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Elizabeth Warren Grills Betsy DeVos at Confirmation Hearing

By Brian Manzullo, Detroit Free Press

18 January 17

Massachusetts senator's tense exchange with Secretary of Education nominee made the rounds on social media

here were many tense moments during the confirmation hearing for Betsy DeVos, the nominee for Secretary of Education in the incoming Donald Trump administration.

Perhaps the sharpest exchange took place between DeVos, a Michigan advocate for school choice and vouchers, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and it led to a lot of buzz on social media.

Members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee were given five minutes apiece to ask DeVos questions, and Warren used her allotted time to grill DeVos on a variety of topics.

In one exchange, Warren asked DeVos if she or any family members had ever taken out a loan or been awarded a grant from the federal government to pay for college. DeVos said she hadn’t.

Warren then noted that Trump last year paid a $25-million settlement to students of Trump University who complained that they didn’t get what they paid for. Asked if DeVos would enforce rules that require career colleges to offer salable skills to students, DeVos said instead that she would “review” the rule.

“I don’t understand about ‘reviewing’ it. We talked about this in my office,” Warren said.  “There are already rules in place to stop waste, fraud and abuse and I don’t understand how you cannot be sure about enforcing them. … If you can’t commit to use the tools that are already available to you in the Department of Education, then I don’t see how you can be the secretary.”

Warren later said on Twitter that she had three more rounds of questions for DeVos and asked Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., the committee chair, for another round of questions, but was turned down, with Alexander citing that senators were given the same amount of time for questioning of President Barack Obama's nominees for Secretary of Education.

Watch the full exchange between Warren and DeVos below (or tap here on mobile).