Crazy Cabinet Maker (2)

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Linda McMahon – I’m wrestling with this pick

I’m not a wrestling fan, although I was as a child. I remember those rare, late-night sessions in front of our little black-and-white TV with my brother and sister, watching “wrestling” that was more clown-show than sport. Other than that, I haven’t followed wrestling on any level, and I’d never heard of Linda McMahon until she was nominated to take over the Department of Education. As a long-time teacher and current School Board trustee, I was keenly interested in learning her background and philosophy. I had no idea she was a wrestler! And even older than me! And never a classroom teacher! Oh, my. I began reading...

Former Secretary of Small Business Administration

Of course I started with Wikipedia and was surprised to learn this “retired professional wrestler” had been part of the first Trump administration. For two years she’d run a federal bureau discussed in Project 2025, one I’d written about here in the Speakeasy: Small Business Administration. Since that’s been a popular article in this blog lately, I decided to take a detour. Before getting the facts about Linda McMahon herself, let’s refresh our memories about Project 2025’s remarks on the department she did run for Trump – the Small Business Administration:

  • Background: Established in 1954 to keep small businesses in the government contract loop and provide training. Meant to help Americans start, grow and build resilient businesses; preserve free competitive enterprise; strengthen the overall economy of the US; provide disaster loans. Focus is on financing/lending/training for small businesses and on government opportunities for small businesses to win contracts and be considered in rule-making.

  • “History of Mismanagement”: accused in Project 2025 of incompetent personnel, waste, fraud, abuse. Focus on “inclusivity” has resulted in “exclusivity and selectivity.” Has failed to remove religious exclusions Trump sought.

  • Vision for next conservative administration: End the focus on special interests and the practice of exclusivity, including loans to ineligible recipients. Support a resilient small-business supply chain. End over-regulation. Improve performance metrics. End regulatory extremism. Finally account for and clean up a fraudulent COVID-19 loan and grant program (including to Planned Parenthood, specifically). Consider private-sector channels for loan administration, and develop no new lending programs. Initiate a medium-sized business classification. Waive fines for first-time paperwork violations. Allow greater procedural rights for small businesses. Disallow Biden’s project labor agreements (PLAs) in federal contracting.

  • Final thoughts: The administrator is not a symbolic executive and so should be qualified and experienced. Undertake a comprehensive review of the agency’s budget. Terminate ineffective programs and reallocate the $1 billion budget. The “IG reports have noted that the lack of skilled employees within the SBA has fueled fraud and mismanagement.” Rein in idealistic, impractical efforts, get programs staffed competently, and outsource where it makes sense.

So, if Linda McMahon were under consideration to lead that federal agency again, those would be, in summary, her marching orders. But she’s not being sent back to SBA. The professional wrestler is now being sent to the Department of Education! What? Let’s learn about her past and then consider what Project 2025has in mind for that department, and then... Who knows? Let’s start by getting to know our likely next Secretary

Pediatrician? Teacher? Wrestler???

Born in 1948, she is said (by Wikipedia) to be “a politician, business executive and retired professional wrestler.”  She and her husband founded World Wrestling Entertainment; she was president and CEO from 1980 to 2009 (29 years!), growing it to a multinational corporation. She left World Wrestling in 2009 to oppose Richard Blumenthal for Connecticut US Senator but lost the race. Four years later she tried and lost again – to Chris Murphy. In 2016, her nomination to take over the SBA was confirmed in committee, 18-1, and by the full Senate, 81-19. She ran the Small Business Administration for exactly two years until stepping down to take on new responsibilities with the Trump re-election campaign. Within days she was named chairwoman of a pro-Trump political action super-PAC.

Little Linda Edwards, an only child, grew up in North Carolina as a “tomboy,” she has said. Both her parents worked at the nearby Marine Corps air station. She was raised a “conservative Baptist” but converted to Catholicism in her later years. When Linda was 13, her family opened their home to frequent young visitor Vince McMahon, age 16, who had endured several abusive stepfathers. He was said to be “a permanent fixture in their home.” Linda and Vince dated through high school, and shortly after she graduated, he proposed marriage. Apparently young Linda, an honors student, then aspired to be a pediatrician

Married at age 17, she enrolled at East Carolina University and earned a bachelor’s degree in French. Wikipedia says, “the academic program she completed was designed to prepare teachers for instruction.” I’m going to take another very short detour here to explain how teacher certification worked “back then,” as McMahon is of my generation and her “education background” – or lack thereof – has become a hot topic. Students intending to become secondary teachers (grades 7-12) did not earn degrees in Education. We pursued a degree in our intended area of expertise and then, if we seriously planned to teach, we took additional coursework in Education, ultimately licensed by the state to teach that subject to junior and senior high school students. So, my BA was in English and Speech, not in Education, although I was licensed to teach those subjects in Wisconsin (and, later on, in  other states). To be fair, a bachelor’s degree in French could have prepared McMahon to teach French, provided she fulfilled the state’s licensing requirements. We might never know whether she did or did not, but we are pretty sure she never taught.

Tough times and good times

Vince was “a traveling cup salesman” until he joined his father, Vince McMahon, Sr., in the wrestling promotion business. (If someone could tell me what a traveling cup salesman is, I would be grateful.) Eventually they had two children. Linda McMahon started her career as a receptionist and paralegal in a Maryland law firm; her work included translating French documents. The couple “fared poorly for several years” and “accepted food stamps.” Wikipedia goes on to report: “In 1976, after a series of failed business ventures including financing stunt performer Evel Knievel's Snake River Canyon Jump, and while pregnant with Stephanie, McMahon and her husband filed for bankruptcy.” (I do remember that jump by Evel Knievel, though.)

Three years later Vince and Linda McMahon bought the Cape Cod Coliseum, formed Titan Sports in 1980, and offered wrestling and other sporting events to the public. At one point Linda prepared meatball sandwiches to sell to fans; she apparently exhibited little interest in professional wrestling. In another three years, Vince purchased the parent company of his father’s wrestling federation, Capitol Wrestling, and eventually started airing wrestling shows on national TV. Per Wikipedia: “The company's explosive growth and the way it transformed the wrestling industry caused some observers to label her and Vince ‘business geniuses.’"

Linda’s role was primarily in product merchandising, including the introduction of action figures that attracted children to wrestling. She also negotiated a deal with Viacom. Interviewed by the Detroit News, she indicated that she was very comfortable in a “testosterone-charged industry” and had “a very good understanding of the male psyche.” Although she left wrestling for politics in 2009, she is still a minority owner of WWE.

Donations, charges and disputes

A federal dispute over steroid use in professional wrestling, begun in 2007, left Linda McMahon with egg on her face. While she stated on public television that WWE wrestlers did not use steroids, three years later, running for public office, she fired the company’s doctor on call because he was, apparently, providing steroids. She had him secretly tipped off about upcoming Justice Department action, which “became a political liability used against her in both the nomination and general election campaigns.” 

As in many other professional sports, WWE classifies its wrestlers as “independent contractors,” absolving WWE of the need to pay Social Security, Medicare, or unemployment insurance for them. While Linda McMahon was CEO, the company did receive “tax credits” for film and TV production from the state of Connecticut. She was accused by the Blumenthal campaign of “accepting tax credits while laying off workers.”

Wikipedia tells us that, “Through WWE, the McMahons were major donors to The Donald J. Trump Foundation, giving $4 million in 2007 and $5 million in 2009.” The company also makes charitable donations, and Linda McMahon serves on the boards of several nonprofits and charities. She has been named a “Wonder Woman” by Multichannel News (2007), and WWE received Washington’s USO “Legacy of Hope” award for its support of US troops. The company was also recognized by the Secretary of Defense for support of deployed service members.

McMahon’s Get R.E.A.L. campaign to promote education to young adults by featuring wrestling superstars on posters and other swag has been highly acclaimed, including by the American Library Association. In 2000 she initiated a wrestling-related voter registration effort called Smack Down! Your Vote that has enjoyed huge success. The McMahons have also been long-time supporters of the Special Olympics. 

In October 2024 (just the other day!) Linda and Vince McMahon became defendants in a lawsuit accusing them of negligence concerning a 1992 scandal involving sexual assault of young boys. One of the men in question had already been dismissed in 1988 but had been rehired and warned to “stop chasing after kids.” Now we learn that the first Trump administration knew about this “red flag” against McMahon when they were considering her for Small Business Administration lead! The lawsuit alleges that the McMahons “fostered a culture of sexual abuse within WWE.” And it refers to an ongoing federal investigation against Vince McMahon for sex trafficking and more.

A slim little link to education!

And, at last, we read something about education! Linda McMahon was appointed to the Connecticut State Board of Education by the governor in 2009. Fifteen months later she resigned “because state law does not allow board members to solicit campaign contributions.” Days after her resignation, the Hartford Courant reported that McMahon had falsely filled out a questionnaire from the governor's office on which she claimed to have received a bachelor's degree in education from East Carolina University in 1969; her degree was actually in French. At the time, she claimed she thought her degree was in education because she had completed a semester of student teaching.”

Since her two bids for federal office, McMahon has become very involved in the Republican party as both a fundraiser and a donor.

When Donald Trump nominated her to lead the SBA in 2016, the vetting process revealed that she had supported “a 2012 proposal by President Barack Obama to merge the SBA, the Commerce Department's core functions and four other entities into one unit,” or, as Wikipedia points out, she had supported elimination of the cabinet position for which she was now being considered.

“Regarding her views on education, McMahon has expressed support for school choice and charter schools in the United States,”  says Wikipedia. I would point out to my readers here in the Speakeasy that such support for non-public education exactly mirrors the perspective of Lindsey Burke, who authored the chapter on Department of Education in Project 2025. So now, let’s close our study of Linda McMahon with a very brief summary of my overview of that chapter, which is already posted here in the Speakeasy, should you want to read it in its entirety: Department of Education.

The department McMahon would lead

In Project 2025, Burke opens with the assertion that “federal education policy should be limited and, ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated.” She supports Education Savings Accounts by which state and local tax monies are given to parents, who may invest them in any school setting of their choice for their children. She claims the Department of Education was established as a “corralling” mechanism, a “single, captive agency” for people wishing to expand federal funding and influence to promote their agendas. She claims the department is ineffective, duplicative and unproductive and should be phased out over a ten-year period.

Burke seeks less federal oversight of charter schools, a reversal of Title IX because there is  “no scientific or legal basis for redefining ‘sex’ to ‘sexual orientation and gender identity,’” and Title IX encourages children to seek “experimental medical interventions.” She wishes to restore the Betsy De Vos regulations of 2020, defining “sex” as that recognized at birth. And she is very concerned that faith-based educational institutions, programs and activities be protected from conforming to Title IX.

Burke seems to fear that the 2017 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) encourages school districts to divert Special Education funding toward “equity” consultants schooled in Critical Race Theory. Claiming that family structure is one of the most important factors influencing student achievement, Burke wants data on family structure to be made public.  

She urges revocation of the National Education Association’s congressional charter and the establishment of a Parents Bill of Rights. She wants school personnel to be forbidden to address students with pronouns that do not match the sex of their birth certificate without prior parental permission, and she openly lobbies for a broader voucher system. And, finally, Burke asserts that the Chinese Communist Party is exerting undue influence on our higher education system which, she says, has been overtaken by “woke diversicrats.”

Any questions?

And now you have a closer look at Linda McMahon, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Education, and a glimpse of Project 2025’s advice for her on that department. As for me, a few questions remain:

  • Did she ever actually wrestle? Why do they call her a “retired professional wrestler?”

  • What in her resume does Mr. Trump feel makes her qualified to administer the Department of Education? What am I missing?

  • Might Trump possibly believe that, since Linda McMahon designed action figures to attract children to wrestling, that she is qualified to lead education on a national level?

  • Do her multi-million-dollar donations to the “Trump Foundation,” dissolved in 2018 by court order due to legal violations, qualify her for the job?

  • Is it that she served on the Connecticut State Board of Education for fifteen months?

  • I’ve been told that the real reason behind this nomination is Trump’s long, warm relationship with VinceMcMahon. I do recall seeing Trump slug someone near a wrestling ring on TV, and McMahon did invest in a high-profile Evel Knievel stunt that I remember well, and he has some sexual misconduct charges, so... maybe... Trump sees something in the husband that might translate to the wife??? (I’m trying!)