claimed to have backgrounds in public education, NBC News reported.

Some cited concerns regarding transgender students, perceived threats to the nation’s public education system and opposing Elon Musk’s efforts to eliminate wasteful spending and fraud as director of the Department of Government Efficiency, in addition to preserving IDEA during the confirmation hearing.

NEA opposition

Many of the protesters were with the National Education Association, which is the nation’s largest teachers’ union, The Hill reported.

The NEA on Wednesday submitted a letter to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions in which NEA director of government relations Marc Egan opposed McMahon’s nomination as Education Secretary.

“The hearing will be an unparalleled opportunity for educators, parents and students to hear about Ms. McMahon’s record, lack of qualifications for the job and plans for carrying out recent executive orders aimed at ending the federal role in education,” Egan said.

A second interruption during the confirmation hearing occurred when a protester demanded McMahon and committee members “protect trans youth,” which quickly was followed by a protester who opposed Musk and the DOGE having access to Education Department databases.

Officials with the Department of Education recently began investigating schools and athletic organizations that enable students to compete in sports based on their respective gender identities instead of their biological sex.

Another protester declared he was a teacher and was removed by security, but another protester soon afterward shouted: “Linda McMahon, you’re fired!”

That protester also was removed quickly.

Debate on protesters’ merits

“The rudeness of the people who are trying to squelch others as they’re trying to communicate in an incredibly public forum is just amazing [and] amazingly bad,” committee chairman Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said after several disruptions.

Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., questioned the ability of protesters identifying as teachers to educate youth.

“Can you imagine them teaching?” Banks said during the hearing. “These people [are] teaching our kids in classrooms across America, and they come here and act like children.”

Committee member Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., defended the protesters, calling them “passionate educators” who were protesting “on behalf of our children.”

Alsobrooks also took exception to Banks’ characterization of the protesters.

“I want to address how shameful it was to say, ‘Who would want to be taught by them?'” Alsobrooks said. “They are exactly the kind of people who we want teaching our children.”

Potential DOGE influence

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass, raised the potential of the DOGE cutting education programs helping at-risk students.

“They have to go for all … programs that they are calling waste, fraud and corruption,” Markey said. “But that’s just another way of saying the programs that help the poor and the sick and the elderly and the disabled in our society.”

Markey suggested Musk and Trump “want all of these programs gutted to find the funding for the tax breaks” and suggested DOGE “stands for Department of Gutting Education.”

McMahon tried to respond to Markey, but he cut her off and continued attacking Musk and his efforts to identify and eliminate wasteful federal spending and fraud as DOGE director.

WWE sexual assault allegation

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., asked McMahon how “sexual assault survivors on campus can trust you to support them.”

Sexual assault survivors “certainly can trust me to support them,” McMahon responded.

“I have two grandsons who are in college, and I have deep commitment and understanding of how I would feel if any of them were involved in sexual harassment or accused of sexual harassment,” McMahon said.

“You have my absolute commitment that I will uphold and protect those investigations to make sure that those students are treated fairly on both sides,” she added.

Baldwin also referenced an ongoing lawsuit accusing McMahon of ignoring alleged child sex abuse by a WWE employee while she was president of the professional wrestling promotion.

“This civil lawsuit based upon 30-plus year-old allegations is filled with scurrilous lies, exaggerations and misrepresentations regarding Linda McMahon,” attorney Laura Brevetti told NBC News.

Brevetti said McMahon will prevail in the civil suit.

McMahon’s confirmation hearing concluded after 2.5 hours.