US president-elect Donald Trump has nominated Linda McMahon, former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), to lead the Department of Education, which he has pledged to abolish.
Describing Ms McMahon as a “fierce advocate for Parents’ Rights,” Mr Trump said in a statement: “We will send Education BACK TO THE STATES, and Linda will spearhead that effort.”
Ms McMahon is a co-chair of Mr Trump’s transition team ahead of his return to the White House in January.
The team is tasked with filling some 4,000 positions in the US government.
Regarding Ms McMahon’s experience in education, Mr Trump cited her two-year stint on the Connecticut Board of Education and 16 years on the board of trustees at Sacred Heart University, a private Catholic school.
Ms McMahon left WWE in 2009 to run in vain for the US Senate, and has been a major donor to Mr Trump.
Since 2021, she has chaired the Center For The American Worker at the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute.
During the election campaign, Mr Trump promised to do away with the federal education department when he returns to the White House.
“I say it all the time. I’m dying to get back to do this. We will ultimately eliminate the federal Department of Education,” he said in September during a rally in Wisconsin.
At the Republican convention in Milwaukee, Ms McMahon said she was “privileged to call Donald Trump a colleague and a boss,” as well as “a friend”.
Read more: Trump’s cabinet: Who has been picked so far?
Her ties with Mr Trump go back to her years in the professional wrestling industry, she said she first met him as chief executive at WWE.
At the culmination of a staged feud, Mr Trump once body-slammed her husband, legendary wrestling promoter Vince McMahon, and shaved his head in the middle of a wrestling ring on live television.
In 2017, she was confirmed as the head of the Small Business Administration, which is responsible for supporting millions of small businesses in the US, which employ around half the country’s private-sector workforce.
In nominating her, Mr Trump pointed to her experience in business, helping to grow the WWE.