Linda McMahon to be nominated as Education secretary in Donald Trump cabinet

A second Donald Trump presidency means former WWE executive Linda McMahon will be back in the administration.

CNN broke the news on Tuesday night that President-elect Trump is expected to nominate McMahon to his cabinet as secretary of the Department of Education. In Trump’s first term, McMahon was part of the cabinet as the leader of the Small Business Administration.

McMahon was rumored to be a leading candidate for Commerce secretary in the second Trump admin, but Howard Lutnick — CEO of financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald — was chosen for that position instead.

The United States Senate will need to confirm McMahon for her new role, though the chamber will have a Republican majority following the results of the 2024 election. She was easily confirmed to her Small Business Administration position when that process took place in 2017.

Before joining the first Trump admin, McMahon had two unsuccessful Senate bids as a Republican running in the state of Connecticut. She previously served on the Connecticut Board of Education.

McMahon is a close ally of Trump, with the president-elect being a WWE Hall of Famer whose ties with the promotion date back decades. McMahon stepped down from her first cabinet position in 2019 to help run a Trump-aligned fundraising organization. After Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, McMahon was named a co-chair of his transition team to prepare for his term that will begin in January.

Businesswoman Betsy DeVos was secretary of Education for most of Trump’s first presidency. Former educator and education administrator Miguel Cardona holds the position in Joe Biden’s cabinet. The secretary is responsible for leading the Education department and advising the president on all matters concerning education.

Earlier this year, McMahon told Going Ringside that everyone in her family is “doing great” in the wake of the allegations made against her husband Vince by former WWE employee Janel Grant. Vince McMahon resigned from WWE and its parent company TKO Group Holdings this January after Grant filed a lawsuit accusing him of physical and emotional abuse, sexual assault, and sex trafficking.

Linda McMahon, Vince McMahon, and WWE were named as defendants in a new lawsuit filed last month relating to WWE’s “ring boy scandal” of the 1980s-1990s.