Linda Marie McMahon (/məkˈmæn/; néeEdwards; born October 4, 1948) is an American politician, business executive, and former professional wrestling performer. She was the 25th administrator of the Small Business Administration from 2017 to 2019. McMahon has been nominated to lead the Department of Education under the second Trump administration.
On December 7, 2016, Donald Trump (president-elect at the time) announced that he would nominate McMahon to be administrator of the Small Business Administration. The Senate confirmation hearing began on January 24, 2017, and on February 1, her nomination was approved by the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship with an 18–1 vote and confirmed by the full Senate on February 14, by a vote of 81–19. On March 29, 2019, the Trump administration announced McMahon would step down as the administrator of the Small Business Administration to assume new responsibilities within President Trump's reelection campaign, and the resignation took effect on April 12. On April 15, she was named chairwoman of America First Action, a pro-Trump Super PAC.
On November 19, 2024, McMahon was nominated by Donald Trump to serve as Secretary of Education.
Linda M. Edwards, at the age of 13, met Vince McMahon, then age 16.[7][8] Her mother worked in the same building as McMahon's mother, but they had not met.
Vince's mother became good friends with the Edwards family, and Vince, who had lived with several abusive stepfathers, enjoyed the feeling of stability that he felt at their home.[4] Edwards and McMahon dated throughout their high school years; she attended Havelock High School[9] and he attended Fishburne Military School in Virginia. During this time, Vince was a "permanent fixture" at her home,[10] and spent hours with Linda and her family. He attended East Carolina University, studying business administration. Edwards was an honors student in high school and aspired to become a pediatrician.[11]
Shortly after her high school graduation, Vince asked her to marry him. They married on August 26, 1966, when she was 17, and he was 21.[7][12] She enrolled at East Carolina University in 1966, where she obtained a bachelor's degree in French.[13] The academic program she completed was designed to prepare teachers for instruction.[14] From 1968 to 1971, Vince worked as a traveling cup salesman before joining his father's company, the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE).[15] Their son Shane was born in 1970, followed by daughter Stephanie in 1976.
By 1979, Vince decided to start promoting wrestling events at the Cape Cod Coliseum. He purchased the Coliseum in Massachusetts and founded Titan Sports, Inc. in 1980. The McMahons held small hockey and other sporting events in addition to wrestling at the Cape Cod Coliseum. At one point, Linda cooked meatball sandwiches to feed the fans at these sporting events.[21] As the company grew, Linda assisted Vince with administration and used her knowledge of intellectual property law to assist in trademark protection for the company. During much of those early years, she had little interest in professional wrestling.[22]
In 1982, Vince McMahon's Titan Sports, Inc. purchased Capitol Wrestling, better known as the parent company of the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), from his father. He later expanded his market by airing WWF shows on national television.
Linda McMahon co-founded Titan Sports, Inc. in 1980.[24] Many workers in the company referred to her as the "co-chief executive".[25] McMahon became president in 1993 and CEO of the company in 1997.[26] The company's explosive growth and the way it transformed the wrestling industry caused some observers to label her and Vince "business geniuses".[27]
One of her major interests in WWF and WWE was product merchandising.[28] She negotiated many of the company's business deals with outside vendors and established the company's first line of action figures, Wrestling Superstars, in 1984.[29] It was a first in the wrestling industry and helped expand the company's popularity with children. She was also the primary negotiator for the World Wrestling Federation's 2000 TV deal with Viacom.[29]
During an interview with The Detroit News, when asked what it was like being CEO in a "testosterone-charged industry," McMahon replied, "It's lots of fun. I'm an only child, so I grew up as my father's son and mother's daughter. I was quite a jock. I played baseball, basketball—I think that background made Vince and I very compatible. I really have a very good understanding of the male psyche—I'm very comfortable in a guy environment. I have to say that there are very strong women in this company as well. Our human resources division and our consumer goods division are headed by women—It's still a testosterone business, and I like it."[7]
In a 1989 memo to the company's vice president, Pat Patterson, McMahon directed Patterson to fire on-call physician George Zahorian and inform him of imminent legal charges charging him with steroid distribution.[34]
Although you and I discussed before about continuing to have Zahorian at our events as the doctor on call, I think that is now not a good idea. Vince agreed, and would like for you to call Zahorian and to tell him not to come to any more of our events and to also clue him in on any action that the Justice Department is thinking of taking.
This memo became known publicly as the "Tip-Off Memo" during her campaign for Senate in 2010.[36] It became a political liability used against her in both the nomination and general election campaigns.[37][38]
McMahon was asked why there had been no follow-up during a televised interview with CBS Face the State on January 20, 2010, and responded: "There's not been any follow-up from any of the inquiries that were made because I believe we had furnished thousands of documents and testimony for them, and I think if they looked at our policy and really delved into it, they would be very satisfied."[42]
Chair shots to the head were discontinued by the WWE as a result to prevent future concussions.
In July 2008, WWE changed its TV parental guidelines rating from TV-14 to TV-PG. In December 2008, at a UBS Media Conference, McMahon described the new rating as a marketing strategy to attract a young generation of wrestling fans and create loyalty to the brand. Due to the TV-PG rating, chair shots to the head were banned, as well as sex scenes, blood, and vulgar language.[43][44]
Following common practice in professional sports, WWE classifies its wrestlers as independent contractors rather than employees. The classification allowed the company to avoid paying Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance for wrestlers. McMahon stated the WWE wrestlers had lucrative contracts, merchandising deals, royalty payments, and appearance fees.[54] She noted that many of the wrestlers had agents and considered them to be on par with "singers, golfers, or tennis players". The company offered seminars to help wrestlers select health insurance plans.[55]
Under McMahon's tenure, WWE became one of the largest recipients of special tax credits for film and TV production granted by the state of Connecticut.[56][57]
During her 2010 campaign, Blumenthal's campaign criticized her and WWE for accepting the tax credits while laying off workers in 2009.[58]
McMahon often referred to the creative side of WWE as Vince's specialty, stating that she was primarily in the management team, although she appeared in several storylines.[59] McMahon debuted on WWF TV during the Corporate Ministry storyline, on the May 3, 1999, episode of Raw during the Attitude Era. During an interview with Fox News, she said that she often did not know what the storylines were in advance and watched events unfold as the general public did.[59]
Charitable work through WWE
Donations and achievements
Through WWE, the McMahons were major donors to The Donald J. Trump Foundation, giving $4 million in 2007 and $5 million in 2009.[60] The McMahons donated over $8 million in 2008 to the Fishburne Military School, Sacred Heart University, and East Carolina University. Nonprofit Quarterly noted the majority of the McMahons' donations were towards capital expenditures.[61] In 2006, they paid $2.5 million for construction of a tennis facility in Ebensburg, Pennsylvania. As of 2010, she served on the board of the Close Up Foundation, a nonprofit which offers youth field trips to Washington, D.C.[61]
Under her leadership, WWE was the recipient of the USO of Metropolitan Washington's first ever "Legacy of Hope" award for its extensive support of U.S. troops and the USO's Operation Care Package program. In 2007, the company received the Secretary of Defense Exceptional Public Service Award for its support of deployed service members in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2008, the company received the GI Film Festival's Corporate Patriot Award.[65]
On April 13, 2012, Sacred Heart University officially dedicated and opened the Linda E. McMahon Commons Building on its main campus in Fairfield, Connecticut.[66][67]
Get R.E.A.L.
McMahon launched the company's Get R.E.A.L. program to deliver positive messages about education to young adults. The program encouraged literacy through public service announcements, posters, and bookmarks featuring wrestling superstars. In 2000, the American Library Association reported the WWF's Know Your Role poster was its highest-selling poster for two straight months.[68] Since 2006, thousands of posters featuring WWE superstars have been distributed to libraries and reading facilities.[69]
SmackDown! Your Vote campaign
McMahon initiated WWE's non-partisan voter registration campaign, "SmackDown! Your Vote", in August 2000.[70] The campaign targeted the 18-to-30 voter demographic, and made use of online marketing, public service announcements,[71] and youth voting partnerships.[72] The campaign, which registered 150,000 new voters during the 2000 election,[73] was started in coalition with MTV's Choose or Lose, Project Vote Smart, and Youth Vote 2000.[74] As of the 2008 election, it listed 14 voter registration partner organizations.[75] During the 2008 presidential election, Smackdown your Vote! registered many voters online, often in affiliation with Rock the Vote.
Special Olympics
The McMahons began supporting the Special Olympics in 1986. McMahon first developed an interest in the Olympics from her friendship with NBC producer Dick Ebersol and Susan Saint James, who encouraged them to participate in the mid-1980s.[2]
She met Lowell Weicker, whose son is developmentally-disabled, through the Special Olympics. In 1995, as Connecticut Governor, Weicker appointed Linda McMahon to the Governor's Council for the World Special Olympics.[76]
In October 2024, McMahon was named as a defendant in a lawsuit, accusing her, her husband, and WWE of negligence with regards to the "ring boys" scandal, in which multiple WWE personnel, including ring announcer Mel Phillips and wrestlers Pat Patterson and Terry Garvin, either resigned or were dismissed in 1992 after being accused of sexually assaulting young boys;[77][78] in particular, Phillips had already been dismissed in 1988 for sexual misconduct, but had been rehired several weeks afterwards under the condition that he "stop chasing after kids".[79] McMahon's possible involvement in the ring boys scandal was known prior to her tenure as Small Business Administrator; a vetting document from Trump's first transition team, leaked in 2019 and cited in the lawsuit, listed the scandal as a possible "red flag" against her.[77][79] The lawsuit also alleges the McMahons fostered a culture of sexual abuse within the WWE, additionally citing the concurrent sex trafficking lawsuit and federal investigation against Vince and other allegations highlighted by the Netflix documentary series Mr. McMahon.[80]
She went through a confirmation process in the Connecticut State Assembly where she was questioned on her record as CEO of WWE.[69] The State Senate approved her nomination by a vote of 34–1 and the House by 96–45 with some opponents expressing concerns that the nature of her WWE activities would send the wrong message. State representative Bruce Morris claimed she lacked "depth of knowledge regarding education". However, state representative John Hetherington said it "would be good to have someone outside the establishment on the board".[82][83]
On April 1, 2010, McMahon resigned from the State Board of Education, because state law does not allow board members to solicit campaign contributions.[84] 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.[85]
On September 16, 2009, McMahon announced her candidacy for U.S. senator to represent the state of Connecticut. She announced she would spend up to $50 million of her own money to finance her campaign and refused outside donations, the third most ever spent on a senatorial campaign.[86][87] She ran for the Republican nomination, campaigning on promises of lower taxes, fiscal conservatism, and job creation. She campaigned as socially moderate, and identified herself as pro-choice while also opposing partial-birth abortion and federal funding for abortions.[88][89][90]
McMahon's spending became a key argument of one of her rivals, former congressman Rob Simmons, who accused her of "buying the election". McMahon and Simmons engaged in a frequently bitter contest. At the party convention, McMahon received the most support, but Simmons received enough votes to qualify for the ballot for the August 10 primary, although he was not actively campaigning. In late July—two weeks before the primary—Simmons relaunched his campaign by airing ads on TV reminding voters that his name would be on the ballot, participating in debates, and accepting interviews with editorial boards.[91] A third candidate, Peter Schiff, qualified for the ballot by submitting petition signatures. McMahon defeated her opponents and faced Richard Blumenthal in the general election, losing by 11.8 percentage points.[92]
Immediately after her loss to Blumenthal, McMahon hinted she would run again for Senate in 2012.[93] McMahon maintained a high profile following the election, running television ads,[94] campaigning for politicians, and making frequent media appearances.[95] When Joe Lieberman announced he would retire from the U.S. Senate, she became the Republican Party favorite for the 2012 election.[96]
On September 20, 2011, in Southington, Connecticut, McMahon officially announced her candidacy.[97] On May 18, 2012, McMahon earned the endorsement of the state Republican Party at the Connecticut State Republican Convention by a delegate vote of 658 to 351 over the next-highest candidate, former congressman Chris Shays. The two were the only candidates to qualify for the primary, which took place on August 14, 2012. McMahon defeated Shays by a three-to-one margin, spending $15.7 million of her money on the campaign.[98][99][100] She lost to Democratic U.S. representative Chris Murphy in the general election, marking her second consecutive defeat.[101][102]
After Donald Trump made an appearance at WrestleMania 23 in 2007, the McMahons donated $5 million to the Donald J. Trump Foundation in addition to the payment for the appearance.[105] In 2016, McMahon donated $6 million to Rebuilding America Now, a Super PAC with the purpose of electing Donald Trump as US president, and in 2015 and 2016 combined, $1.2 million to Future 45, a Super PAC which funded anti-Bernie Sanders advertisements.[106][107]
McMahon sits alongside Ivanka Trump, August 1, 2017
With her pending nomination to become administrator of the SBA, examination of McMahon's record in preparation for her facing United States Senate confirmation began. In December The Wall Street Journal noted that "[a]s part of her 2012 campaign, [the nominee's] economic plan called for getting rid of 'outdated/ineffective and duplicative programs', and expressed support for a 2012 proposal by President Barack Obama to merge the SBA, the Commerce Department's core functions and four other entities into one unit". The merger proposal, which did not proceed far toward approval at the time, would have eliminated the Cabinet-level post to which McMahon was nominated.[109] The Connecticut Post examined issues of potential conflicts of interest from remaining WWE stock holdings and other financial assets, as well as of the relationship between WWE and smaller businesses in the wrestling world, with critics and supporters cited.[110]
The Senate confirmation hearing began on January 24, 2017;[111][112] her nomination was approved by the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship on February 1 with an 18–1 vote,[113] and confirmed by the full Senate on February 14 by a vote of 81–19.[114] She was officially sworn in as administrator of the SBA on the same day.[115]
On June 17, 2017, in an interview with CNBC, McMahon stated in her role as administrator of SBA that she is "[l]earning how to develop business plans, how to grow, how to pitch [one's] business when [one is] trying to get investors, or to move into a different market and those are aspects of SBA that are not as well known",[116] as the main goals of the SBA are capital, counseling, contracts and disaster relief. She also stated that the goals were being challenged, as the agency faced a five percent budget cut and future restructuring. "What we have done is look inside SBA, and what I have found is there are some duplicative programs that we are going to be merging."[116]
Later in 2017, she visited 68 cities to hear from small business owners and to support the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 backed by President Trump.[117] On McMahon's first anniversary as head of the SBA, on January 29, 2018, The Washington Post said the SBA's progress under McMahon had been "so far, so good" and credited her with improving the SBA's offices' emergency call centers in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, hiring an additional 3,000 people to work them, and revamping the administration's online presence.[118]
On March 29, 2019, McMahon announced her resignation as administrator of the SBA to chair America First Action, a pro-Trump Super PAC.[119][120][121] The resignation took effect on April 12, 2019.[122]
As part of her role in the transition team, Trump would nominate her to head the Department of Education within his second administration on November 19, 2024.[126][127] Trump previously claimed the department had been infiltrated by "radicals, zealots and Marxists" during his campaign.[128] Her nomination was criticized by professionals in the field of education, including by National Education Association president Rebecca S. Pringle, who cited Trump's and her own position in support of eliminating the very department she'd be leading, as well as McMahon lacking strong qualifications more generally.[129][130]
In 2012 McMahon donated $5 million to Sacred Heart University in Connecticut, which then opened a new student commons building and named it the Linda E. McMahon Student Commons.[132] As of 2023 she had also sat for over 14 years on the Board of Trustees of the university.[133]
Following McMahon's contributions to its institution, in April 2023 Sacred Heart University acknowledged McMahon at its Pioneer Scholarship Gala, at which funds for scholarships were also raised.[133]
Regarding her career as a WWE executive, which she conducted in conjunction with her educational career, and reflecting her respect for books and especially for bookmarks, it was reported on the internet site Education Week, "[h]er interest in education did appear through her work at WWE. In 2000, she launched 'GET REAL', a campaign aimed at delivering positive messages about education and literacy to young adults through public service announcements, posters, and bookmarks featuring WWE stars."[134]
McMahon also sat on the Connecticut Board of Education for one year starting in 2009.
She told lawmakers at the time that she had a lifelong interest in education and once planned to become a teacher.[135]
However, she had the filled out a vetting questionnaire for the board position stating that had a degree in education from East Carolina University in 1969, when her degree was actually in French.[136] According to a 2010 article in the Harford Courant:[137]
McMahon's resignation from the board Thursday came a day after The Courant indicated it would be writing about her questionnaire answers, but she said one had nothing to do with the other.
In late November 2024, The New York Times carried an article bearing the headline, Her Wrestling Empire Was Said to Harm Children. Trump Chose Her for Education, and the subheading, "Linda McMahon, whose résumé mainly rests on running World Wrestling Entertainment, has faced questions for years over whether she is suitable for important education posts." In it Andrew Fleischmann, then-chairperson for the House Education Committee of Connecticut's House of Representatives which dealt in 2009 with the proposed appointment of McMahon to the State Board of Education, was quoted as stating in 2024, "She had no involvement whatsoever in education... She's made tens or hundreds of millions of dollars pushing violence and sexualization of young women. She was a real force for doing ill to kids in our country."[138]
Comments by and about President-elect Donald Trump
The New York Times remarked in November 2024: In McMahon, Trump chose a candidate "with no teaching background or professional experience steering education policy, other than an appointment in 2009 to the Connecticut State Board of Education, where she served for just over a year… to lead the Education Department, an agency he has routinely singled out for elimination in his upcoming term."[139]
CNN reported that Trump wrote on social media: "Linda [McMahon] 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."[140]
Electoral history
Primary
Republican United States Senatorial primary election in Connecticut, 2010[141]
^Edgecliffe-Johnson, Andrew. (September 11, 1999) "Pro wrestling goes public with share offering: $1-billion market value". National Post (Canada). Financial Post, pg D11.
Assael, Shaun; Mooneyham, Mike (2004). Sex, Lies, and Headlocks: The Real Story of Vince McMahon and World Wrestling Entertainment. Three Rivers Press. ISBN1-4000-5143-6.
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