Donald Trump nominated WWE co-founder Linda McMahon as education secretary and Dr. Oz to lead Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Donald Trump has selected World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) co-founder and his transition co-chair, Linda McMahon, as his nominee for education secretary.
McMahon also headed the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term in office and is reportedly a major Republican donor.
“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. We will send Education BACK TO THE STATES, and Linda will spearhead that effort,” Trump said in a statement Tuesday evening (November 19).
The nomination comes after Trump vowed to shut down the Department of Education. In a campaign video, he accused schools of “indoctrinating young people with inappropriate racial, sexual and political material.”
He also pledged to cut federal money for “any school pushing Critical Race Theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children.”
Meanwhile, his selection of the former wrestling industry executive was met with criticism. WWE co-founders Linda and her husband, Vince McMahon, were named in a lawsuit last month filed by five former “ring boys” employed by the company as teenagers.
The suit accuses the company and its founders of looking the other way as a longtime ringside announcer groomed and sexually abused the plaintiffs.
Donald Trump also raised eyebrows with his nomination for administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. If Trump gets his way, Dr. Mehmet Oz, former television talk show host and heart surgeon, will lead the federal agency that oversees health insurance coverage for more than 150 million Americans.
