Former Education Secretary Betsy Devos joins The Megyn Kelly Show to discuss the teacher shortage, the loss of Liz Cheney in the primary, and her new book, Hostages No More: The Fight for Education, Freedom, and the Future of the American Child.
00:03:20.340I think that originally her work to really look into January 6th and all of the happenings that day was a very valid pursuit.
00:03:34.280But I feel like she continued to make it more and more about herself.
00:03:38.980And then, you know, the race in Wyoming, her home state, it became clearer and clearer that the national, everything that was going on nationally was going to sort of supersede everything going on there.
00:03:54.820And I just I feel sorry for her personally.
00:03:58.740But, you know, this is this is, I think, an instructive time for all Republicans.
00:04:06.020You know, I, for one, have been involved many years and I've always been one looking through the windshield to the next election.
00:04:12.760Republicans need to be focused on the policies that Joe Biden and his administration have been laying on this country.
00:04:20.140And the people in America are suffering under their policies.
00:04:25.040We need to be attacking those policies and and framing up debates and issues around policies that are going to matter to families at the kitchen tables across America.
00:04:36.980We need to be looking ahead, not in the rearview mirror.
00:04:40.420And I think it's, again, another an instructive moment for Republicans across the country.
00:04:47.180There was a CNN poll not long ago released late July that found 36, just 36 percent of Republicans believe January 6th was a crisis or a major problem.
00:04:57.120That's down seven points since February, since, you know, we've had eight hearings on this in prime time, some of them and so on.
00:05:04.680But so this is not resonating with Republican voters.
00:05:11.460Do you think, you know, because you say she made it about her, do you think she forgot what actually is important to voters in Wyoming?
00:05:19.280Things like inflation and gas prices and so on, as opposed to just, you know, a never ending obsession with what, of course, was a bad, bad day.
00:05:30.260Was it the day that deserves all this critical coverage forevermore, primetime hearings and so on?
00:05:35.720I'm getting the feeling that Wyoming voters didn't think so.
00:05:39.100Well, I think Wyoming voters didn't think so.
00:05:41.440And I think voters in states all over the country are focused on the issues that they're facing every day.
00:05:47.480As you said, higher prices for all of their groceries, higher gas prices, higher prices for everything across the board.
00:05:55.280And then not to mention all of the other policies that are impacting families, such as the continued politicization of everything to do with schools.
00:06:06.940You know, the last two years have really laid bare all of these issues.
00:06:10.780And parents have had a front row seat.
00:06:13.960And those are some of the things that, you know, I talk about in the book, but they're more real to parents today than they ever were before the pandemic.
00:06:22.940And those are the things that are on the minds of voters.
00:06:25.600We're seeing it in primary races all over the country.
00:06:28.880So that's this is exactly what I want to talk about.
00:06:31.420But this is what I think her problem was.
00:06:36.100I mean, there are very few people who liked January 6th.
00:06:38.420OK, and and it definitely deserves some scrutiny.
00:06:42.160We have to figure out exactly who did it and why and how cops got hurt and so on.
00:06:46.220However, the view on Trump, especially with some distance and, you know, a couple of years under Joe Biden, I think is shifting pretty rapidly to his policy successes, especially now that we don't have his tweets every day and so on.
00:06:59.860Right. It's like he's back in the news because of the raid this week.
00:07:02.740But I do think people are starting to see the difference in policy between his administration, which you were a part of, and the Biden administration, which we're living under right now.
00:07:12.240And I think there's like we get it January 6th.
00:07:15.540It's not getting it's getting outsized coverage versus the BLM riots and all everything else that we went through during those years.
00:07:22.540But we're focused on really catastrophic things right now from the numbers, the economic numbers to, yes, absolutely.
00:07:30.200What's happening to our children on a daily basis under this administration in the schools and around just general children issues, health care and so on.
00:07:39.260So it gets to the point where you're like, do you understand what we care about?
00:07:43.780Get over your obsession with this one terrible day.
00:07:47.960Move on to the things that will affect me and my children.
00:07:50.300Well, we've seen in primary contests all across the country, the things that are on voters' minds are those issues that are impacting them daily.
00:07:59.700And the one that I've been closest to education is top among them, only second to inflation and all the impacts of inflation.
00:08:08.300And these are policies that Joe Biden and his administration and all of his colleagues in Congress have been laying heavily on Americans that are unhappy about what they're doing.
00:08:22.240And we have got to stay focused on beating Democrats and winning for Republican policies and Republican issues this fall.
00:08:31.560I definitely I mean, we're going to talk all about that.
00:08:34.540But before we do, let me spend one more minute on news of the day, because there's the Trump raid and the raid of Mar-a-Lago or search, whatever you want to call it, pursuing to a warrant.
00:08:44.980But it looked like a like a raid with 30 FBI agents going in there.
00:08:48.780Now Trump has come out and said to it was actually Fox News Digital.
00:08:54.040He said that he reached out to the DOJ about working together, saying, quote, whatever we can do to help, because the temperature has to be brought down in this country.
00:09:03.000If it isn't terrible, things are going to happen.
00:09:05.440The people of this country are not going to stand for another scam.
00:09:19.000I mean, the FBI has a lot of explaining to do, as does the DOJ.
00:09:23.280I mean, this is the same FBI that has gone out to investigate parents for speaking up at school board meetings on behalf of their kids.
00:09:32.440I mean, the trust level there has been has taken a major hit on multiple different occasions and for multiple reasons.
00:09:39.300And so there is you know, this is an issue that we have got to grapple with and and that the DOJ and FBI have got to address forthrightly with the American people.
00:09:51.420We we have got to be able to trust the highest legal body in our country.
00:09:57.840And yet some of the moves they've made in the last year and a half have have left us, you know, dumbstruck over what's been happening, not the least of which is parents who have been made to feel or called it literally called domestic terrorists for simply caring about and wanting answers about their children's educations.
00:10:18.820Do you think Merrick Garland has gone full partisan?
00:10:21.300Well, it certainly appears that he has.
00:10:27.400And and again, I think these are really serious issues that everybody's got to take a step back and and look objectively at what's been going on and really address the concerns that Americans validly have about that entity and about the FBI.
00:10:46.800Betsy, what's going to happen if these guys put Donald Trump in handcuffs and actually indict the former president of the United States on some presidential records act charge related?
00:10:57.660It's not even a criminal statute, but they're kind of using the criminal law to get after him for allegedly keeping classified and other documents down at Mar-a-Lago.
00:11:04.820What what's going to happen if they do that to him?
00:11:06.580Well, I don't want to go to a hypothetical like that, but again, I think the the actions by the DOJ and the FBI on this and other matters have really put a lot of Americans on edge.
00:11:23.360And and rightfully so there are answers that have not been forthcoming and there are actions that have just made normal Americans made to feel like they are somehow out of step.
00:11:37.820And again, I think of those parents for whom investigation investigators were sent in by the FBI when when we have other matters of serious domestic terrorism and other terrorism incidents or threats thereof that go on unresponded to and or unaddressed.
00:11:58.260So, again, the the the DOJ and FBI really do have a lot of explaining to do and and a long way to go to regain their credibility.
00:12:10.040Yeah, they want to investigate the people protesting outside of conservative Supreme Court justices homes, including, you know, the one guy who showed up to assassinate Justice Kavanaugh.
00:12:19.180But they have plenty of time to go raid Mar-a-Lago and spend time on documents.
00:12:23.500It's it's infuriating for a lot of people who who even even Trump critics.
00:12:28.620It's just infuriating to watch how these wheels of justice are applied to run over certain people, especially if they have an R after their name on the subject of Jan 6th.
00:12:38.500There are reports that you're cooperating with the committee and may testify.
00:12:44.320Well, I've not had any contact with the committee.
00:12:47.060And really what I have to say about it is recorded in my book.
00:12:51.820I, you know, the the day of January 6th was an awful day on many accounts by, you know, from for many different reasons.
00:13:01.000And I ultimately felt the need to step away from my position as a result of a lack of action taken on the part of the president to put an end to it or to call for an end to it.
00:13:16.160And as I have reflected upon in my book, it was a difficult day for all of us.
00:13:22.960But leaders have to step into moments like that and make sure that we are doing everything we can to, you know, right the ship to stabilize things.
00:13:33.740And that was that was very much what I felt my part to play in that particular moment was.
00:13:40.800So just to be clear, CNN is reporting that you have been in talks with the House Select Committee investigating January 6th.
00:14:12.060Can let's spend a minute on the fact that you resigned early.
00:14:14.980I mean, you're only going to be there for another 12 days or so, but you you, Elaine Chao, and there was one other person can't remember who it is off the top of my head, but you resigned after January 6th on January 7th.
00:14:26.900And I understand why the fever was high and it was just the whole thing was overwhelming emotionally for a lot of people.
00:14:32.140But do you have any regrets about that now with some distance between the event and today?
00:14:41.360I really felt that it was the right thing to do at the moment.
00:14:47.180First of all, all the work that I could have accomplished in that job, in that office, serving the American people had been accomplished at that point.
00:14:56.260And there was nothing more that we could really do on behalf of students.
00:15:00.800And I just felt very I put myself in the position of a young child watching what was going on on TV that day.
00:15:14.380It was difficult to to watch and to and and and, you know, almost impossible to understand in many ways.
00:15:22.480So I just felt that it was a point at which I could no longer continue to remain in the role I had and serve in the way that I was.
00:15:33.180And I, you know, I did what I thought was the right thing at the moment.
00:15:37.440And no, I don't have regrets looking in in in hindsight on it.
00:15:42.440I think, you know, as expressed in my letter of resignation, this was a moment where I felt it was important to side with the longevity of our Constitution and support what had to happen that day from a procedure standpoint.
00:16:04.180And I was I was I was especially I was especially concerned about and and disappointed and and in many ways felt hurt for how Mike Pence was sort of thrown under the what was thrown under the bus that day.
00:16:23.200And and that was that was a particularly poignant moment as well.
00:16:29.660So it's pretty crazy how he's been demonized by some in the hardcore MAGA crowd, right?
00:16:34.680It's like, what was Mike Pence's sin again?
00:16:37.540I can see why you don't like him if you're on the left.
00:16:40.300But really, if you're on the right, you'd be hard pressed to find a guy more loyal to Donald Trump than Mike Pence.
00:16:47.300That's just the one thing he would not do was contest the certification of the vote, which was not his role.
00:16:52.800He was not allowed to do that no matter what Trump had been advised or was telling his people.
00:16:58.040So it's not truly tough to like, why, why does this hardcore group within the MAGA most, you know, avid MAGA fans hate Mike Pence?
00:17:10.720Yeah, I think it's a very good question.
00:17:13.180I mean, he was unfailingly faithful to and loyal to President Trump for the whole time in the administration.
00:17:22.240He was a huge asset to the administration and and really was a great spokesperson for the president's policies, as were many others in the cabinet and in the administration.
00:17:34.780So, again, I just I don't have any regrets in hindsight about having, you know, resigned on that day after the January 6 happenings.
00:17:49.280But I just hope that as a party, a whole party, that we can turn around and move forward and look ahead instead of continually looking in the rearview mirror and second guessing everything.
00:18:03.680We have we have we have real foes to defeat in the policies and people that are represented in the opposite party.
00:18:12.360And we have real harms to point to being being levied on Americans across the country in terms of the policies that this this administration has put forward.
00:18:25.100And so that's where our focus really needs to be moving ahead and moving our party forward to win elections and reclaim, you know, majorities so that we can put policies back in place that are going to actually help and improve Americans lives.
00:18:42.560Yeah, it's amazing. I mean, in your field in particular, it's amazing how much the policies have differed administration to administration.
00:18:49.820Obama, Obama, Trump, now Biden and the pendulum keeps swinging back and forth to the point where I'm sure a lot of these schools are like, oh, my God, you know, like, don't get too comfortable with any of these guidelines because they're going to switch in four years.
00:19:02.200Can I ask you, though, because you do write about this in your book about your you considered possibly trying to invoke the 25th Amendment after January 6th?
00:19:10.360And it sounds like although, you know, you didn't want to reveal substance of conversations with people like Mike Pence, it sounds to me like he stopped it.
00:19:18.220Like Mike Pence was the one who he was loyal to Trump and said, that's not going to happen.
00:19:25.300Well, I yes, I don't want to talk about my conversations with him or others.
00:19:31.180But again, I think in moments of crisis, leaders need to lean in and step forward and look at what the options are to ensure that the ship is steadied and things are stabilized.
00:19:43.400And and so my conversations were with others to ensure that we were doing everything we could in our roles to do just that.
00:19:53.520Did you think President Trump was unsteady?
00:19:56.380You know, I thought over the last weeks after the election, the times that I had to interact with him, I felt first of all, I felt very sorry for him in that he was very isolated in the White House.
00:20:11.960And, you know, it was a different time during a lot of the COVID protocols where, you know, you could do things and then not do things again.
00:20:22.800Anyway, the isolation, I think, was was not helpful.
00:20:26.240And he listened to fewer and fewer people around him.
00:20:50.080And I realize when you're president, when you're the actual candidate, you get it from more than the media.
00:20:54.860But on election night and thereafter, the media tends to be the main vehicle through which we get election results and we find out, you know, what happened in places like Arizona, Michigan, what have you.
00:21:06.780And I just wonder, you know, you think about Trump alone in the White House and isolated and four years of vicious attacks and impeachments and Russiagate, all of it.
00:21:15.220And then he's kind of being asked to just trust what these people are saying about him while the pylon reaches epic levels.
00:21:22.560Right. I mean, yes, in part because of what he was saying about the election and so on.
00:21:30.960And I don't think he trusted a lot of these state officials either who were giving him this feedback, Republican or Democrat, because even within the Republican Party, you had never Trumpers.
00:21:39.500You know, it just reminds me of almost a soldier who doesn't really know who his constituency is and doesn't really trust a lot of people around him and really for good reason.
00:21:52.840Yeah. You know, I guess the reference to a soldier in the fog of war, you know, we were in unprecedented times trying to navigate through covid and everything surrounding that.
00:22:04.240And and and I do think with the continued scrutiny and pylons on at every turn and every front, it was difficult.
00:22:16.520I mean, the entire time of President Trump's administration, all of us had to continually battle what seemed to be incessant attacks on everything that we did.
00:22:30.700And, you know, there was there was less and less focus on the merits of the policies that were being presented and promoted and more and more on personality and who said what about whom.
00:22:44.320And and so the erosion of trust was was across the board.
00:22:48.840And that's you know, that's understandable.
00:22:51.220And we are in that same kind of an environment today.
00:22:55.340And so it's even more important for leaders.
00:22:58.840And I would encourage all leaders within our party to really step up and and and lead constituents around platforms that people will be confident of and and and demonstrate trustworthiness by being your same self in public and in private.
00:23:23.540And, you know, the issue of trust is one that goes very wide and deep in our country, I'm afraid.
00:23:33.040And I have you know, I continue to have real concerns about where we go from here if we do not come back together and talk honestly about policies that are going to make a difference for families, but from a platform of being able to trust and have have valid discussion and debate of ideas.
00:23:54.760And, you know, this is one of the things that I think about when we talk about the lack of free speech on campuses.
00:24:02.260This ability to discuss and debate ideas openly and without fear of retribution, but to be able to openly debate and and share ideas and thoughts and helping equip students to be able to do that in a way that is going to be constructive for them.
00:24:22.440These are these are these are really important foundations that I think way too many students are not being afforded.
00:24:31.220They aren't being challenged by not getting it in K through 12.
00:24:33.980They're not getting it in college education now, even in law schools.
00:24:37.020Now they're trying to shut down debate and give people safe spaces if they hear arguments that upset them.
00:24:43.200Sure. So, yeah, it's not just an education problem, though, and then it follows you out when you get into the business world.
00:24:48.340And if you go into government and, you know, we're seeing it, this problem is becoming truly ubiquitous.
00:24:53.420One word on the Democrats, I will never forget the moment where President Trump signed prior to his State of the Union that year, the Anti-Sex Trafficking Act.
00:25:03.480And you had people like AOC sitting cross armed, refusing to clap when he mentioned it.
00:25:09.240It's like, really, you can't spare a moment of applause for the Anti-Sex Trafficking Act.
00:25:15.660That's too far a bridge for you to cross to just say, hey, I realize it's Trump and I hate him, but I I support.
00:25:23.380That's just how hardcore partisan things have gotten and and just crazy.
00:25:42.240But, no, we have got to we have got to come around to being able to applaud good ideas, no matter where they originate from and to being up, being able to debate those ideas.
00:25:54.500So do we think to put a pin on it that what would you think about Donald Trump being arrested?
00:26:00.520Do you think he should be prosecuted for January 6th, which is what they're really trying to do?
00:26:05.660You know, I don't have any knowledge of what is going on in that investigation or what the you know, what the foundational allegations are.
00:26:17.520And so I I would not speculate what next steps might be.
00:26:21.920What I would go back to is that the erosion of trust in the FBI and the DOJ are very serious matters and whatever their next steps or moves are, they had better be thinking very carefully about what what they're going to do and what impact that's going to have across the country.
00:26:42.140And, you know, I think this is a very, very difficult moment.
00:26:48.240And people have valid concerns about this, you know, highest legal body in our in our nation, not doing things on behalf of all people, but having a politicized agenda.
00:27:03.880And so, you know, let's let's make sure let's urge them to be very circumspect about what whatever their next steps might be.
00:27:13.740I do think it's kind of curious that are you open minded to a criminal prosecution of trauma?
00:27:19.580And even as in my position, I can say it's never been done before.
00:27:23.400You're going to try to get him for a bad legal theory on Jan 6th or you're going to get him for having documents he was cooperating over on the on the Mar-a-Lago front.
00:27:30.540Like it'll tear this country apart. It will tear us apart.
00:27:35.680It is there is prosecutorial discretion, even if he has committed a document crime.
00:27:40.380I guarantee you a bad legal theory does not make a crime on the Jan 6th lane.
00:27:44.140I'm surprised that you won't go that far.
00:27:47.660No, I mean, I can't I cannot imagine a scenario under which there's grounds for that to happen.
00:27:52.600But I have been shocked and surprised by the moves that the DOJ and the FBI have made in these most recent days.
00:28:01.780And frankly, in the months before this, again, going back to when parents.
00:28:07.340I know, but I was asking, should they should they not will they?
00:28:10.640I mean, will they? Yeah, I think they will.
00:28:40.480Well, I'm focused right now on the elections this fall, and I think that's where all Republicans should be focused.
00:28:48.560We need to win races and win back majorities in both chambers and at state houses and in governor's mansions across the country.
00:28:57.140And I think that 24 will be very much informed by who is supportive of what and how and how how we are actually working in tandem to move the party and the ideas of the party forward.
00:29:14.500And then I think after this this November, we're going to have lots of time to talk about what next.
00:29:21.980But there's there's certainly no end of speculation about what the matchups might be.
00:29:27.580So you could you could vote for Donald Trump.
00:29:38.240I'm just wondering because because you resigned, you know, does that make it impossible that you would support him if he were to run for another term?
00:29:47.020Well, I don't I'm not at all convinced that he is going to run for another term.
00:29:53.120And I may be a minority of of among a minority of Republicans that feel that way.
00:29:59.760But again, I think we need to stay focused on this fall's elections and and let's see what happens then.
00:30:07.560And and then what is, you know, what unfolds beyond that?
00:30:10.920We have a lot of issues to deal with as a party.
00:30:15.840But more importantly and more broadly, this country has a lot of issues to deal with because we have we have a formidable opponent and opponents in the Democrats that are continuing to wreak havoc on our country and on families across the country.
00:30:32.020And we have got to turn the tide and and, you know, reverse course on policies that are harming families and that are precluding kids from getting a high quality education and preparing for the future.
00:30:47.840I mean, what we see happen in these midterm elections definitely will affect who's going to be the chosen Republican nominee and potentially who's going to be the Democratic nominee if Joe Biden doesn't run or even if he just gets primary in that.
00:31:00.840You know, I was thinking about it today because the latest polling for a lot of the Trump backed Republican candidates in several of these states, even J.D.
00:31:09.780Vance in Ohio, who was and I think still is, you know, in general favored to win this race, is behind by five points.
00:31:19.660Carrie Lake is showing behind in her general election battle, though she's got tons of GOP enthusiasm behind her.
00:31:26.600So I'm I'm be fascinating to see how that one comes out.
00:31:29.880Um, Pennsylvania, you got Mehmet Oz, who's struggling against this guy who's basically been off the campaign trail dealing with the after effects of a health scare.
00:31:39.120And I so it's like all these guys lose and the Republicans don't take back the Senate because they went to Trumpy in the nomination of their candidates that that could affect presidential politics.
00:31:55.680OK, let's turn the page from the politics discussion to the education discussion.
00:32:00.020And let me squeeze in a quick break before we do that, because there's tons, tons to get through.
00:32:05.280And Betsy DeVos is somebody who actually did some good when she was in this office.
00:32:08.660So what does she think about what's happening in it now?
00:32:10.820Betsy, this is just in The New York Times putting out an article about the CDC.
00:32:23.480I think you'll find this interesting since what they did directly affected what you did and what what people under your auspices had to do during the pandemic.
00:32:30.700Uh, Rochelle Walensky, the director of the CDC Centers for Disease Control, uh, delivered a sweeping rebuke today of her agency's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, saying it had failed to respond quickly enough and needed to be overhauled.
00:32:47.860She outlined in broad terms a plan to reorganize the agency structure to prioritize public health needs and efforts to curb continuing outbreaks and to put less emphasis on publication of scientific papers about rare diseases.
00:32:59.820This grew out of an external review she had ordered in April after months of scathing criticism of the CDC's response.
00:33:06.620Its public messages on masking, points out the Times, and other mitigation measures were sometimes so confusing or abruptly modified that they seem more like internal drafts than carefully considered proclamations.
00:33:18.880Leaders of the agency's COVID team rotated out over a few months, leaving other senior federal health officials unsure about who was in charge.
00:33:27.980Well, you and the audience and I know that one of the people in the room making decisions, quote, in charge, was Randy Weingarten and the teachers unions, which had their fingerprints all over the guidance that was being handed down to American schools.
00:33:45.940Even though they didn't have the children's best interests at heart, they cared only about themselves.
00:33:52.520And I don't think this is going to change any of that.
00:33:55.400The CDC's one liner about how it could have done better isn't going to change anything, including the American public's faith in it.
00:34:06.080And the notion that the teachers unions with Randy Weingarten leading the pack were editing the proposed CDC guidance over months and had a direct pipeline to the CDC to shape and form what came out of there.
00:34:24.240That impacted millions of kids' lives and kept schools shut down months longer than they should have been.
00:35:29.520Why does Randy Weingarten care only about her union and, I guess, some of the teachers in it and not at all, apparently, for the children who they're teaching?
00:35:43.220This is about power and it's about resources and it's about ability to impact, you know, decisions regarding power and resources.
00:35:52.980And the teachers unions, I prefer to call them the school unions because I don't think they represent teachers, certainly not good teachers, who have a focus on and heart for kids.
00:36:04.000They are focused totally on adult issues and protecting a system that for years, for decades now, has not been serving a lot of kids.
00:36:15.380A high percentage of kids in this country has not been serving them well.
00:36:19.520They have resisted change at every step.
00:36:22.020They have, you know, tried to strong arm and muscle elected officials to fall into line with their agenda,
00:36:29.960which basically protects their livelihoods and their power and their ability to continue to expand their livelihoods and their power.
00:36:41.780And, you know, that was revealed the last couple of years.
00:36:45.620They have definitely overplayed their hand at every step.
00:36:49.680And now they're trying to, you know, wind it back in some way and suggest that it's the parents and it's that, you know, it's the other party that was actually politicizing all of this.
00:37:02.100It was the teachers unions at the core of all of, you know, what happened to kids these last two years.
00:37:08.820And parents had a front row seat and they know it.
00:37:11.180But I'm going to play that soundbite in a second.
00:37:13.300But can you just tell us, because this is in the book, about your experience with Randy Weingarten and touring the schools of choice, yours and hers?
00:37:34.980And I never did have a conversation with her, although I reached out and said, I know we have some things we can find and work on together in common on behalf of students.
00:37:52.340Randy did take my call and we had a pleasant conversation.
00:37:56.540We both agreed that she would visit a school of my choosing with me and I would visit a school of her choosing with her.
00:38:07.000We scheduled her school visit first and it turned out to be a very nice visit to a rural school district in Ohio, Van Wert.
00:38:17.760And we had, you know, we had a pleasant visit, a pleasant day, and it was, you know, it was great to see kids, you know, working, learning, great, meet great teachers.
00:38:30.240I think she took me to that district because it was a heavily Republican district, a, you know, a stereotypical, you know, rural school, one high school in a, you know, a large geographic area.
00:38:46.900And was pretty emblematic of what some rural Republican legislature legislators have maintained that, you know, there really aren't choice, other choices for kids in rural districts.
00:39:02.380But I think, you know, what we saw there was that actually there were 20 or 25% of the kids in that area whose parents were choosing something different for them because that particular assigned school didn't work.
00:39:17.080But all that to say, the visit was fine, it was great, but she refused then to actually schedule a visit to a school of my choosing.
00:39:28.800And so that never did happen, unfortunately.
00:39:32.720Because it would have been, it would have been, I would have made sure that, you know, she had a good experience and that, and then hopefully would have learned something.
00:39:40.520Again, focusing on students brings you to a lot of different kinds of solutions than focusing on a system and on adult issues.
00:39:52.400She's not in the market for solutions, right?
00:40:45.100I mean, I can't get into her head and I don't want to, frankly.
00:40:48.320But it was just another indication to me of an unwillingness to really focus on what we were there for, which is for what is best for students and their futures.
00:41:01.380How are we going to prepare our kids to take their place in leadership in the coming generations if we cannot work together to ensure that they have a great quality K-12 education experience?
00:41:16.400You know, Elizabeth Warren was very single focused in her ability to zero in on issues that were important to her.
00:41:28.720And she has, I think, to a large extent, she has overtaken President Biden and his administration in getting her way with what's happening at the Department of Education today.
00:41:42.320I mean, we see this back and forth on what they're going to do with student loans and student debt and loan forgiveness.
00:41:50.880And, you know, it is Elizabeth Warren's mission to forgive all student debt, essentially.
00:41:57.580And so, you know, that is antithetical now to what we've heard President Biden say on more than one occasion, that you can't just go and forgive student debt.
00:42:08.400So, you know, I think she has continued to wield her way.
00:42:14.200And and this is ultimately to the detriment of students and families and taxpayers across the country.
00:42:21.700You point out in the book that it's it's absurd to think that the Senate actually confirms nominees for the position you held, at least when it's a Democratic administration, that, in fact, it's the teachers unions who will approve or disapprove of someone nominated to your position.
00:42:43.600And you're right to make the distinction between the teachers and the unions.
00:42:46.680I know a lot of great teachers who don't want to join the union, who say the union doesn't speak for them, who don't share the union's politics.
00:42:54.240But it's a near impossibility to to really distance yourself from them on Randy Weingarten.
00:43:02.200I was just going to say and think about how many teachers have left the profession out of frustration because of the heavy handedness of the union.
00:43:41.540You have fewer people going into the profession.
00:43:44.400You have a hot labor market where teachers can get 20 percent more for the skills and knowledge they have teaching in non-teaching jobs.
00:43:54.680You have all of the pandemic stress and strain, particularly that kids are coming in with greater needs because of two years of disruption.
00:44:05.780And then you have all of the politics, the culture wars, the shaming and blaming, the banning of books, the censoring of curriculum.
00:44:15.360And because of the hot market, we have to have salaries where teachers, teachers, you know, salaries that are competitive.
00:44:29.460Well, she's trying to blame a shortage of teachers on factors that don't they weigh into it, but they're not the reason for teacher shortages or the why teachers are leaving the profession.
00:44:44.120I mean, I think about, you know, great teachers who wanted to be in the classroom while their schools continue to be shut down for months on end.
00:44:51.460I think about the I think about the you know, the teachers that I met with who for a year were, you know, the teacher of the year in their district or in their state and had taken their victory lap.
00:45:05.980And then a few months after getting back into their classroom, left the profession, I wanted to know why.
00:45:12.000And they said almost to a person, they were so frustrated with the fact that they were told to kind of get back in their box after they came back from their year of acknowledgement and recognition,
00:45:23.020instead of being given more opportunities to help mentor others or prepare younger teachers for the kind of experiences that they have had.
00:45:33.060And, you know, I think the teacher unions, the school unions have deprofessionalized what should be a highly honored and respected profession and great teachers need to have the opportunity to be great and to help other teachers be great.
00:45:51.260The system doesn't allow for that because the system doesn't acknowledge merit, the system doesn't acknowledge that some teachers are really great and other teachers maybe should be finding a different profession because they aren't particularly effective.
00:46:05.840And I think the it all goes back to be, you know, having to conform within this one size fits all, you know, public government run system that too many kids have been subjected to and are being ill served by.
00:46:25.260I realize teachers probably generally lean left, but not all of them.
00:46:31.300There's a healthy percentage that just, you know, if you look at the way the country's divided, will be Republican or will be conservative.
00:46:37.180And I have to imagine those teachers have had it with woke ideology being thrust upon them, upon their students.
00:46:43.760I mean, you look at what's happening in the military where we're having massive recruitment problems in various branches.
00:46:48.740And one of the reasons they cite is, you know, we're being lectured on our white rage.
00:46:54.140We're being forced to read Ibram Kendi.
00:46:56.920You know, while all we want to do is risk our lives for our country, we don't really want to talk about skin color and things like that.
00:47:01.260And to say, oh, well, that's definitely not happening amongst the teachers who are being forced to do exactly the same thing, I think, is to have your head in the sand.
00:47:10.880There are teachers who are leaving the profession because of being forced to teach curriculum they don't agree with.
00:47:16.760And, you know, there's just a myriad of reasons.
00:47:22.040And, again, I think the last two years really have laid bare these reasons and brought them into focus for everyone to see in ways that had been there for many years before.
00:47:34.700You know, I felt like the lone, you know, voice calling the emperor has no clothes for many years, for 30 years before.
00:47:42.480But this has been laid bare in the last two years.
00:47:46.260And all of these issues, including, you know, celebrating and supporting effective teachers to be professional in their profession, these have been issues that have been brought well into the light and an opportunity for us to deal with them in ways that are going to empower families, teachers, and students like never before.
00:48:09.680Well, we hope we hope we hope so. But all right.
00:48:12.760We have to go over student loans. We have to go over trans issues in schools, which is about to get regulated by the federal government.
00:48:18.840We've got to go over the changes to Title IX and sexual harassment cases on campus and school choice.
00:48:26.140Things have gone absolutely insane in our schools, as you know, and that was one blessing of the pandemic was we got to see it.
00:48:38.420You know, parents suddenly got thrust inside the classes that were open thanks to Zoom and were stunned to see what was happening, to hear what was happening on race, on gender issues.
00:48:52.680And I was one of them. I was one of the parents who was just absolutely horrified at the way my school was behaving.
00:49:00.300It wasn't that I saw it via Zoom. It was just a slow boil over 2019, 20 and 21 for us.
00:49:07.460But I will tell you, let me start it this way. I've told my audience before we were in private schools in New York City.
00:49:13.820I have two boys and a girl. My boys were at an all boys school, one of the best in the country.
00:49:19.160And they were not only asked on a weekly basis whether they were still sure that they were boys, the entire class, not just, you know, any individual.
00:49:28.840This is my son's third and fourth grade class. Are you still your boys? Share your boys. You might not be a boy.
00:49:36.120But when it came to race post George Floyd, they circulated what they wanted to be mandatory reading for the faculty, saying in every classroom where white children learn, there is a future killer cop and white mothers indoctrinate their children in black death.
00:49:53.180OK, so how did that happen? How did how did that kind of instruction wind up in what was traditionally one of the more traditional schools in Manhattan?
00:50:06.720And why is it happening all over the country? And what can we do to stop it? That's a loaded question for you.
00:50:12.980Well, I mean, it's these are great questions and ones that parents are grappling with in ways that they had never envisioned a few years ago.
00:50:21.900These are not new issues. These curriculums and these tendencies have long been seeded in our traditional public education system, and they've spilled over into many private schools.
00:50:37.800And you can wind it back to the preparation that many educators have in the teachers' colleges where, you know, the very left-leaning tendencies take root and are taught explicitly and implicitly.
00:50:55.680And we have seen now, and again, I think importantly so, families have seen firsthand what, you know, the kinds of things their children have been subtly or not so subtly subjected to in years leading up to the pandemic.
00:51:12.420And thankfully are now raising their voices and saying, this is not for our children and we want alternatives and we demand alternatives.
00:51:22.320So this is an ideal time to put policies in place that actually do put parents back in control and give students the opportunity to have an education experience that's very different than the 175-year-old model of education that is failing too many kids and that is ridden with ideology that is antithetical to so many families.
00:51:49.320I think about the internet and how you don't want your kids, mine are 12, 11, and 9.
00:51:55.260You don't let them go on the internet without some supervision, certainly not for long periods of time.
00:52:00.060You don't let them get sucked into Reddit rabbit holes, you know, like that's, bad things happen.
00:52:04.620Even when they're playing their games on like an iPad, got to keep one eye out there because these predators do pop up in these forums and once it, if there's a chat feature, you got to watch it like a hawk.
00:52:14.120Why? Because you don't want your child to be hurt or groomed, you know, or subjected to somebody who is dangerous for them.
00:52:24.220We're subjecting them to somebody who may be dangerous for them, who wants to create something out of them other than just a loving, good citizen.
00:52:33.020They want to create somebody who's a left-wing activist and that's not their purview.
00:52:41.980I mean, it's infuriating, especially for parents who can't homeschool because they have two parents who work or they have a single mom in the family or for whom private school is not an option because they don't really have school choice in their area.
00:52:53.940Yeah, no, absolutely. But this is the silver lining in that 26 states in this last year expanded school choice, education freedom programs, expanded or created ones in states where they didn't exist before.
00:53:09.540And they're more on the cusp of doing so. And so education freedom policies.
00:53:16.280Where the money follows the student? Is that what you're talking about?
00:53:18.880Yes, where the money follows a student. I like to use the metaphor of the backpack where the kids go to school every day with what they need for the day.
00:53:27.560Metaphorically, we attach the funds that are already being spent on that child to that backpack for the family to decide where they're going to buy their children's education.
00:53:37.380And I think about the school, the school that really sort of set me off on the whole journey of activism in education policy.
00:53:46.720The Potters House School in Grand Rapids, Michigan, it's a faith based school in the heart of the city that serves that immediate vicinity, mostly low, all low income families, students there.
00:54:00.280They have to raise 90 percent of the operating funds from benefactors every year because the families can't afford it themselves.
00:54:07.100But these kids are in an environment where they're thriving.
00:54:10.700There could be five more of those Potters House schools today when families are empowered with those resources to make those choices and to choose a school like the Potters House of one that matches their family values.
00:54:23.700And we're seeing progression toward this in lots of states, including and importantly, Florida, that's the furthest along in the range of choices.
00:54:33.600And importantly, also Arizona, that just passed a universal statewide education savings account program.
00:54:42.820So any family that wants to send their child to a different place for school can do so with 90 percent of the money that's spent on that child annually in Arizona.
00:54:54.180So around $7,500 a child could be spent, whether they want to do a homeschool, you know, a hybrid homeschool, kind of a one room schoolhouse thing, or they want to go to a school like a Potters House.
00:55:08.020They would have they will have those options. And importantly, more options like that will be created as families are empowered with those with the money following their children.
00:55:21.620Fun little aside here. So Betsy DeVos used to be Betsy Prince. She's from Michigan that your family's from Michigan.
00:55:28.020Your dad was in auto parts, self-made, grew up in a humble house. But then things really started to take to take off for him.
00:55:35.360And by the way, your your brother's Eric Prince of Blackwater, which is also a fun fact about you.
00:55:39.900But I did not realize that one of the key to your dad's success was coming up with the lighted mirror on the car visor.
00:55:48.320It's brilliant. You come from a long line of brilliant people. That's amazing.
00:55:53.880Yes, yes. I recall fondly working in the early stages of that factory.
00:55:58.980First of all, when I was in junior high, the first year of the factory was in operation, we were making very few visors then because it was just getting off the ground.
00:56:09.620But I inspected, packed and shipped the visors that summer between my I think my seventh and eighth grade years.
00:56:16.580And and then went on and worked the third shift in the visor plant when it was up and running more, you know, robustly a couple of years later.
00:56:26.060And and I had I had the worst job in the plant since I was the boss's daughter.
00:56:30.760But I took the core of the visor off the injection molding machine and put a rubber edge band around it, a steel plate in the corner where it connected to the car and then closed it and riveted it in about 10 or 12 places.
00:56:46.700And doing that third shift, I was amazed that I never actually riveted any fingers through those night hours from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.