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Trump chooses longtime ally Linda McMahon to eun Education Dept.

U.S. President Donald Trump greets Small Business Administration head Linda McMahon during an event celebrating Women’s History Month, in the East Room at the White House March 29, 2017, in Washington, D.C. (Mark Wilson)
By Zach Montague and Ana Swanson New York Times
U.S. President Donald Trump greets Small Business Administration head Linda McMahon during an event celebrating Women’s History Month, in the East Room at the White House March 29, 2017, in Washington, D.C. (Mark Wilson)

WASHINGTON – President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday tapped Linda McMahon, a former professional wrestling executive who ran the Small Business Administration for much of his first term, to lead the Education Department, an agency he has routinely singled out for elimination in his upcoming term.

A close friend of Trump’s and a longtime booster of his political career, McMahon had been among his early donors leading up to his electoral victory in 2016 and has been one of the leaders of his transition team, vetting other potential appointees and drafting potential executive orders since August.

In McMahon, 76, Trump has elevated someone far outside the mold of traditional candidates for the role, an executive 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.

But McMahon is likely to be assigned the fraught task of carrying out what is widely expected to be a thorough and determined dismantling of the department’s core functions. And she would assume the role at a time when school districts across the country are facing budget shortfalls, many students are not making up ground lost during the pandemic in reading and math, and many colleges and universities are shrinking and closing amid a larger loss of faith in the value of higher education.

“We will send Education BACK TO THE STATES, and Linda will spearhead that effort,” Trump said in a statement announcing the decision on Tuesday.

McMahon, 76, led the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term and resigned in 2019 without a public fallout or rift with Trump, who praised her at her departure as “one of our all-time favorites” and a “superstar.” She stepped down from that role to help with Trump’s re-election campaign and became the chair of the pro-Trump super political action committee America First Action.

More recently, McMahon also played an influential role in laying the groundwork for a second Trump presidency as the chair of the America First Policy Institute, a conservative policy group. It has offered training for prospective leaders, outlined staffing plans and drafted policy agendas for every federal agency, rivaling the similar Project 2025 effort led by the conservative Heritage Foundation.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.