Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee told Fox News Digital that he believes President-elect Donald Trump’s decisive victory signals success for a second school choice bill introduced to the state legislature this week after his first proposal failed this year. 

Lee said he agreed with Trump’s promises to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, echoing the president-elect’s concern over the federal bureaucracy becoming entrenched with gender and race ideology rather than learning.

“I think it is a great idea to dismantle the Department of Education federally. And I’m a strong believer that policy at the state level should be handled by states, that states know best,” Lee told Fox News Digital. “In this case, states certainly know best. We know best in Tennessee what our children need and how best to educate our kids. The parents of this state should be given a greater influence on how their kids are educated, and that will happen if the federal Department of Education is dismantled and those funds are delivered to states to be used in a more efficient and more effective way.”

Lee said the political environment on the ground in the state is not what it was months ago when the first school choice proposal failed in the state legislature. Since then, the election saw a wave of pro-school choice candidates win at the state-level, and Trump succeeded in his bid for the White House.

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“President Trump has long believed that school choice is important for the people of this country and that education freedom is something that all Americans could have. He’s talked about it. He campaigned on it,” Lee said. “One thing is very evident about what happened last week. And President Trump is very clear about what his policies are, and Americans were very clear about their acceptance of those policies last week. They, with a strong mandate, said we like what we hear. We want him to execute on those things and that President Trump has a significant understanding and a clear understanding and is the leader, frankly, on the issue of school choice. All of those things benefit us as we move into this next session.”

Lee’s new school choice bill, titled the Education Freedom Act of 2025, was jointly introduced to the state House and Senate on Wednesday.

Drawing from funding already approved by the state legislature, the bill would allow the state Department of Education to award up to 20,000 scholarships – valued at about $7,000 each – for the next school year to be spent on tuition, tutoring, technology and examination expenses. The first 10,000 scholarships would be set aside for low-income students whose parents might not otherwise afford to send their children to institutions other than the public schools in their districts. 

Democrats have painted school choice as disenfranchising low-income students, but Lee said he feels the opposite.

“Every kid is unique. Every kid has different learning styles. Every kid has a different life situation. And every family ought to have the opportunity to choose the best path for their kid,” the governor said. “In particular, I don’t think that only the wealthy families that can afford a private option, that those families should be the only ones and those children should be the only ones that have that option for choice.”

President-elect Trump has been shaping up his Cabinet nominations. (Jabin Botsford/Washington Post via Getty Images)

“Oftentimes, opponents will say that school choice initiatives hurt public schools. I think that’s just the opposite,” Lee said. “This legislation that we’re actually bringing forth is an education policy initiative. It’s not just an Education Freedom Scholarship bill. It includes historic funding for public schools, bonuses for teachers, for public school teachers. We will include alongside with this legislation a teacher pay raise plan that will put us in the top 15 states for teacher pay raise in the country.”

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Lee noted that about 30 states already have school choice, 12 of which have universal school choice, and several of those states have passed their initiatives in recent years. 

“Americans are in growing numbers, and now the majority of Americans, as evidenced by the past elections, have come to believe that school choice is the way of the future,” Lee said. “It is the answer to challenging the status quo. It is the way that we take America’s rankings and educational outcomes that used to be the top in the world from way down the list as it relates to other countries back up into the outcomes that we hope for this country.”

“This is a way to challenge and change and bring innovation into an education system that’s grown stale and bloated and bureaucratic,” Lee said. “And we see it happening all across America. We believe it’s going to happen in Tennessee. It is an incredibly important moment in our country for parental rights and for the future of children and their education.” 

Lee said his schooling growing up in Tennessee happened before the U.S. Department of Education was established in 1979. 

“We knew how to do it then. We know how to do it now,” Lee said, explaining that Tennessee created a funding formula that “uniquely recognizes the needs of children with disabilities, with dyslexia and with English as a second language. “We know how to fund education for Tennessee children. We know much better than they do in a bureaucratic institution like the federal Department of Education. I think President Trump is exactly right. I think it’s a great idea.”

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee looks at a section of Interstate 26 over the Nolichucky River that collapsed during a flood in Erwin on Oct. 1, 2024. (Brianna Paciorka/News Sentinel/USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)

“As a governor, I would welcome the partnership with President Trump in allowing states to choose and determine how best to spend education dollars for their kids,” he added.

If Trump goes through with eliminating the U.S. Department of Education, experts expect the process could take several years. 

With Cabinet nominations underway, Fox News Digital asked Lee who he would like to see as Trump’s education secretary and if the governor would consider throwing his own name in the running.

“What I will say is and what I hope is that whoever takes this job is looking to work themselves out of a job,” Lee said. “It will take the right kind of leader who really understands, and I think, who really understands how states can function and how problematic for states federal bureaucracies are. Governors understand that. There are a lot of folks who would be well-qualified for this, but the next person needs to be hoping to work themselves out of a job.”

On the heels of the devastation brought by Hurricane Helene, the governor said the new school choice bill would also commit state dollars from its sports gambling revenue to the construction and maintenance of public school facilities. The bill also offers $2,000 one-time bonuses to every teacher in the state and promises supplemental funding for school districts affected by enrollment drops.

“We can have the best public schools in America,” Lee said. “We can commit the right amount of finances and the right amount of focus. We can strengthen and support our public schools in unprecedented ways and provide freedom and opportunity for parents and choice. At the same time, those are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they shouldn’t be. We should improve every educational opportunity for every kid in our state and will do so through this legislation.”

Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo that she would “seriously consider” serving in the U.S. Senate if Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis asks her to fill the vacancy that will arise when Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., resigns to serve as secretary of state.

She told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that she “would love to serve the people of Florida” and “would love to consider” filling the seat if asked.

President-elect Donald Trump tapped Rubio to fill the Cabinet-level role, and if Rubio is confirmed by his colleagues and resigns from the Senate, DeSantis will have the opportunity to select a temporary replacement to fill the seat until a special election is held.

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Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on “Hannity” that he “would be like over-the-top excited” and that Republicans “could not do better … than Lara Trump.”

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., who served as the Sunshine State’s governor prior to DeSantis, said he hopes DeSantis chooses Lara Trump, according to Axios. 

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis holds a press conference to speak in opposition to Amendment 4, which would limit government interference with abortion in Florida at The Grove Bible Chapel in Winter Garden, Florida. (Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

In a post on X, he declared that she “would be a GREAT Senator and represent Floridians well!”

Republicans won the Senate and House majorities during the 2024 elections.

Rubio has served in the Senate since 2011.

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“As Secretary of State, I will work every day to carry out his foreign policy agenda,” the senator said in a post on X, referring to Trump.

“Under the leadership of President Trump we will deliver peace through strength and always put the interests of Americans and America above all else. I look forward to earning the support of my colleagues in the U.S. Senate so the President has his national security and foreign policy team in place when he takes office on January 20,” he noted.

Republican attorneys general are putting President-elect Donald Trump’s prosecutors on notice, urging them to halt “political prosecutions of the incoming president.”

“The cases brought against President Trump, particularly the criminal prosecutions, had nothing to do with crime,” Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird told Fox News Digital in an interview this week.

“They had everything to do with the fact that he was running for president again. He is innocent. He didn’t do anything wrong, and those cases never should have been brought in the first place. That was another way they were trying to wage campaign lawfare.”

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Bird, alongside more than 20 other attorneys general, sent a letter to Special Counsel Jack Smith, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, calling on them to drop their cases to avoid the risk of a “constitutional crisis.”

Attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia signed onto the letter.

“Mr. Smith, a federal court has already dismissed your claims in one case due to your improper appointment,” the AGs wrote in the letter. “That appointment flouts both the Appointments Clause and Article II of the U.S. Constitution. Not only that, your prosecutions of President Trump—President Biden and Vice President Harris’s political rival—violated multiple Department of Justice policies.”

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Then-Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024, in Mint Hill, N.C.  (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

“President of the United States is the most important job in the world,” they wrote. “The President leads the free world. And America just gave President Trump a mandate to lead the United States to a brighter future. Prosecutions aimed at “self-promotion” are at no time appropriate.”

The Department of Justice announced on Wednesday that it is seeking to wind down two federal criminal cases against President-elect Donald Trump ahead of his second term. 

Trump was indicted on 37 federal counts in June 2023 on charges stemming from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. He pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Trump was indicted in Georgia in August 2023 after a yearslong criminal investigation led by state prosecutors into his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state.

Trump pleaded not guilty to all counts.

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Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis holds a press conference in the Fulton County Government Center after a grand jury voted to indict former President Donald Trump and 18 others in Atlanta, Georgia on August 14, 2023.  (Christian Monterrosa/AFP via Getty Images)

In early 2023, Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee dismissed six of the charges against Trump, saying that District Attorney Fani Willis had failed to allege sufficient detail. The situation was then thrown into disarray when it was revealed that Willis had reportedly had an “improper affair” with Nathan Wade, a prosecutor she had hired to help bring the case against Trump. Wade was later removed.

About three months into taking office, James announced an investigation into the Trump Organization, claiming there was evidence indicating that the president and his company had falsely valued assets to obtain loans, insurance coverage and tax deductions. The investigation was launched after Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, who had previously served federal prison time for violating campaign finance laws, testified before Congress that the Trump Organization had exaggerated the value of assets. 

Fox News Digital’s Haley Chi-Sing and Emma Colton contributed to this report.