Trump to Nominate Linda McMahon to Lead Education Department

Donald Trump said he would nominate World Wrestling Entertainment co-founder Linda McMahon to lead the Education Department that he has vowed to dismantle. McMahon, a former head of the Small Business Administration in Trump’s first term, serves as co-chair of the Trump transition team. She and her husband, Vince McMahon, built WWE into an entertainment powerhouse that popularized wrestling showmen such as Hulk Hogan and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. She briefly served on the Connecticut State Board of Education, has supported literacy programs, including through WWE, and has been a board member of Sacred Heart University. McMahon, who twice ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate in Connecticut, has said she supports school choice, tougher accountability and local oversight in education. She has also promoted career and technical education, according to a policy report she wrote for the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank that she chairs. While campaigning, Trump turned the education department into a stand-in for conservative discontent with public education and federal overreach. He repeatedly called the 45-year-old agency a bloated and radical bureaucracy and vowed to eliminate it, a long-held dream by Republicans dating back to the department’s infancy.