Trump Chooses Linda McMahon for Education Secretary

Linda McMahon, the 25th Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration, discusses the state of America’s small businesses at a National Press Club headliners luncheon, on May 17. Noel St. John/The National Press Club

President-elect Donald Trump announced on the night of Nov. 19 that he has selected Linda McMahon to serve as secretary of the Department of Education, a department he has pledged to abolish.

The position requires Senate confirmation. McMahon, 76, currently co-chairs Trump’s transition team.

McMahon previously held the role of administrator of the Small Business Administration (SBA) during Trump’s first term. She resigned from the SBA in 2019 and went on to chair America First Action, a pro-Trump super PAC.

Trump said that McMahon will “fight tirelessly” to expand school choice to every state across the United States and empower parents to make the right educational decisions for their children.

Trump said that with her leadership experience and background in education and business, McMahon could empower the country’s next generation and “make America Number One in Education in the World.”

“We will send Education BACK TO THE STATES, and Linda will spearhead that effort,” he said in a statement posted on social media platform Truth Social.

Trump stated in his post that McMahon has a “deep understanding” of both education and business, citing her time serving on the Connecticut Board of Education and the Board of Trustees at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut.

He heralded her work with the America First Policy Institute and America First Works as instrumental in leading 12 states to adopt universal school choice over the past four years, “giving children the opportunity to receive an excellent Education, regardless of zip code or income.”

The Department of Education is responsible for overseeing policies related to federal financial aid for education, managing the distribution of those funds, and monitoring their use, according to its website.

“We will ultimately eliminate the federal Department of Education,” Trump said at a September campaign rally in Wisconsin.

He promised to stop the agency from abusing taxpayer money to “indoctrinate America’s youth with all sorts of things that you don’t want to have our youth hearing.”

McMahon and her husband, Vince McMahon, co-founded the WWE professional wrestling promotion company, where she also served as CEO.

In 2009, she stepped down as CEO of WWE to run for a Senate seat in Connecticut but lost to Democratic Party nominee Richard Blumenthal. She ran again for Connecticut’s other seat in the 2012 race but lost to Democratic Rep. Chris Murphy.

McMahon also served as chair of the America First Policy Institute, founded in 2021 to advance Trump’s policies and develop proposals for a second term, including making tax cuts passed in Trump’s first term permanent and continuing deregulation.

Emel Akan and Andrew Moran contributed to this report.