On Thursday, January 7th, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos submitted her resignation in response to the riot in the Capitol spearheaded by supporters of President Donald Trump. She, like other cabinet members and members of the Senate and House, pegged President Trump as the direct cause for the attack, which resulted in five deaths and destruction of Capitol Hill, however Democrat Congresspeople, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts, aren't about to make DeVos a hero for distancing herself from Trump a mere 12 days before he leaves office.
In a letter DeVos wrote to President Trump announcing her resignation, DeVos wrote, per Bloomberg, "There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the inflection point for me. Impressionable children are watching all of this, and they are learning from us."
Though she blamed the president for what happened on January 6th, DeVos decided to condemn the president, whom she has staunchly supported up until now, compliment-sandwich style, adding to her resignation, "I know with certainty that history will show we were correct in our repeated urging of and support for schools reopening this year and getting all of America's students back to learning," and that "we should be highlighting and celebrating your administration's many accomplishments on behalf of the American people."
"Instead," DeVos wrote, "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."
Sen. Warren, a former teacher, took to Twitter to share her thoughts on DeVos's resignation, making it clear that she hopes the door doesn't hit DeVos on the way out. "Betsy DeVos has never done her job to help America's students," Warren wrote. "It doesn't surprise me one bit that she'd rather quit than do her job to help invoke the 25th Amendment."
\”Good riddance, Betsy,\” Warren concluded. \”You were the worst Secretary of Education ever.\”
Democrat Sen. Bernie Sanders from Vermont did not directly call out DeVos for resigning, but echoed Sen. Warren's anger at cabinet members submitting resignations rather than stepping up and invoking the 25th Amendment, which states that if the vice president and a majority of either principal officers of the executive departments or members of Congress believe the president "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office," the president will be removed from office and the vice president will assume power.
"The Vice President and cabinet members must invoke the 25th amendment NOW and remove Trump from office before he incites more violence and chaos," Sanders tweeted in response to DeVos's and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao's resignation.
Missouri Congresswoman Cori Bush agreed with her fellow Democrat colleagues. Speaking directly to DeVos, Bush wrote, "You're trying to save face, but if you actually cared about stopping violence, you wouldn't have dismantled Title IX protections for sexual assault survivors. We won't forget that."
Upon DeVos's appointment early on in the Trump administration, she was subject to severe scrutiny due to her inexperience in education policy. During her term, she released a budget proposal that jacked up loan repayment sums (she has financial ties to loan collection companies, by the way), was pro-private and charter schools, and walked back on Obama-era restrictions placed on for-profit colleges. DeVos also loosened support policies for minority and transgender students.
Though it outwardly appears that cabinet member resignations are heroic separations from a Mad King situation, the truth is that these decisions have been influenced by cowardice. Rather than fight, both DeVos and Chao have decided to flee, and because of that, as Warren said best, good riddance.
This story originally appeared on hellogiggles.com
