Two weeks in, Trump’s administration Mad Libs are only getting more chaotic. On Tuesday night, shortly after putting Dr. Oz in charge of Medicare, he confirmed former WWE CEO Linda McMahon will be his secretary of the Department of Education — an agency he has pledged to dismantle.
“Linda will use her decades of Leadership experience, and deep understanding of both Education and Business to empower the next Generation of American Students and Workers, and make America Number One in Education in the World,” Trump wrote in a statement. “We will send Education BACK TO THE STATES, and Linda will spearhead that effort.”
Linda and her husband, Vince McMahon, co-founded WWE in the ’80s (the franchise has evolved under several different names) and go way back with Trump, who once made an appearance at Wrestlemania. Their relationship spilled over into Linda’s political career — after stepping down from the helm of WWE in 2009, she ran for Senate in Connecticut twice (unsuccessfully), with Trump contributing $5,000 to one of her self-funded campaigns. During Trump’s first term, she led the Small Business Administration before resigning in 2019 to become chair of pro-Trump super-PAC America First Action. She also chaired the America First Policy Institute, which advocates for eliminating DEI education. She’s currently serving as Trump’s transition co-chair.
In October, both McMahons were named as defendants in a sexual-abuse lawsuit that claims they were aware of “open, rampant” abuse of young boys by WWE ring officials in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s and didn’t stop it. Linda’s lawyer called the lawsuit “scurrilous, lies, exaggerations, and misrepresentations.”
It’s not clear what exactly Trump has in mind for McMahon, considering he has described the department she will lead as filled with “radicals, zealots, and Marxists,” and claimed on the campaign trail that he’ll get rid of it altogether. I suppose, much like this scripted segment where Linda physically fights her two adult children, we will just have to watch to find out?