- Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said she’d come back for a second term
- She, however, didn’t think ‘Trump would ask me again’
- READ MORE: Trump returns to X ahead of Elon Musk interview
By Nikki Schwab, Chief Campaign Correspondent For Dailymail.Com In Washington, D.C.
Published: | Updated:
Former President Donald Trump‘s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said she’d return to the White House for a second term – despite dramatically quitting the administration over January 6.
DeVos appeared at a fundraiser for Michigan Republican Senate hopeful Mike Rogers on August 5.
There she told The Detroit News that she was open to coming back into the fold.
‘I don’t think President Trump would ask me again,’ DeVos conceded.
She added that she was open to the idea ‘only if it was with the goal of phasing out the Department of Education as we tried to do through budgetary process in the first administration.’
Former Trump Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told The Detroit News last week that she would be open to returning to a position in a second Trump administration, despite quitting her Cabinet-level position over the January 6 Capitol attack
‘Also getting a commitment to passing a major education freedom bill in the form of a tax credit mechanism at the Department of Treasury,’ DeVos added.
Conservatives have long wanted to kill off the federal Department of Education – pushing for education tax dollars to go toward policies like school voucher programs as opposed to financing the system of public K-12 schools in the United States.
Trump has said he’s open to closing the Department of Education, saying at a recent rally he would ‘move everything back to the states where it belongs.’
Congress would have to pass legislation in order for that to happen and it’s unlikely it would survive a filibuster threat in the U.S. Senate.
The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 has outlined some ways Trump could dismantle the Department of Education if elected in the fall.
While Trump has had a falling out with a number of ex-aides who have then been brought back into the fold – Steve Bannon being a prime example – it’s unclear if he would be open to re-hiring DeVos, a Michigan-based billionaire.
DeVos was one of two Cabinet secretaries to quit over the Capitol assault.
Betsy DeVos was among the officials working for President Donald Trump (left) who quit the administration over the U.S. Capitol attack (right) on January 6, 2021, in which a crowd of Trump supporters ransacked the Capitol and interrupted the election certification
She resigned after Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao – wife of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell – said she was done.
‘There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the inflection point for me,’ DeVos told Trump in a letter announcing her resignation.
‘We should be highlighting and celebrating your administration’s many accomplishments on behalf of the American people,’ she also offered.
‘Instead, we are left to clean up the mess caused by violent protesters overrunning the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to undermine the people’s business,’ DeVos added.
President Joe Biden’s 2020 election win was being certified the day of the Capitol attack.
DeVos also acknowledged that she had spoken with other Cabinet members about invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from power prior to Biden’s 2021 inauguration.
Still, she told the Detroit News that while she hasn’t officially endorsed Trump’s 2024 run, she would be ‘definitely supporting the Republican ticket’ in the November election.